State v. Malone

192 S.W.2d 68, 238 Mo. App. 939, 1946 Mo. App. LEXIS 257
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 11, 1946
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 192 S.W.2d 68 (State v. Malone) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Malone, 192 S.W.2d 68, 238 Mo. App. 939, 1946 Mo. App. LEXIS 257 (Mo. Ct. App. 1946).

Opinion

*941 VANDEVENTER, J.

On May 14, 1945, the Prosecuting Attorney of Butler County, Missouri, filed in the circuit court thereof the following verified information:

“David W. Hill, Prosecuting Attorney of Butler County, Missouri, upon his official oath, information and belief, informs the Court that the defendant, Hattie Malone, in Poplar Bluff Township, Butler County, Missouri, in the afternoon of the thirteenth day of May, 1945, it being the first day of the week commonly called Sunday, did then and there unlawfully sell and deliver to Cecil Eley, for the sum of forty cents, two pints of beer, a fermented liquor, the container bottles bearing the label Budweiser Beer, and commonly called ‘Three-Two Beer’; against the peace and dignity of the State.”

The evidence at the trial showed that the defendant about 12:30 p. m. May 13, 1945, which was Sunday, sold two bottles of Budweiser Beer, commonly called 3,2 beer, and the evidence further showed that beer was a fermented liquor. She was convicted by the jury and her punishment assessed at a fine of $25. Motion to quash the information -was filed and overruled, an instruction in the nature of a demurrer was filed at the close of the State’s evidence and another at the close of all the evidence and they, too, were overruled. Two errors are alleged in appellant’s .motion for new trial. (1) Failure *942 of the court to quash the information, (2) failure of the court to sustain the demurrer asking for directed verdicts for defendant. The only question raised in the brief is whether or not Article 2 of Chapter 32 of the Missouri Revised Statutes Annotated of 1939 repealed Section 4742, by implication. Section 4742 is as follows:

“Section 4742. SELLING GOODS ON SUNDAY.
“Every person who shall expose to sale any goods, wares or merchandise, or shall keep open an ale or porter house, grocery or tippling shop, or shall sell or retail any fermented or distilled liquor on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, shall, on conviction, be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not exceeding fifty dollars. ’ ’

The pertinent sections of Article 2 of Chapter 32, supra, are 4950 and 4995. They follow:

‘ ‘ Beer having an alcoholic content of not less than one-half of one per cent by volume nor exceeding 3.2 per cent by weight, is hereby, declared to be nonintoxieating beer, and may be lawfully manufactured and sold, or sold, in this State by any holder of a permit issued by the supervisor of liquor control of this State, authorizing such manufacture and sale, or sale, and may be lawfully transported, sold and consumed, in this State, and may be lawfully shipped into, or out of, this State subject to such inspection fees, and/or taxes, and under such regulations as may be provided by law, and such manufacture, sale, transportation, and consumption, shall be exempt from the provisions of chapter 31, Revised Statutes of Missouri, 1939; and exempt, also, from any of the provisions of said chapter and' of any other law" of this State in conflict with the provisions of this article. All beverages having an alcoholic content of less than one-half of one per cent by volume shall be exempt from the provisions of this article but subject to inspection as provided in article 7 of chapter 58.”
“Section 4995-. No person having a license under the provisions of this article, shall sell, give away or otherwise dispose of, or suffer the same to be done, upon or about his premises, any noniqtoxicating beer in any quantity between the hours of one-thirty o’clock a. m., and six o’clock a. m., and any person violating any provision of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a term of not more than one year, or by a fine of not less than fifty dollars ($50) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000) or by both such fine and jail sentence.”

In determining this point, it might be well to consider briefly the wéll-established rules of law governing the repeal of statutes by implication. There is no contention that Section 4742 has been specifically repealed. If Section 4742 has not been repealed the information is sufficient and the motion to quash it should have been overruled. [State v. Watts, 101 Mo. App. 658, 74 S. W. 377; State v. Effinger, *943 44 Mo. App. 81; State v. Dengolensky et al., 82 Mo. 44; State v. Williamson, 21 Mo. 496; State v. Roehm, 61 Mo. 82; State v. Kock, 61 Mo. 117; State v. Nations, 75 Mo. 53.]

Repeal of statutes by implication is not favored. [State ex rel. St. Louis Police Relief Ass’n v. Igoe, 107 S. W. (2d) 929, 340 Mo. 1166; Graves v. Little Tarkio Drainage Dist. No. 1, 134 S. W. (2d) 70, 345 Mo. 557; Coleman v. Kansas City, 156 S. W. (2d) 644, 348 Mo. 916; Lajoie v. Central West Casualty Co. of Detroit, 71 S. W. (2d) 803, 228 Mo. App. 701.]

The repeal of a statute by a subsequent statute is a question of intention, and there is a presumption against the intention to repeal where express terms are not used. [State ex rel. St. Louis Police Relief Ass’n v. Igoe, supra.]

If by any fair interpretation all the sections of the statutes can stand together, there is no repeal by implication. [Hull v. Baumann, 131 S. W. (2d) 721, 345 Mo. 159.]

An act may be repealed by necessary implication, if a later act is so repugnant to the former that the two cannot stand, even though no mention is made of the former act in the later. [Vining v. Probst (Mo. App.), 186 S. W. (2d) 611.]

But though two acts are seemingly repugnant they must, if possible, be so construed that the later will not operate as a repeal, by implication, of an earlier one and if they are not irreconcilably inconsistent, both must stand. [Graves v. Little Tarkio Drainage District No. 1, supra.]

The repugnancy between the later and the prior statutes must be wholly irreconcilable in order to work a repeal of the prior act. [State ex rel. Wells v. Walker, 34 S. W. (2d) 124, 326 Mo. 1233; Use of Geo. B. Peck Co. v. Brown, 105 S. W. (2d) 909, 340 Mo. 1189; Graves v. Little Tarkio Drainage Dist. No. 1, supra; State ex rel. City of Republic v. Smith, 139 S. W. (2d) 929, 345 Mo. 1158.]

Section 4742 .first appears in Revised Statutes, 1825, Page 311 Section 92. At that time it limited the acts to the period after "10 o’clock in the morning.” Later this section was amended and appeared in the Missouri Revised Statutes 1845, Page 405, Sec. 34, eliminating the 10 o’cloSi provision and since that time, it has been in the same wording as above set forth. It is true that "fermented liquor” may be intoxicating but there is nothing in that section to indicate that "fermented liquor” would include intoxicating liquor, only.

Section 4743 modifies Section 4742 by eliminating from that Section the sale of drugs, medicines, provisions or other articles of immediate necessity.

The object of Section 4742 is to enforce a cessation from labor on one day in seven in order to promote the health, peace and good order of society. The fact that the same day is also observed as a day of *944

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Bluebook (online)
192 S.W.2d 68, 238 Mo. App. 939, 1946 Mo. App. LEXIS 257, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-malone-moctapp-1946.