State v. Patterson

• Decision Date: 01 March 1904
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE . v. PATTERSON.

47 S.E. 808

134 N.C. 612

STATE .

v.PATTERSON.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

March 1, 1904.

INTOXICATING LIQUOR — STATUTES—TITLE OF ACT — CONSTRUCTION—SALES—PLACE OF DELIVERY — CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATUTE— CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—PLACE OF TRIAL OF AN OFFENSE.

1. Laws 1903, p. 572, c. 349, is entitled "An act to prohibit the manufacture, sale and importation of liquors in C, M. and G. counties." And section 2 declares that the place where delivery of any intoxicating liquor is made in the state shall be held to be the place of sale thereof. Held that, notwithstanding the title, section 2 of the statute applies to a sale and delivery of liquor at any place within the state.

2. Whether an enactment in a statute is general, local, public, or private is a question of law for the court.

3. Whether an enactment in a statute is general or local, public or private, is not determined by the nature of the act in which the enactment is found, nor by its publication in the public or private statutes.

4. Laws 1903, p. 572, c. 349, § 2, providing that the place where delivery of liquor is made in the state shall be construed to be the place of sale thereof, and that any place to which any person shall ship any liquor for the purpose of delivering the same to a purchaser shall be construed and held to be the place of sale, is not unconstitutional as to shipments within the state.

5. The sixth amendment to the federal Constitution, providing that in a criminal prosecution the accused shall be tried by a jury of the state and district where the crime shall have been committed, is a restriction on the federal government and courts, and not upon the states, and hence Laws 1903, p. 572. c. 349, § 2, providing that any station or place to which any person shall ship or convey any liquor for the purpose of delivery to a purchaser shall be construed to be the place of sale, is not affected by such amendment. Douglas, J., dissenting.

Appeal from Superior Court, Durham County; Cooke, Judge.

J. G. Patterson was indicted for selling liquor in prohibited territory. Verdict of not guilty entered on a special verdict, and the state appeals. Reversed.

Manning & Poushee, R. B. Boone, and the Attorney General, for the State.

Winston & Bryant, for defendant.

CLARK, C. J. The defendant is indicted for selling spirituous liquor to one Guess in the town of Durham, where such sale is prohibited by virtue of an election had under the provisions of chapter 233, p. 288, Laws 1903. The special verdict finds that the defendant was not a druggist, and had no license to sell spirituous liquor within the city of Durham; that he resided in Roxboro, where he had license to sell spirituous liquor; that Guess sent the defendant $2 by mail, with an order to ship said Guess at Durham one gallon of corn whisky, by express, charges prepaid, which the defendant did, and the whisky was delivered to Guess in Durham; that said Guess was not a druggist, nor was said liquor sold to him upon the prescription of a regularly practicing physician. The point presented, therefore, is whether this was a sale at Roxboro, where the liquor was delivered to the carrier by the defendant for transportation to Guess, or was it a sale at Durham, where it was received by Guess, and where such sale was prohibited by law?

Laws 1903, p. 572, c. 349, § 2, provides: "That the place where delivery of any spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented or other intoxicating liquors is made in the state of North Carolina shall be construed and held to be the place of sale thereof, and any station or other place within said state to which any person, firm, company or corporation shall ship or convey any spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented or other intoxicating liquors for the purpose of delivery or carrying the same to a purchaser, shall be construed to be the place of sale: provided this section shall not be construed to prevent the delivery of any spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented or other intoxicating liquors to druggists in sufficient quantities for medical purposes only." This section is explicit that the place of actual delivery to the buyer, or to which it shall be shipped for delivery to him, "shall be construed to be the place of sale." It is contended that this provision does not have the effect of the plain purport of the words used by the lawmaking power, because:

