State v. Martin

204 S.W. 622, 134 Ark. 420, 1918 Ark. LEXIS 595
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJune 3, 1918
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 204 S.W. 622 (State v. Martin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Martin, 204 S.W. 622, 134 Ark. 420, 1918 Ark. LEXIS 595 (Ark. 1918).

Opinion

HUMPHREYS, J.

Each of the above entitled canses involves the validity of rule No. 125, adopted by the State Board of Health on the 3rd day of December, 1917, and, for that reason, are incorporated in one opinion.

Appellees, in the case of State of Arkansas v. Wilson Martin and Guy Lipe, were indicted on January 8, 1918, for permitting certain pupils in school district No. 76, in Logan County, to attend school without presenting the required certificate from a licensed physician showing a successful vaccination, or a certificate showing a recent vaccination done in the proper manner by a licensed physician, or certificate showing immunity by having had smallpox, or a certificate showing physical disability which might contra-indicate vaccination.

Appellees demurred to the indictment on the ground that it did not charge a public offense against them jointly or severally. The demurrer was sustained and the indictment quashed, from which judgment an appeal has been properly prosecuted by the State to this couyt.

The appellant, in the case of George Brazil, Jr., v. State of Arkansas, was indicted for sending his children to Willoughby School, in Little River County, without presenting a certificate of vaccination or immunity from smallpox. A demurrer was filed to the indictment, which was overruled, and the cause was then tried by a jury upon the indictment, a plea of not guilty, oral evidence and instructions of the court. The jury found appellant guilty as charged, and fixed his fine at $10, and a judgment was rendered in accordance therewith. The verdict and judgment are challenged by appeal to this court.

(1) No proof was made in the latter case of the rule of the State Board of Health requiring a certificate of successful or recent vaccination or immunity from smallpox by pupils as a prerequisite to attendance on the school. It is insisted that a failure to allege and prove the rule must work a reversal and dismissal of the case. Rules, orders and regulations made and promulgated by the State Board of Health will be judicially noticed by the courts of the State. Kansas City Sou. Ry. Co. v. State, 90 Ark. 343; Cazort v. State, 130 Ark. 453. The soundness of the State’s contention in this regard is not controverted in the case of State of Arkansas v. Wilson Martin and Guy Lipe.

It is contended in both cases that the rule promulgated by the Board of Health, requiring a certificate of successful or recent vaccination or immunity from smallpox as a condition to attendance upon the schools of the State, is void, first, because the board was not authorized by Act 96, Acts 1913, to adopt and promulgate such a rule; second, because if authorized by the act to adopt and promulgate such a rule, it would amount to a delegation of the lawmaking power by the Legislature; third, because the rule was unreasonable and unnecessary; fourth, because the rule is in conflict with the compulsory education act of 1917.

(2) I. The only authority possessed by the Board of Health is the authority conferred upon it by statute. The Board is not specifically authorized to supervise, control, suppress or prevent smallpox by isolation, quarantine or vaccination; nor to adopt and promulgate any rule with reference to this particular disease, its isolation, control, suppression or prevention. Sections 5 and 6 of Act 96, Acts 1913, conferring power upon the Board of Health in relation to the health of the citizens of this State are as follows:

“Section 5. The State Board of Health shall have general supervision and control of all matters pertaining to the health of the citizens of this State. It shall make a study of the causes and preventions of infectious, contagious and communicable diseases, and, except as otherwise provided for in this act, shall have direction and control of all matters of quarantine regulations and enforcement, and shall have full power and authority to prevent the entrance of such diseases from points without the State, and shall have direction and control over all sanitary and quarantine measures for dealing with all such diseases within the State, and to suppress the same and prevent their spread. ’ ’

“Section 6. Power is hereby conferred on the Arkansas State Board of Health to make all necessary and reasonable rules and regulations of a general nature for the protection of the public health, and for the general amelioration of the sanitary and hygienic conditions within the State, for the suppression and prevention of infectious, contagious and communicable diseases, and for the proper enforcement of quarantine, isolation and control of such diseases; provided, however, that where a patient can be treated with reasonable safety to the public health, he shall not be removed from his home without his consent, or the cod sent of the parents or guardian, in case of a minor, and said rules and regulations, when so made, shall be printed in pamphlet form, with such numbers of ■copies as may be necessary for the distribution for information of health bodies, health and sanitary officers, and the public generally. But the State Board of Health shall not regulate the practice of medicine or healing, nor interfere with the right of any citizen to employ the practioner of his choice.” The language of the sections is broad enough to include all diseases and all remedies and specifically includes diseases which are infectious, contagious and communicable and the power to prevent the entry into and spread of such diseases in this State. It is commonly known that smallpox comes within the class of infectious and contagious diseases, and that it is prevented by vaccination and best controlled by isolation and quarantine. We think the language of the act necessarily includes the disease of smallpox and clearly confers the power upon the Board of Health to prevent its entry into and spread throughout the State by rule or order preventing unvaccinated persons from mingling with the other inhabitants of the State. It is true that the Board of Health is not authorized to manage or control the schools of the State, either public or private. That power is conferred upon other agencies. The prevention or spread of contagious or infectious diseases by preventing unvaccinated persons from associating with the school children and school teachers of the State in no way infringes upon the constitutional right to attend the schools or the management and control thereof by school boards or directors. It would not be contended that parents and guardians could send their children to school unclad and unfed. Other reasonable health regulations are just as important as food and clothing.

(3) II. It is a well established rule of law that legislative bodies have no right to delegate the law making power to executive officers or administrative boards, but it is settled in this State .that the Legislature may delegate “the power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes or intends to make its own action depend.” Boyd v. Bryant, 35 Ark. 69. We think Act 96, 1913, is essentially an act for the better protection of the health of the citizens of the State of Arkansas. It legislates against public diseases, and specially against the entry into and spread of diseases which are infectious, contagious or communicable.

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Bluebook (online)
204 S.W. 622, 134 Ark. 420, 1918 Ark. LEXIS 595, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-martin-ark-1918.