State v. Price

• Decision Date: 15 November 1909
• Docket Number: 17,798
• Citation: 124 La. 917,50 So. 794
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. PRICE et al

50 So. 794

124 La. 917

STATE v. PRICE et al

No. 17,798

Supreme Court of Louisiana

November 15, 1909

Rehearing Denied December 13, 1909.

Appeal from Twenty-Third Judicial District Court, Parish of St Mary; Charles A. O'Niell, Judge.

Frank and Fielden Price were convicted and fined for violating the law in relation to the sale of intoxicating liquors, and they appeal. Appeal dismissed.

See also, ante, p. 670, 50 So. 647.

D Caffery, Jr., James R. Parkerson, and Emmet Alpha, for appellants.

Walter Guion, Atty. Gen., and T. M. Milling, Dist. Atty. (R. G. Pleasant, of counsel), for the State.

OPINION

PROVOSTY, J.

The state has moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that this court has no jurisdiction of the case. The jurisdiction of this court in criminal cases is limited to cases where "the punishment of death or imprisonment at hard labor may be inflicted, or a fine exceeding $ 300, or imprisonment exceeding six months, is actually imposed." Const. art. 85. The sentence condemns each of the two defendants to pay a fine of $ 150 and the costs of court, and adds the following:

"That the defendants Frank and Fielden Price be and they are each permanently deprived hereafter of the privilege of conducting a barroom."

The defendants contend that, under the statute upon which the indictment against them is founded, a firm or corporation conducting a barroom may be prosecuted as well as may an individual carrying on the like business, and that the indictment against them is against their firm and not against them individually; and that, such being the case, the said two fines of $ 150 imposed upon them as individuals must be reckoned as one fine of $ 300 imposed upon the firm, and that, since the costs and the penalty of permanent deprivation of the right to engage in the business of keeping a barroom must be considered as included in, or added to, this $ 300 fine, the case is one where a fine exceeding $ 300 has been imposed, and of which, in consequence, this court has jurisdiction.

The statute upon which the indictment is founded is Act No. 176, p. 236, of 1908, popularly known as the "Gay-Shattuck Law." It is entitled "An act to regulate and license the business of conducting a barroom, coffee house, cabaret," etc. (naming every possible place where intoxicating beverages may be kept for the accommodation of the public to be drunk on the premises). Section 6 of the act provides that:

"It shall be unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation, conducting a barroom, coffee house, cabaret," etc. [enumerating the various drinking places] "to sell or permit to be sold or give or permit to be given, any intoxicating liquors to women or minors"; and that "any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall * * * be fined in a sum not less than $ 50 nor more than $ 500, or imprisonment," etc.

It is noteworthy that, while this section makes it unlawful for a firm or corporation to violate the act, it makes no provision for the imposition of a penalty upon a firm or corporation, unless a firm or corporation can come under the designation of the term "any person." Section 7 of the act provides that "any person, firm or corporation" violating the act "shall in addition to the punishment prescribed by section 6 of this act be permanently deprived thereafter of the privilege of conducting a barroom, coffee house, cabaret," etc. (naming all the various kinds of drinking places); "and the revocation of said privilege shall be declared by the court having jurisdiction to impose the penalty fixed by section 6 of this act."

The indictment against the two defendants contains three counts charging three separate offenses. As the three counts are precisely alike in verbiage, saving alone in the name of the offense charged, we need reproduce here only one of...