State v. Andrew Bros.

175 N.W. 685, 144 Minn. 337, 1919 Minn. LEXIS 756
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedDecember 19, 1919
DocketNo. 21,599
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 175 N.W. 685 (State v. Andrew Bros.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Andrew Bros., 175 N.W. 685, 144 Minn. 337, 1919 Minn. LEXIS 756 (Mich. 1919).

Opinion

Hallam, J.

The indictment charged the defendant with unlawfully transporting one gallon of intoxicating liquor in the city of Minneapolis. Defendant demurred to the indictment. The court overruled the demurrer and certified the following questions to this court:

(1) Do the facts stated in said indictment constitute a public offense against the laws of the state of Minnesota?

(3) Is chapter 455 of the laws of Minnesota 1919 constitutional?

(3) Does the title of said act embrace more than one subject contrary to article 4, section 37, of the Constitution of Minnesota ?

(4) Does the title of said act embrace more than one subject which is not expressed in its title contrary to article 4, section 37, of the Constitution of Minnesota?

(5) Is section 37 of said act, and particularly the part referring to the act of Congress of November 31st, 1918, commonly known as “War Prohibition,” a separate subject not expressed in the title-of said act?

(6) Has the legislature of Minnesota the power under the Constitution of this state to enact said act?

(7) Under section 37 of said act, did the legislature of Minnesota delegate its police powers away to the Federal government?

(8) Does the intérpretation and enforcement of said act at the present time depend upon the provisions of the act of Federal Congress of November 31st, 1918, commonly known as “War Prohibition,” and if so [339]*339is said act contrary to said legislation of Congress, and if so contrary is this act of the Minnesota legislature void ?

(9) Is the question as to what is intoxicating liquor, as defined under section 1 of said act, a judicial one for the courts, or one for the legislative branch of government, or, in other words, has the legislature the power to define that intoxicating liquors are such if they contain one-half of one per cent or more of alcohol by volume?

(10) Does section '2 of said act only forbid the transportation or keeping of liquor for the purpose of sale or does it forbid the transportation for any purpose ?

1. The prosecution is under chapter 455, p. 537, Laws 1919. The claim is made that this statute is unconstitutional as a delegation of the legislative power of the state to the Federal government. This is based on the provision of section 27 that the statute is “intended to provide for the enforcement of * * * the provisions of the act of Congress of November 21, 1918, commonly known as War Prohibition.”

The legislature cannot delegate its power to make laws, but, having general power of enacting laws, it may enact them in its own way and give them such effect as it chooses. It may provide that a law shall go into effect at one time or another, absolutely or on condition, and, if the act is complete in itself, it is within the scope of the legislative power to prescribe that it shall become operative only on the happening of some specific contingency. 12 C. J. 864, and cases cited; Sutherland, St. Const. § 71; Blanding v. Burr, 13 Cal. 343, 357.

This principle is well settled in this state. In State v. Sullivan, 67 Minn. 379, 69 N. W. 1094, it was held that the taking effect of a statute may be made contingent on a vote of a city council, and that this does not constitute a delegation of legislative power, and that when that event happens the statute takes effect and becomes law, by force of the legis-' lative action, as fully as if the legislature had unconditionally fixed the time when it should take effect. Such a law is not incomplete.

The same principle is settled in the Supreme Court of the United States. In The Aurora v. United States, 7 Cranch, 382, 3 L. ed. 378, it was held that the operation of an act of Congress may be made to depend on the contingency of certain action by a foreign government, and [340]*340the court could “see no sufficient reason why the legislature should not exercise its discretion in reviving the act * * * either expressly or conditionally, as their judgment should direct.” This situation frequently arises in the case of so-called retaliatory statutes. There is nothing in our Constitution which, either expressly or impliedly, forbids the legislature from providing that the operation of a state statute shall be made contingent on the existence of an act of Congress of a certain purport.

2. Defendant contends the act violates article 4, section 27, of our state Constitution, which provides that no law shall embrace more than one subject. The contention is that the title embraces three subjects, the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of liquor, the regulation of the manufacture and sale of liquor, and an attempt to define nuisances and to provide for their abatement.

What the Constitution requires is that a statute shall embrace but'one general subject, and that all matters contained in it shall be so related to each other as to be fairly germane to that subject. Johnson v. Harrison, 47 Minn. 575, 141 N. W. 526; State v. Sharp, 121 Minn. 381, 141 N. W. 526; State v. People’s Ice Co. 124 Minn. 307, 144 N. W. 962. We can see here but one general subject, the prohibition of the traffic in intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes. The provisions as to nuisances have relation to the enforcement of the prohibition and pertain to the general subject of the act. City of Wilson v. Herink, 64 Kan. 607, 68 Pac. 72; see State v. Scoville, 197 Ala. 223, 72 South. 546; State v. Moran, 46 Wash. 596, 90 Pac. 1044.

3. Defendant contends that the provision of section 27 that the act is intended to provide for the enforcement of war-time prohibition, constitutes a separate subject, which should be expressed in the title to the act. Clearly it does not. This language is merely an expression of one of the purposes to be accomplished by the act.

4. Defendant contends that the statute forbids the transportation of liquor only when transported for purposes of sale, and that, since the indictment does not charge that the transportation was for the purposes of sale, it is faulty. With this construction of the statute we do not agree. The statute forbids the “manufacture, sale, disposition or transportation * * * or the keeping or having in possession, for sale, disposition or transportation.” This language is so plain that it is not open to con[341]*341struction. It forbids all manufacture, sale, disposition or transportation, of intoxicating liquors save for medicinal, and other uses, excepted elsewhere in the act, and it forbids the keeping or having in possession for sale, disposition or transportation.

5. The act defines intoxicating liquor as “any distilled, fermented, spirituous, vinous or malt liquor * * * whenever any of said liquors * * * contain one-half of one per cent or more of alcohol by volume.” Defendant contends that the determination as to what liquor is intoxicating is a judicial question and not a legislative one and that this provision of the act invades the province of the courts and that it is void.

As said in State v. Hosmer, infra, page 342, 175 N.W. 683, it is within the police power of the state to prohibit all traffic in intoxicating liquors, including the manufacture, sale, transportation and possession thereof.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
175 N.W. 685, 144 Minn. 337, 1919 Minn. LEXIS 756, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-andrew-bros-minn-1919.