1. This section 2 is found in a statute entitled "An act to prohibit the manufacturesale and Importation of liquors In Cleveland, Cabarrus, Mitchell and Gaston counties." Formerly, the caption of an act was not at all considered to any extent whatever in construing it, for reasons given in State v. Woolard, 119 N. C. 779, 25 S. E. 719, but the modern doctrine is that, when the language of the statute is ambiguous, the courts can resort to the title as aid in giving such act its true meaning, but that this cannot be done when the language used is clear and unambiguous. Randall v. Railroad, 107 N. C. 748, 12 S. E. 605, 11 L. R. A. 460; Id., 104 N. 0. 410, 10 S. E. 691; State v. Woolard, 119 N. C. 779, 25 S. E. 719; Freight Discrimination Cases, 95 N. C. 434, 59 Am. Rep. 250; Blue v. McDuflie, 44 N. C. 131. To like purport, in Hadden v. Collector, 5 Wall. 107, 18 L. Ed. 518, Mr. Justice Field uses the following language: "At the present date the title constitutes a part of the act, but it is still construed as only a formal part. It cannot be used to extend or to restrain any positive provisions in the body of the act" The language of section 2 is "that the place where delivery of any spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented or other intoxicating liquors is made in the state of North Carolina shall be construed and held to be the place of sale thereof. * * *" This provision is positive in its character, and its operation cannot be restrained by any reference to the title of the chapter. In the sections of chapter 349 other than sections 1 and 2 there is no reference to the place in which the act is to be operative, and hence, by reference to the title, they are to be applied only to the four counties therein named. Section 1 is specifically made operative in the counties therein named, and is to take effect at a different date, and section 2 is made operative as to the sale of any spirituous or intoxicating liquors anywhere in the state, and, as to them the title cannot be used to restrict or extend the meaning of the explicit, clear, and unambiguous language used. "It is well settled, " says Ruffin, C. J., in Humphries v. Baxter, 28 N. C. 439, "that one part of a statute may be public in its nature, while another is local and private." Part of a statute may be local, and another of general application; part may be a public statute, of which the court will take judicial notice, and another part a private statute, which must be set up in the pleadings; and whether an enactment in a statute is general or local, public or private, is a question of law for the court, and is not determined by the nature of the act in which the enactment is found, nor by its publication in the public or private statutes. The decisions are uniform as to this. State v. Wallace. 94 N. C. 827; Durham v. Railroad, 108 N. C. 401, 12 S. E. 1040, 13 S. E. 1: State v. Barringer, 110 N. C. 529, 14 S. E. 781; Hancock v. Railroad. 124 N. C, at page 225, 32 S. E. 679; Potter's Dwarris, 53.

2. It is further objected that, if the statute has this meaning, it is unconstitutional, but we are not pointed to any section of the Constitution which forbids the lawmaking power to designate the place of sale when the goods are shipped by the vendor to the vendee by a common carrier or other agency. It is true the courts have held that the place of sale is where the goods are delivered to the carrier, the latter being the agent of the vendee; thus making the constructive delivery, instead of the place of actual receipt of the goods by the purchaser, the place of sale. This rule is of comparatively modern origin, and at first was held to apply only when the vendee designated the carrier by whom the goods were to be shipped. Davies v. Peck, 8 D. & E. 330. It has not been uniformly held, and is subject to many exceptions (1 Beach, Cont. § 563; 2 Kent, Com. 499), as the right of stoppage in transitu, and other exceptions. It is merely a rule of judicial construction, which was made in the absence of legislation, and is not protected by any constitutional provision from legislative power to change It. Especially can the Legislature change such rule in the exercise of its police power over the sale of intoxicating liquors, when, as here, it can be readily seen that, with the multiplication of common carriers and the speed and ease with which intoxicating liquors can be shipped, it would be a vain thing to prohibit the sale of liquor in any designated territory, if vendors a short distance off can at will All orders coming from within the prohibited territory upon the judicial fiction that the sale is complete upon delivery to the carrier, who is construed as. the agent of the vendee. Whether it may or may not require an act of Congress to make a similar change as to liquor shipped into prohibited territory from points outside the state in no wise affects the power of the state to so provide when the shipment is from another point in the state. Rhodes v. Iowa, 170 U. S. 412, 18 Sup. Ct. €64, 42 L. Ed. 1088. In O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U. S. 323, 12 Sup. Ct. 693, 36 L. Ed. 450, as construed by same court in Railroad v. Sims (Dec, 1903) 24 Sup. Ct. 151, 48 L. Ed. —, it seems to be held that by virtue of the police power shippers of intoxicating liquors into a state from without its borders are subject to the same restrictions as shippers from points within the state, it not being a matter of taxation upon interstate commerce. But that point is not now before us. Where one upon one side of the line of a political division, as a state or county, shoots across the line and kills a person on the other...