Mayo v. American Agr. Chemical Co.
| Decision Date | 22 April 1931 |
| Citation | 133 So. 885,101 Fla. 279 |
| Parties | MAYO, Commissioner of Agriculture v. AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL CHEMICAL CO. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
En Banc.
Suit by the American Agricultural Chemical Company against Nathan Mayo, as Commissioner of Agriculture of the State of Florida. From a final decree for complainant, defendant appeals.
Affirmed.
Syllabus by the Court.
Chapter 14510, Laws of 1929 (Ex. Sess.), requires that there shall be attached to each package of commercial fertilizer a tag on which shall be printed a statement giving the percentage of plant food in each and every ingredient entering into and forming a part of the composition of the contents of the package, whether it is organic or inorganic nitrogen as ammonia, and the kind of class of potash, together with a detailed analysis of each of such ingredients in such package separately stated as to each. The statute does not require the giving of the percentage of the percentage of plant food in each ingredient.
While said statute was in the course of passage an amendment was adopted changing the phrase 'number of pounds of' to 'the percentage of plant food in' each and every ingredient. The omission on final enactment of a clause of a bill as originally introduced is strong evidence that the Legislature did not intend that the statute should require that which was purposely omitted, and a departmental regulation which would in effect require that which was purposely omitted by the statute would not therefore be authorized by the statute.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Leon County; John B Johnson, judge.
Fred H Davis, Atty. Gen., and H. E. Carter, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.
Milam McIlvaine & Milam, of Jacksonville, for appellees.
This is an appeal taken from the final decree of the circuit court in and for Leon county, Fla., made and entered in the cause pending between the parties hereto on the 12th day of March 1930, overruling defendant's demurrer to the bill of complaint, and granting a permanent injunction in said cause.
The bill of complaint attacks the constitutionality of chapter 14510, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1929 (Ex. Sess.), and questions the validity of the construction placed thereon by appellant, as commissioner of agriculture, requiring the manufacturers of fertilizer to show the materials from which certain properties are derived, and the percentage of plant food in each ingredient entering into and forming a part of the contents of each package of fertilizer.
The appellant, as defendant in the court below, answered the bill of complaint in which answer was incorporated a general demurrer. The cause came on to be heard upon the bill, answer, and demurrer and the replication thereto, and the evidence to be submitted by the parties, and the court being of the opinion that the issues could properly be disposed of on questions of law, without the submission of evidence, the matter was heard upon the bill, answer, demurrer, and replication, with the result that the demurrer incorporated in the answer was overruled, and the equities found to be with the complainants, and thereupon a perpetual injunction was granted restraining the appellant from enforcing, or attempting to enforce the regulations promulgated by the department of agriculture, as shown by Exhibit A of the bill of complaint, page 9 of the transcript.
The court below did not find it necessary to pass upon the constitutionality of the act, inasmuch as the court decided that the interpretation placed upon the act by the commissioner of agriculture in his ruling as to what the tags must show was not warranted by the language of the statute.
The learned circuit judge embraced in his final decree a well-considered opinion, which reads in part of follows:
'That in the enactment of Chapter 14510, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1929, amending section 3807 of the Compiled General Laws of Florida, 1927, the provisions of the section amended were re-enacted.
'That the provisions of the old law requiring that certain information be printed on the tag prescribed were not changed by the amendment, except that by the amendment attached to the old law certain additional information was required to be shown. This additional information required is:
'In deciding this case it will not be necessary to pass upon the constitutional questions raised by the bill of complaint as based on the form of tag as required by the Commissioner of Agriculture...
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...that the Department's contrary construction of the statute in Rule 4-43.03 is unauthorized. Mayo v. American Agricultural Chemical Company, 101 Fla. 279, 133 So. 885 (1931). As the Supreme Court stated in State ex rel. Finlayson v. Amos, 76 Fla. 26, 79 So. 433 There is no authority for a de......
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...§ 103, p. 261 (1974) (citing to State ex rel. Finlayson v. Amos, 76 Fla. 26, 79 So. 433 (1918). See also Mayo v. American Agricultural Chemical Co., 101 Fla. 279, 133 So. 885 (1931). Nor in my view was there created a claim that is cognizable under Chapter 440. Section 440.25(1) Subject to ......