Dudow v. Liquor Control Comm'n.

• Decision Date: 04 April 1946
• Citation: 132 Conn. 664,46 A.2d 896
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: DUDOW et al. v. LIQUOR CONTROL COMMISSION.

132 Conn. 664

46 A.2d 896

DUDOW et al.

v.LIQUOR CONTROL COMMISSION.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 4, 1946.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County; FitzGerald, Judge.

Proceeding by the Liquor Control Commission to suspend the restaurant liquor permit of Nick S. Dudow and others. From judgment of Court of Common Pleas sustaining a suspension of the restaurant liquor permit by the Liquor Control Commission, Nick S. Dudow appeals.

No error.

Harry L. Brooks, Asst. Atty. Gen., (William L. Hadden, Atty. Gen., on the brief), for appellant (defendant).

Edward L. Reynolds, of New Haven, (James W. Curran, of New Haven, on the brief), and John J. Kinney, Jr., of New Haven, for appellees (plaintiffs).

Before MALTBIE, C. J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, ELLS, and DICKENSON, JJ.

BROWN, Judge.

The plaintiffs, Nick S. Dudow and Walter N. Dudow, are permittee and backer, respectively, of a restaurant liquor permit for premises located at 259-261 Congress Avenue in New Haven. On November 1, 1944, the defendant suspended their permit for an indefinite period on the grounds that the place was an unsuitable place because it was not kept, used, maintained, advertised and held out to the public as one where the regular service of hot meals at least twice daily was the principal business conducted therein, and that the permittee was an unsuitable person in that he had falsified his records to deceive the defendant. The plaintiffs appealed to the Court of Common Pleas. It concluded that the permittee conducted a bona fide restaurant within the meaning of General Statutes, Cum.Sup.1935, § 1012c(7), that there was no falsification of records to deceive the commission within the meaning of § 55 of its regulations, that on the basis of the evidence presented on the trial to the court the action of the commission in suspending the permit was improper and illegal, and that the appeal should be sustained. Judgment was rendered for the plaintiffs and the defendant has appealed to this court.

Upon evidence produced at the trial before it, the court made a finding of subordinate facts which the defendant expressly concedes is sufficient to support the court's conclusions and judgment. During the trial the defendant introduced in evidence as exhibit 1 a statement of the facts which it found proven at the hearing before it, with its conclusions thereon. The defendant was entitled to have this statement admitted as evidence. General Statutes, Sup.1941, § 463f; Cripps v. Liquor Control Commission, 130 Conn. 693, 698, 37 A.2d 227. The facts found in exhibit 1 are sufficient to warrant the defendant's conclusions, which in turn justified its order of suspension. The controlling question presented for determination is whether the court was warranted in concluding that the commission's order was improper and illegal as tested by the facts found by the court, when the order could not be held to be improper and illegal as tested by the facts found by the commission.

A full answer is found in the decisions of this court. Prior to the enactment of § 463f by the legislature in 1941, the legality of an order by the commission could be tested only ‘upon the basis of the proceedings before it, if they were available, or upon a finding of facts by the court upon the assumption that these were the facts upon which the commission acted.’ DeMond v. Liquor Control Commission, 129 Conn. 642, 645, 30 A.2d 547, 549; Skarzynski v. Liquor Control Commission, 122 Conn. 521, 526, 191...