Lutz v. City of Crawfordsville
| Decision Date | 16 February 1887 |
| Docket Number | 13,595 |
| Citation | 10 N.E. 411,109 Ind. 466 |
| Parties | Lutz v. The City of Crawfordsville |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Montgomery Circuit Court.
Judgment affirmed.
J. R Courtney, for appellant.
W. W Thornton, for appellee.
The thirteenth subdivision of section 3106 of the statutes provides that a city shall have power "To regulate and license all inns, taverns, or other places used or kept for public entertainment; also all shops or other places kept for the sale of articles [liquors] to be used in and upon the premises."
Section 3154 provides that the common council shall have jurisdiction, among other things, "to exact license-money from all persons licensed to retail intoxicating liquors by county or State authority; and to regulate all places where intoxicating liquors are sold to be used on the premises," two miles beyond the city limits.
Section 5317 is as follows: "No city or incorporated town shall charge any person who may obtain a license under the provisions of this act more than the following sums for license to sell within their corporate limits: Cities may charge one hundred dollars and incorporated towns one hundred dollars, in addition to the sum provided for hereinbefore."
It is a familiar rule, that all the parts of a statute upon the same subject shall be construed together, and so construed as to produce consistency and harmony. If the Legislature manifests an intention to create a system for the government of any subject, it is the duty of the court to effectuate that intention by such a construction as will make the system consistent in all its parts, and uniform in its operation. It would violate all rules of logic, as well as settled principles of law, to dissect the system into parts and assign effect to each part irrespective of its effect upon the uniformity and consistency of the entire system. Statutes are to be construed as part of a uniform system, and such a scheme adopted as will give each part its appropriate place, and not destroy uniformity and harmony by cutting the system into disjointed and incongruous parts. Humphries v. Davis, 100 Ind. 274, see p. 284 (50 Am. Rep. 788); Bishop Written Laws, section 242b.
The system provided by sections 3106 and 3154 is, that an incorporated city shall have power within its corporate limits, and over a territory two miles beyond those limits, to regulate all shops or other places where intoxicating liquors are kept for sale for use on the premises, and to exact a license from persons keeping such shops.
This is the plain import of the language used, and the system intended to be created is clearly defined. It is not enacted that persons who sell without license shall be punished by the municipal authorities, but that license may be exacted from all persons who sell intoxicating liquor to be used on the premises, and "to regulate all places where intoxicating liquors are sold to be used on the premises." The general authority to regulate would undoubtedly carry the incidental authority to license, under the provisions of section 5317; but we are not left to depend on the force of the term "regulate," for, as the quotation just made clearly shows, section 3154 expressly gives the authority to exact a license from the keepers of shops for the sale of liquor to be used on the premises. Nor is the authority dependent upon section 3154 alone, for section 3106 expressly confers authority "To regulate and license all inns, taverns, 'or other places' kept for the sale of liquors to be used in and upon the premises."
The manifest intention was to provide a uniform system for regulating shops where liquors are kept for sale to be used on the premises, and not to provide one system to be enforced inside the corporate boundaries, and another in the territory outside of those boundaries.
Section 5317 does not in any way impair the validity of our conclusion, for that section expressly gives authority to exact a license, but limits it to one hundred dollars. There is no conflict between the provisions of that section and the provisions of the act for the incorporation of cities, so that it in no wise disturbs the uniformity and consistency of the system constructed by the latter act.
We do not think that the act for the incorporation of cities can be construed as applying only to persons who have taken out licenses from the State or county, for it seems very clear to us that a person prosecuted under a city ordinance would not be heard to say that he could not be prosecuted because he had violated the law by refusing to take out a State or county license. It can not be possible that the Legislature meant to put the law-breaker on a better footing than the person who obeys the law. The only natural and reasonable construction of the statute is, that it was intended to invest the municipal authorities with power to regulate places where liquors are sold to be used on the premises,...
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