Commonwealth v. Kebort

• Decision Date: 21 November 1904
• Docket Number: 134-1905
• Citation: 26 Pa.Super. 584
• Parties: Commonwealth, Appellant, v. Kebort
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

26 Pa.Super. 584

Commonwealth, Appellant, v. Kebort

No. 134-1905

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

November 21, 1904

Argued October 4, 1904

Appeal by plaintiff, from order of Q. S. Crawford Co.-1904, No. 35 arresting judgment in case of Commonwealth v. F. J. Kebort and Nick Kebort.

Indictment for selling adulterated blackberry wine. Before Thomas, P. J.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the court arrested the judgment.

Error assigned was in arresting the judgment.

Reversed.

A. H Woodward, with him C. Victor Johnson, district attorney George W. Haskins and John O. McClintock, for appellant. -- The act of June 26, 1895, is constitutional: Com. v. Curry, 4 Pa.Super. 356; Com. v. Geesey, 1 Pa.Super. 502; Wheeler v. Rice, 4 Brewst. 129; Yeager v. Weaver, 64 Pa. 425; Road in Phoenixville, 109 Pa. 44; Com. v. Lloyd, 2 Pa.Super. 6; Washington Borough v. McGeorge, 146 Pa. 248.

Thomas J. Prather, with him Wesley B. Best, Otto Stolz and Julius Byles, for appellees. -- The words drink and food are not synonyms and cannot be used interchangeably to represent the same things. If the term food commonly includes drink in its known and popular acceptation of the term, why was it necessary in the second section of the act to define the same and legislate as to what the term food should mean or include?

The words of a statute (if in common use) are to be taken in their natural, plain, obvious and ordinary signification. The legislative intent is to be sought for through the ordinary signification of common words: Philadelphia & Erie R. R. Co. v. Catawissa R. R. Co., 53 Pa. 20; Commonwealth v. Curry, 4 Pa.Super. 356; Commonwealth v. Hazen, 207 Pa. 52.

Food is a word in common use, and should be taken in its natural, plain and ordinary meaning as it is uniformly employed in the everyday speech of the people, and the same is true of the word drink.

The sense given to particular words by our great lexicographers is always entitled to weight, yet where the word is used in act of assembly regard must be had to the circumstances surrounding its use: Penna. R. R. Co. v. Price, 96 Pa. 256.

Words not used in a technical sense nor as words of art are presumed to have been used in their known sense: Garman v. Potts, 135 Pa. 506.

Before Rice, P. J., Beaver, Orlady, Smith, Porter and Morrison, JJ.

OPINION

ORLADY, J.

The defendants were convicted on an indictment framed under the Act of June 26, 1895, P. L. 317, entitled " An act to provide against the adulteration of food, and providing for the enforcement thereof." The particular offense was that they sold an adulterated article of food, to wit: blackberry wine. The judgment was subsequently arrested by the court on the ground that the act was unconstitutional, in that its title violates section 3, article III, of the constitution, which is as follows: " No bill, except general appropriation bills shall be passed containing more than one subject which shall be clearly expressed in the title." It is urged that the title does not give notice of proposed legislation with reference to intoxicating liquors or drinks of any kind, and that blackberry wine is such an article. Nor does it give notice of any purpose or intent to legislate with reference to the sale or offering for sale of any article whatever.

The uncontradicted evidence in the case established beyond question that the defendants conducted a licensed saloon or restaurant, and sold one half pint of liquor labeled pure blackberry wine, which contained mixed therein and therewith salicylic acid, coal tar or artificial coloring dyes, tannic acid, glucose, and alcohol in imitation of pure blackberry wine; that the added substances lowered and depreciated the strength, purity, and quality of the article, made it injurious to health, and that it was not blackberry wine in the acceptation of any definition.

The sufficiency of the title to an act of assembly has been presented for consideration by the appellate courts in as varied forms as the ingenuity of counsel could suggest, and it has uniformly been held that all that is required is that the title fairly gives notice of the subject of the act so as reasonably to lead to an inquiry into its body; that it should not mislead or tend to avert inquiry into its contents; that the act should not contain two subjects, and that it is not necessary that the title should be a complete index to its contents.

In Com. v. Jones, 4 Pa.Super. 362, it is stated by our Brother Smith, " The unity of the subject of a statute is to be determined by its paramount purpose rather than by the details through which that purpose is to be accomplished. The subject may have but one object, while the measures necessary for the attainment of that object may necessarily embrace many subordinate subjects, differing in their nature and particular effect, yet all contributing to it, and comprised within the principal subject. Everything which the nature of the subject of a title reasonably suggests as necessary or appropriate for the accomplishment of its expressed purpose, is sufficiently indicated by such title."

In Sugar Notch Borough, 192 Pa. 349, it is held to be the rule established in all cases, " Where a general title, sufficient to cover all the provisions of an act, is followed by specifications of the particular branches of the subject with which it proposes to deal, the scope of the act is not limited nor the validity of the title impaired except as to such portions of the general subject as legislators and others would naturally and reasonably be led by the qualifying words to suppose would not be affected by the act. This is the rule established by all our cases. . . . The express enumerations of the specific subject must be affirmatively misleading as to the intent to exclude others, or the title will not be made invalid by it. . . . It must not be lost sight of that the attitude of courts is not one of hostility to acts whose constitutionality is attacked. On the contrary, all the presumptions are in their favor, and courts are not to be astute in finding or sustaining objections." See also Com. v. Gilligan, 195 Pa. 504. We cannot try the constitutionality of a legislative act by the motives and designs of the lawmakers, however plainly expressed, if the act itself is within the scope of their authority, it must stand, and we are bound to make it stand if it will, upon any intendment. It is its effect, not its purpose which must determine its validity. Nothing but a clear violation of the constitution, a clear usurpation of power prohibited, will justify the judicial department in pronouncing an act of the legislative department unconstitutional and void: Com. v. Keary, 198 Pa. 500. See also Com. v. Lloyd 2 Pa.Super. 6, affirmed in 178 Pa. 308; Com. v. Mintz, 19 Pa.Super. 283; New Brighton Borough v. Biddell, 201 Pa. 96; Franklin v. Hancock, 18 Pa.Super. 398, affirmed in 204 Pa. 110.

It was said in Phoenixville Road, 109 Pa. 44, " while it may be difficult to formulate a rule by which to determine the extent to which the title to a bill must specialize its objects, it may be safely assumed that the title must not only embrace the subject of proposed legislation, but also express the same so clearly and fully as to give notice of the legislative purpose to those who may be specially interested...