State v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 13 July 1953
• Docket Number: No. 16763,16763
• Citation: 223 S.C. 526,77 S.E.2d 195
• Parties: STATE v. TAYLOR.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

Page 195

77 S.E.2d 195

223 S.C. 526

STATE v. TAYLOR.

No. 16763.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

July 13, 1953.

Allen & Allen, Anderson, for appellant.

Solicitor Rufus Fant, Jr., Anderson, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Appellant was convicted in a magistrate's court of operating a public livestock market without first obtaining a permit from the State Veterinarian, as required by Act No. 978, of the 1950 Acts of the General Assembly, 46 St. 2346, now constituting Sections 6-331 to 6-347, inclusive, of the 1952 Code. The Circuit Court affirmed the judgment of the magistrate.

Appellant seeks a reversal on two exceptions. The first is that the Court below erred in not holding the foregoing Act unconstitutional because 'it violates Section One (1), Article Three (3) of the Constitution of the State of South Carolina, by (1) unlawfully attempting to delegate the law making authority of the legislature, and (2) by the invalid delegation of the legislative authority because of the incompleteness of said Act when it left the hands of the Legislature.'

The challenged Act is entitled: 'An Act to Regulate and Supervise Public Livestock Markets, Stockyards and Dealers in Livestock in Order to Prevent the Spread of Contagious and Infectious Diseases of Livestock in South Carolina.' It requires any person operating a public livestock market in South Carolina to obtain a permit from the State Veterinarian. Upon the filing of an application for such permit and the giving of the required bond, 'the technical livestock committee, composed of four men appointed by the Board of Trustees of Clemson Agricultural College and the president, vice-president and secretary of the Livestock Dealers Association shall make an official inspection of the premises of each applicant, and if in their opinion the owner or owners of the proposed market can comply with the provisions of this Act, the State Veterinarian shall issue the permit.' Section 2. Under Section 11, this Committee is empowered to promulgate and enforce such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of the Act. Any permit granted by the State Veterinarian may be revoked by the Committee for violation of any such rule or regulation, or any requirement of the Act.

Section 4 provides in part: 'All public livestock auction markets operating under this Act shall have proper facilities for holding livestock which shall include proper pens for holding and segregating, properly protected from the weather, adequate water supply and such other equipment as the inspecting committee, as outlined in Section 2, may deem necessary for the proper operation of the market. The premises, including yards, pens, alleys, and chutes, shall be cleaned and disinfected as outlined in the regulations issued in accordance with this Act.' Under the terms of Section 5, no cattle to be used for dairy and breeding purposes shall be removed from any public livestock auction market unless shown to be free from brucellosis and, if necessary, a test for that purpose must be made. Under the terms of Section 7, no swine may be removed from such market, except for immediate slaughter, unless shown to have been inoculated against cholera. Section 9 of the Act is as follows: 'All animals known to be affected [infected] with or exposed to any contagious or infectious disease, or any animal that reacts to a test indicating the presence of such a disease shall be held separate and apart from healthy animals, and shall not be sold, traded, or otherwise disposed of except for immediate slaughter only.' Section 12 makes the violation of any provision in the Act or any rule or regulation duly established by the Committee a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine not exceeding $100 or imprisonment not exceeding thirty days.

In the foregoing analysis, we have omitted certain provisions of the Act which are not deemed pertinent to this controversy.

The first subdivision of Exception 1 is rather general. It does not point out in what respect there was an invalid delegation of legislative power. Apparently from appellant's brief, it is not claimed that the power vested in the Committee to make necessary rules and regulations to carry out the provisions of the act is invalid. But if such contention had been made, it would be untenable. The obvious purpose of the Act is to provide sanitary conditions for livestock markets and to protect the public against diseased livestock. It was necessary to vest in some administrative body a large measure of discretionary authority and to empower it to make necessary rules and regulations to promote the purpose sought to be accomplished. 'It has been held that the lawmaking body has authority to exercise its police powers by general laws, and to confer upon boards and other agencies authority and discretion to execute these laws, giving to such agencies the power to prescribe rules and impose penalties for their violation.' Stovall v. Sawyer, Chief Highway Commissioner, 181 S.C. 379, 187 S.E. 821, 824. Also, see State v. Ross, 185 S.C. 472, 194 S.E. 439; Banks v. Batesburg Hauling Co., 202 S.C. 273, 24 S.E.2d 496; Davis v. Query, 209 S.C. 41, 39 S.E.2d 117, and cases therein...