State v. Tower Lumber Company
| Decision Date | 11 January 1907 |
| Docket Number | 14,867 - (16) |
| Parties | STATE v. TOWER LUMBER COMPANY and Others |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Separate appeals by defendants Tower Lumber Co., Tower Log & Boom Co., and William Jalley, from an order of the district court for Ramsey county, Olin B. Lewis, J., overruling their separate demurrers to the complaint. Affirmed.
Title of Act.
The title to chapter 344, Laws 1905, held a sufficient compliance with the constitutional requirement that no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.
Obstructing Fish Commission.
Section 56 of that act, providing that no person, company, or corporation shall obstruct the game and fish commission of the state while engaged in gathering fish spawn, as authorized by the statute, and imposing a penalty for a violation of its provisions, held to impose reasonable regulations upon the defendants, and all others, in the use of the stream of water referred to in the complaint, and is not obnoxious either to the state or the federal constitution.
Sullivan & Grant and Davis, Kellogg & Severance, for appellants.
Douglas & Griggs, for the State.
Action to recover damages alleged to have resulted to the state from an alleged obstruction by defendants of the game and fish commission in the performance of its duties. Defendants interposed a general demurrer to the complaint, and appeal from an order overruling it.
The complaint alleges substantially the following facts: The defendants were at the time therein referred to engaged in the lumber and logging business on Pike river, in St. Louis county, this state. The state owns and maintains two fish hatcheries for the purpose of stocking the lakes and streams of the state with fish fry, and expends large sums of money annually in support of the same. During the month of April of each year a large number of fish belonging to the pike family ascend the river above mentioned to the falls, some distance from its mouth, for the purpose of spawning, at which time the officers of the state, through the game and fish commission, are able to obtain large quantities of spawn for hatching and supplying the lakes of the state. During the period from the twenty third to the twenty eighth of April, 1905, the game and fish commission, representing the state, undertook the task of catching fish at this place and gathering their eggs, and was wrongfully and unlawfully interfered with and obstructed in its work by the conduct of defendants in floating logs down the river and over the falls, by reason of which the commission was wholly prevented from performing its duties during the season of that year.
It further appears from the complaint, and the stipulation made a part thereof, that Pike river lies wholly within the state of Minnesota, emptying into Lake Vermillion at a point one mile below the falls we have just referred to. Its main channel, in its natural condition, before the making therein of any improvements by defendants, during an ordinary stage of water, was a number of feet in depth, and for four or five miles above the falls, sixty feet in width. For a distance of one hundred feet from the point where the river empties into the lake it is possible to navigate the same with an ordinary tugboat. Above this point, for a distance of twenty miles or more, the river is navigable in ordinary rowboats.
The defendant Tower Log & Boom Company was organized as a corporation under title 1, c. 34, G.S. 1878, and with particular reference to section 2633, G.S. 1894, for the purposes set forth in that section; and the company has expended upwards of $3,000 in improving the river for the purpose of assisting in handling and driving logs therein. It improved the channel of the river by removing rocks therefrom and placing sheer booms across the same to collect and hold logs as floated down the river. The logs referred to in the complaint, and which the state alleged were wrongfully floated down the river and over the falls during the time the fish commission was performing its duties, belonged to the Tower Lumber Company. It was necessary to float the logs down the river during the season of 1905, but they could have been floated down after the first of May of that year, and subsequent to the time the game and fish commission was engaged in its work in the river. The logs had been gathered prior to this time and lodged in booms above the falls, and were by defendants liberated therefrom and floated over the falls in the ordinary course of business, but with full notice and knowledge of the fact that the agents of the game and fish commission were at that time gathering fish spawn below the falls, and after notice to the effect that the agents of the commission would be so engaged at that time.
This action is brought under the provisions of section 56, c. 344, p. 621, Laws 1905, which provides as follows:
Sec. 56. Obstructing Commission -- Gathering Spawn -- No person shall obstruct the commission, its executive agent or any warden appointed by it while engaged in gathering fish spawn, nor shall any person place in any stream or river any logs or other debris at any time when said commission and its employes are gathering spawn, or about to gather spawn or catch fish for that purpose in any such stream or river. Any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor. The commission may institute a civil action in the name of the state to recover from any person or persons obstructing it in the performance of its duties, or who shall place logs or other debris in such stream, for all damages resulting therefrom, and in addition thereto may in such action enjoin such party or parties from doing the acts hereby prohibited.
It is urged by defendants in support of the demurrer to the complaint (1) that chapter 344, of which the section in question forms a part, is unconstitutional and void, for the reason that the title thereof is not sufficiently broad and comprehensive to justify the enactment of this particular section; and (2) if this contention is not sustained, that the section is unconstitutional and void, in that (a) it violates section 10 of article 1 of the constitution of the United States, prohibiting a state from passing any law impairing the obligation of contracts, (b) it violates the fourteenth amendment to the...
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