State ex rel. Hudspeth v. Cooper

16 N.E. 518, 114 Ind. 12, 1888 Ind. LEXIS 183
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 6, 1888
DocketNo. 12,995
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 16 N.E. 518 (State ex rel. Hudspeth v. Cooper) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Hudspeth v. Cooper, 16 N.E. 518, 114 Ind. 12, 1888 Ind. LEXIS 183 (Ind. 1888).

Opinion

Howe, J.

This suit was commenced in the name of the State, ex rel. Emily Hudspeth, as plaintiff, against appellees as defendants, in the Gibson Circuit Court. After the venue of the cause had been changed to the court below, appellees, having withdrawn, with leave of the court, their answers herein, demurred to the complaint of the relatrix upon the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. This demurrer was sustained by the court, and to this ruling the relatrix excepted. She declined to amend or plead further, and the court then adjudged that she take nothing by her suit, and that appellees recover of her their costs expended herein.

From such judgment the relatrix has appealed to this court, and has here assigned as error the sustaining of appellees’ demurrer to her complaint herein.

In her complaint, appellant’s relatrix alleged that appellee Lewis Cooper, on the 4th day of September, 1883, obtained from the board of commissioners of Gibson county the grant of a license, for one year, to sell intoxicating liquors in a less quantity than a quart at a time to be drank upon his premises, particularly described, in the town of Patoka, in Gibson county, Indiana; that, in pursuance of such grant, appellee Cooper, paid the requisite fee to the treasurer of Gibson county, and filed with the auditor of such county his ■bond as required by the statute, with his co-appellees, Morlock and Boerk, as his sureties therein, in the sum of two [14]*14thousand dollars, and conditioned as required by the statute, , a copy of which bond was filed with and made part of such complaint; that, thereupon, appellee Cooper received from said auditor a license in pursuance of said grant, and entered upon the sale of intoxicating liquors in said premises, and continued said business for the term of one year.

And relatrix alleged that, during the year aforesaid, she was the wife of one "William W. Hudspeth, and depended upon him for a support; that said William was an able-bodied man, a mechanic, and capable of earning two dollars per day, and, when sober, was industrious and frugal, and, during said year, earned two dollars per day, which sums were faithfully applied* to the support of relatrix, except when said William was made drunk by aptpellee Cooper, as hereinafter stated; but that said William was in the habit of becoming intoxicated, when he squandered his means, neglected his labor and failed to provide for the relatrix, to her great damage; that, on the--day of January, 1884, appellant’s relatrix being then and there a citizen of said White River township, where appellee Cooper then resided, served a written notice on said Cooper, notifying him that said William, her husband, was in the habit of becoming intoxicated, and requesting said Cooper not to let him have any more intoxicating liquor; but that said Cooper, regardless of said notice, continued to let said William have intoxicating liquor after said notice and during said year, so that said William frequently became intoxicated, and so remained for days and weeks at a time, spending his means with said Cooper, neglecting his occupation and to earn anything for the support of the relatrix, and becoming sick and helpless; whereby the relatrix was greatly injured in her means of support and compelled to labor for her own support, and for the care and nursing of .said William, and she was greatly injured in her person. Wherefore, etc.

It is clearly shown by the allegations of this complaint that the relatrix intended and attempted to state a cause of [15]*15action therein under the provisions of section 20 of “An act to regulate and license the sale of spiritous, vinous and malt and other intoxicating liquors,” etc., approved March 17th, 1875.

That section reads as follows : “ Every person who shall sell, barter, or give away any intoxicating liquors, in violation of any of the provisions of this act, shall be personally liable, and also liable on his bond filed in the auditor’s office, as required by section four of this act, to any person who shall sustain any injury or damage to his person or property or means of support on account of the use of such intoxicating liquors, so sold as aforesaid, to be enforced by appropriate action in any court of competent jurisdiction.” This section has never been repealed, either expressly or impliedly, and is known as section 5323, R. S. 1881.

Section 10 of the aforesaid act of March 17th, 1875, reads as follows: “Every.person who shall directly or indirectly' sell, barter, or give away any intoxicating, spiritous, vinous or malt liquors to any person who is in the habit of being intoxicated, after notice shall have been given him in writing by the wife, child, parent, brother or sister of such person, or by the trustee of the township where he resides, that such person is in the habit of being intoxicated, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not less than ten nor more than fifty dollars.” This section 10 was not brought into the Bevised Statutes of 1881, as were the other sections of the aforesaid act of March 17th, 1875, although it has never been expressly repealed. We learn from the briefs of counsel, however, as well of the relatrix as of the appellees, that the demurrer to the complaint herein was sustained by the learned court below upon the ground that said section 10, above quoted, was repealed by implication by the provisions of section 2093, B. S. 1881, in force since September 19th, 1881.

In section 2093 it is provided as follows: “ Whoever, directly or indirectly, sells, barters, or gives away any spirit[16]*16•ous, vinous, malt, or other intoxicating liquor to any person who is in the habit of being intoxicated, after notice shall have been given him, in writing, by any citizen of the township or ward wherein such person resides, that such person is in the habit of being intoxicated, shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars nor less than fifty dollars, to which maybe added imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year nor less than thirty days, and disfranchised and rendered incapable of holding any office of trust or profit for any determinate period.”

This section is section 186 of an act entitled “An act concerning public offences and their punishment,” approved April 14th, 1881. Acts of 1881, p. 215. It will be observed that this latter section, 2093, covers the entire subject-matter of section 10, above quoted, of the aforesaid act of March 17th, 1875, greatly enlarges the number of persons who may give the notice in writing mentioned in the section, doubles the maximum fine, and quintuples the minimum fine that might be imposed on the person convicted of the offence, and adds new penalties to those prescribed in such section 10 of the older statute, to wit, imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year nor less than thirty days, and disfranchisement and incapacity to hold any office of trust or profit for any determinate period. In so far, therefore, as section 10, supra,

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Bluebook (online)
16 N.E. 518, 114 Ind. 12, 1888 Ind. LEXIS 183, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-hudspeth-v-cooper-ind-1888.