State v. Hovorka
| Decision Date | 01 March 1907 |
| Docket Number | 15,056 - (195) |
| Citation | 110 N.W. 870,100 Minn. 249 |
| Parties | STATE v. W. J. HOVORKA |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal by defendant from an order of the municipal court of St Paul, Hanft, J., denying a motion for a new trial, after a trial and conviction of practicing as a pharmacist without a license. Affirmed.
Pharmacy Act Constitutional.
Sections 2327-2341, R.L. 1905, being a comprehensive statute regulating the business of pharmacy in this state, creating a state board of pharmacy, prescribing its duties, providing for the licensing of pharmacists, and imposing fees for the issuance and renewal of licenses, held a proper subject for legislative supervision under the police power, and not unconstitutional, either as depriving persons licensed under prior statutes of vested rights, or otherwise obnoxious to the principles of the fundamental law.
License Fee.
The license fee imposed by the statute for the issuance or renewal of a license is not a tax upon the business of pharmacy, but a charge upon those engaged in that occupation for the support and maintenance of the machinery provided for its regulation. The amount thereof is not unreasonable.
James Cormican, for appellant.
E. T Young, Attorney General, C. S. Jelley, Assistant Attorney General, R. D. O'Brien, County Attorney, and O'Malley & Boerner, for the State.
Defendant was charged in the municipal court of the city of St. Paul with practicing as a pharmacist without a license, as required by section 2340, R.L. 1905, and appealed from a judgment of conviction.
Several questions were raised by the assignments of error and discussed in the briefs, all of which, save one, were on the oral argument in this court expressly waived by defendant, and the appeal submitted upon the sole question whether the statute under which he was prosecuted and convicted is constitutional. So we pass at once to that question.
The solution of the question is not attended with any serious embarrassments. The several sections of the statute, including that under which defendant was convicted, viz., sections 2327-2341, inclusive, form a comprehensive regulation of of the business of pharmacy and pharmacists in this state. The state board of pharmacy is thereby created, clothed with definitely defined powers and duties, to which is committed the matter of enforcing the statutory commands relative to the examination of applicants for license to practice as pharmacists and the renewing and revoking of the same; prescribing the qualifications of those desiring to pursue that occupation, and the disqualifying habits which may operate to authorize the cancellation or refusal to renew a license once issued. It provides for an annual renewal of all licenses issued upon the payment of a fee of $2.
The section under which defendant was prosecuted and convicted prohibits all persons, not licensed and registered as required by other sections, from retailing, compounding, or dispensing drugs, medicines, or poisons; and the following section imposes a penalty for a violation of any of the provisions of the law. Physicians are permitted to compound prescriptions for use in their practice and to furnish their patients with such articles of medicine as they may deem proper, but are not permitted to carry on the business of pharmacists generally without complying with the statute and obtaining license from the state board of pharmacy.
That the subject of the statute is an appropriate matter for legislative regulation and control under the police power cannot well be questioned. State v. State Medical Examining Board, 32 Minn. 324, 20 N.W. 238, 50 Am. 575; State v. Vandersluis, 42 Minn. 129, 43 N.W. 789, 6 L.R.A. 119; State v. Forcier, 65 N.H. 42; State v. Wheelock, 95 Iowa 577, 64 N.W. 620, 30 L.R.A. 429, 58 Am. St. 452; People v. Moorman, 86 Mich. 433, 49 N.W. 263.
The statute as found in the Revised Laws is complete in all its details, unambiguous, and must be construed without reference to prior legislation on the subject. The rule for the construction of Revised Laws permits a reference to prior pertinent enactments for the purpose of resolving whatever ambiguities or uncertainties may be found in the new (State v. Stroschein, 99 Minn. 248, 109 N.W. 235; Becklin v. Becklin, 99 Minn. 307, 109 N.W. 243), but for no other purpose; so that, whatever may have been the state of the law prior to the Revision of 1905, it is now clear and must be construed without reference to previously existing statutes, and that the subject-matter thereof is proper for legislative cognizance is established beyond controversy by all the authorities (10 Am. & Eng. Enc. [2d Ed.] 266, and cases cited).
Defendant was duly licensed as a pharmacist in 1886, under the provisions of chapter 147, p. 179, Laws 1885, and his license was annually renewed, as provided by that act, up to the year 1897, when he abandoned that business and took up that of a physician and surgeon. In 1905 he resumed his business as a pharmacist, and made application to the state board of pharmacy for a license, tendering the fee fixed by statute therefor. The application was denied, except upon condition that defendant submit to a new examination. This he declined to submit to, and continued in his business as a pharmacist without a license, and his conviction followed in June, 1906. It is contended in his behalf that his original license granted in 1886 and renewed from year to year down to 1897, secured to him a vested right to continue in the occupation and to...
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