State v. Cassidy

• Decision Date: 09 December 1875
• Citation: 22 Minn. 312
• Parties: STATE OF MINNESOTA <I>vs.</I> EDWARD CASSIDY.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

22 Minn. 312

STATE OF MINNESOTAvs.

EDWARD CASSIDY.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

December 9, 1875.

This and the next following case were prosecutions for selling liquor without the license required by Laws 1873, ch. 10, the title and material sections of which are stated at length in the following opinion. In this case the defendant was convicted before a justice of the peace in Olmsted county, and appealed to the district court for that county, where the judgment of the justice was, by order of Mitchell, J., affirmed, and the defendant appealed to this court.

R. A. Jones, for appellant.

Chas. C. Willson and Chas. M. Start, for the State.

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CORNELL, J.

The sole question presented for consideration in this case relates to the constitutionality of Laws 1873, ch. 10, entitled "An act to establish a fund for the foundation and maintenance of an asylum for inebriates." Its unconstitutionality is rested on the ground that it imposes a specific tax upon a class of persons engaged in a particular business, and is, therefore, in conflict with § 1, art. 9, of the constitution, which requires that "all taxes to be raised in this state shall be as nearly equal as may be, and all property on which taxes are to be levied shall have a cash valuation, and be equalized and uniform throughout the state." It is admitted that the state, through the exercise of its police power, has an undoubted right to prescribe all needful rules and regulations in respect to the traffic in spirituous liquors, and that if the act in question is a proper and legitimate exercise of that power, it is not a violation of the constitutional requirements of equality and uniformity in the imposition of taxes. It is strenuously denied by the defendant, however, that the law under consideration is one of this character. It is argued that its object is, as indicated by its title, the creation of a fund for a specific purpose, and that, therefore, it is not an act to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors, and cannot be held to be an exercise of the police power. If, however, such is not its purport and meaning, then its title is a misnomer, and the law must fail because of its repugnancy to art. 4, § 27, of the constitution, which provides that "no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title." As the title indicates one thing, and the body of the act another and different thing, the law itself is a nullity. This, in brief, it is believed, is a fair statement of the argument and grounds upon which the invalidity of the act is rested.

Section 1 of the act provides that "all keepers of saloons, groceries, restaurants, drug stores, wholesale or retail liquor stores, hotels, breweries, or other places where spirituous, vinous or malt liquors are sold or kept for sale within this state, shall, before they shall be permitted to sell or dispose of such spirituous, vinous or malt liquors, take out, or cause to be taken out, a special license, (in addition to any and all other license or licenses which they are or may be required, by any law, ordinance, or municipal regulation, to take out,) paying therefor the sum of ten dollars to the county treasurer of the proper county;" and it further provides for the issuing of such license by the county auditor of the county wherein the business so licensed is transacted, which shall be good for one year. The next three sections provide for setting apart in the state treasury all moneys received from the issuing of such licenses, as a separate fund, to be known as the "State Inebriate Asylum Fund," and devoting the same exclusively to the establishment and maintenance of a state asylum for inebriates. Section 5 makes it a misdemeanor for any one to sell or otherwise dispose of any such liquors without license, and prescribes a punishment by fine for every such offence.

It is very apparent from these provisions that the law, in effect, is one further regulating the traffic in intoxicating drinks. Such is manifestly one of its objects, and its principal features and provisions accord with this idea. It requires of those desiring to prosecute the business the procuring of a special license as a condition precedent to the exercise and enjoyment of such right. It regards the traffic as one tending to produce intemperance, and as likely, by reason thereof, to entail upon the state the expense and burthen of providing for a class of persons rendered incapable of self-support, the evil influence of whose presence and example upon society is necessarily injurious to the public welfare and prosperity, and, therefore, calls for such legislative interposition as will operate as a restraint upon the business, and protect the community from the mischiefs, evils and pecuniary burthens flowing from its prosecution. To this end the special license is required, and the business restricted to such persons as are willing to indemnify the state, in part, against such its probable results and consequences, by contributing towards a fund that shall be devoted exclusively to that purpose in the manner indicated in the act. That these provisions unmistakably partake of the nature of police regulations, and are strictly of that character, there can be no doubt, nor can it be denied that their expediency or necessity is solely a legislative, and not a judicial, question. City of St. Paul v. Colter, 12 Minn. 41, 48; Fire Dep't of Milwaukee v. Helfenstein, 16 Wis. 136; Tenney v. Lenz, Id. 566.

Regarding the law as a precautionary measure, intended to operate as a wholesome restraint upon the traffic, and as a protection to society against its consequent evils, the exacted fee is not unreasonable in amount, and the purpose to which it is devoted is strictly pertinent and appropriate. It could not be questioned but that a reasonable sum imposed in the way of an indemnity to the state against the expense of maintaining a police force to supervise the conduct of those engaged in the business, and to guard against the disorders and infractions of law occasioned by its prosecution, would be a legitimate exercise of the police power, and not open to the objection that it was a tax for the purpose of revenue, and, therefore, unconstitutional. Reclaiming the inebriate, restoring him to society, prepared again to discharge the duties of citizenship, equally promotes the public welfare, and tends to the accomplishment of like beneficial results, and it is difficult to see wherein the imposition of a reasonable license fee would be any the less a proper exercise of this power in the one case than in the other. The purpose to which the license fund created by the act is designated is more consonant to the idea of regulating the traffic and preventing its evils than is the case under the general license law, which devotes the fees received to common school purposes, and we are not aware that any objection has every been urged against that law on that account. In the case of City of St. Paul v. Colter, 12 Minn. 41, this court upheld an ordinance regulating and licensing butchers' shops, etc., which fixed the license at $200.00, and sustained the action of the legislature in giving to the common council the power of prescribing what sum should be paid for each such license, provided it was not less than five, nor more than five hundred dollars; and in regard to the point made in that case, that such license fee was for the purpose of a revenue, the court observed that "it was not at all important whether the license produced a revenue to the city or not." So in City of Rochester v. Upman, 19 Minn. 108, "the licensing and regulation of the dangerous traffic in intoxicating liquors" was recognized and approved as "an almost universal mode of exercising the police power," and "the objection that the license fee was unconstitutional, as imposing an unequal tax," was declared to be "fully met by the consideration that the license was imposed, not as a tax, but as an incident — and, in the opinion of the law-making authority here and elsewhere, a just and reasonable incident — of the exercise of the police power."

These cases are decisive of the present, unless the law must fail by reason of its alleged defective title in not indicating with sufficient certainty its subject, which, by the constitution, is required to be expressed in the title. Const. art. 4, § 27. The well-known object of this section of the constitution, which declares that "no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title," was to secure to every distinct measure of legislation a separate consideration and decision, dependent solely upon its individual merits, by prohibiting the fraudulent insertion therein of matters wholly foreign, and in no way related to or connected with its subject, and by preventing the combination of different measures, dissimilar in character, purposes...