State v. Rumberg
| Decision Date | 13 June 1902 |
| Parties | STATE v. RUMBERG. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from municipal court of Minneapolis; Andrew Holt, Judge.
J. N. Rumberg was convicted of selling meat to which borax had been added as a preservative, and from an order denying a new trial he appeals. Reversed.
Held, that by amendment (Laws 1901, c. 348) to Laws 1899, c. 257, all food products have not been brought within the purview of the act. The amendment covers and embraces only such articles of food as may be made from milk and cream. It does not prohibit the use of preservatives in meats. Rome G. Brown and Charles S. Albert, for appellant.
W. B. Douglas, Atty. Gen., and Edward F. Waite, Asst. City Atty., for the State.
Under the provisions of chapter 348, Laws 1901, the defendant, Rumberg, was prosecuted for selling chopped meat to which borax, in powdered form, had been added as a preservative. He was convicted in the court below, and appealed from an order refusing a new trial. As we regard the case, and primary question to be determined is the applicability of the above-mentioned statute to meats and other foods, not products of the dairy.
Specific legislation prohibitive of the use of chemical agents as preservatives was inaugurated in this state by the enactment of chapter 257, Laws 1899, the title thereof being, ‘An act to prevent the use of chemical agents as preservatives in milk, cream, cheese and butter.’ This title was clear and comprehensive, specially mentioning four, and only four, articles. In section 1 the prohibition was not only directed to these four articles, but also to ‘any other dairy products.’-a fact which suggests that this legislation was not as carefully scrutinized when before the lawmakers as it should have been, and that the restricted title was not kept in mind by them. At the next session of the legislature, this statute was amended. Laws 1901, c. 348. The title to the amendatory act is brevity itself, as follows: ‘An act to ament the title and section one (1) of chapter two hundred and fifty-seven (257), General Laws of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Nine (1899).’ The amendment attempted under this title to the title and to the body of the 1899 act can best be understood by quoting a part of chapter 348, with the inserted and amendatory words italicized. It was provided (section 1) that the title to chapter 257 should be amended so as to read as follows: ‘An act to prevent the use of chemical agents as preservatives in milk, cream, cheese and butter, or food products of any noture whatever.’ Section 1 of chapter 257 was then amended thus: Concisely stated, the legislation of 1901, under a title which suggested no intent or purpose to widely extend the prevailing prohibitive policy as to the use of preservatives in milk, cream, butter, and cheese, injected into the title of the 1899 act the words ‘or food products of any nature whatever,’ and then inserted in section 1, between the words ‘cream’ and ‘butter,’ where they first appeared in that section, the phrase ‘or food products of any nature whatever.’ No other change was made. In both statutes was the provision under which the use of salt in butter was permitted. If it was the design of the lawmaking branch of the state government to inaugurate a radical change in the law respecting the use of...
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State v. Wagenhals
...was convicted of illegal sale of meat, and from a judgment appeals. Reversed.PER CURIAM. This appeal follows the decision in State v. Rumberg, 90 N. W. 1055. Order reversed, and cause remanded, that judgment may be entered for ...