Werner v. Washington

29 F. Cas. 705, 2 Hayw. & H.D.C. 175, 1854 U.S. App. LEXIS 539
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of District of Columbia
DecidedDecember 23, 1854
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 29 F. Cas. 705 (Werner v. Washington) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of District of Columbia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Werner v. Washington, 29 F. Cas. 705, 2 Hayw. & H.D.C. 175, 1854 U.S. App. LEXIS 539 (circtddc 1854).

Opinion

MORSELL, Circuit Judge,

oh behalf of himself and colleague, DUNLOP, Circuit Judge, delivered a concurrent opinion in this ease, as follows: This is the ease of an appeal from a judgment of a justice of the peace, rendered on the 7th of November, 1854, in favor of the mayor, board of aldermen and board of common council, of the city of Washington, against Charles Werner, for twenty dollars fine, and fifty-eight cents costs, for the violation of a bylaw of the corporation. The warrant charges that said Charles Werner, keeper of a tavern in the Fourth district, at the city of "Washington, did sell and barter brandy, rum, gin, whiskey and other spirituous liquors, mixed and unmixed wine, cordial, strong beer and cider, in quantities less than a pint, on the 7th day of November, 1854, in the Fourth district, at said city of Washington, contrary to the acts of the mayor, &e., on that subject made and provided. The by-law under which this proceeding was had is entitled “An act to prohibit tippling houses, and to suppress the sale by the small, of spirituous and intoxicating liquors,” and it enacts that, “from and after the first Monday in November then next, tippling-houses, or shops, be and the same are hereby prohibited in the city of Washington, and that it shall not be lawful after the said first Monday in November for any person or persons in any part of the city of Washington, to sell and barter any brandy, rum. gin, whiskey, or other spirituous liquors, mixed or unmixed wine, cordial, strong beer or cider in quantities less than [706]*706a pint, and every person or persons, who shall sell or barter as aforesaid, shall, on conviction thereof, forfeit and pay a fine for each and every offence of twenty dollars, to be collected and applied as other fines due said corporation, and on failure to pay said fine, or of securing the payment of the same, the person or persons so offending shall be committed to the workhouse for a term not less, nor more than GO days.” By the second section, so much of the act approved respectively June 3, 1853, entitled “An act to license and tax and regulate taverns and ordinaries,” and of the act regulating the sale of spirituous intoxicating liquors, as authorized the mayor to grant licenses for the sale or barter of the aforesaid liquors in quantities less than, a pint; and all acts and parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act were repealed. This act was passed the 8th of October, 1854. On the 1st of November the appellant obtained from the corporation a license to keep a tavern in the usual form, he having complied with all the requests of the corporation laws, under which he claimed the right, and did sell at the bar of his tavern in the usual way to his guests, &c., the liquors as charged in said warrant. No objection has been made to the form of the warrant.

The corporation claims the power to pass the by-law under the provisions contained in the charter of 1820 (section 7), which is in these words: “To provide for licensing, taxing and regulating auctions, retailers, ordinaries, and taverns, hackney carriages, wagons, carts and drays, pawnbrokers, venders of lottery tickets, money-changers and brokers and peddlers,” and under the amended charter of 1848 (section 2, par. 2), which is in these words: “With power to punish those who may sell intoxicating liquors without obtaining licenses therefor, by fines not less than five dollars, and in default of the payment thereof, by imprisonment and labor in the work-house for a term not exceeding 90 days.”

The questions involved in this case have been presented to the court in able arguments on both sides, the most impoitant of which is, whether the corporation had power to pass the by-law mentioned in this case, so as to give it the supposed operation to prohibit the appellant, a regularly licensed tavern-keeper in the usual course of his business as such, from selling at the bar of his said tavern, to his guests the ardent liquors mentioned in said warrant, in quantities less than a pint? Many grounds have been urged in the arguments pro and con and they have had respectful consideration, some of the most material of which I shall endeavor to state.

The attorney of the corporation correctly assumes that congress had the power to prohibit such sales; and also that the states had a right to regulate their internal commerce and police institutions, not conflicting with the constitutional provisions on the subject, and for that purpose he referred to several decisions of the supreme court. Has that power been granted to the corporation? He supposes that to regulate a tavern and ordinary, and the power to restrain a tippling house, being in the same grant for the same purpose, must be construed together; that the power to regulate implies and carries with it the powef to prohibit, to the extent necessary to regulate; similar to the power possessed by congress; that selling intoxicating liquors at the bar of a licensed tavern to the guests in such tavern, is a tippling in the offensive sense and expressly within the terms of the charter giving the power to prohibit. It is, however, conceded by him, that in such a tavern or ordinary the furnishing of liquors to the guests at their meals is not prohibited.

On the part of the appellant it is contended that the power to regulate licensed taverns extends only to the manner of carrying it on, not to prohibit it or change its nature; that the bylaw is in restraint of a lawful trade, not within the power contained in the charter, in its terms so general and extensive as it involves absurd consequences, and that it being conceded that such tavern-keeper has the right to sell to his guests spirituous liquors by the small, to be used at their meals, the law is shown to be void in part, and being void in part, is void in toto. If the corporation had the power to pass the by-law in question, that power must be derived to it under the charter of 1820. The charter of 1848 has nothing else for its object than to add additional means to give complete effect to the pecuniary mode of punishing the offence of selling spirituous liquors without license, which it before had not exercised; no new offense is created or increase of power otherwise given.

It may be conceded that the paragraph, “to restrain tippling houses,” may be taken in connection with that to provide for the licensing, taxing, and regulating ordinaries and taverns, without, however, admitting the conclusion that a licensed ordinary or tavern, in the sense it is used in the charter of 1S20, selling at its bar ordinary liquors in quantities less than a pint, is a tippling house such as is described in the 10th paragraph. A corporation is the creature of the charter, and can possess no other or greater powers than such as are either expressly given or necessarily implied. The language used t'o express the terms is certainly different. The one is to regulate, the other to restrain or prohibit; and it may be reasonably supposed that congress intended the distinction which they impart. If prohibition or absolute control in both instances was intended, then it would have been so expressed. The unreasonableness of the position will appear by carrying out the idea in reference to some of the subjects standing in the same category and the same paragraph, as to license, &c., wagons, carts and drays. Can it be supposed that power was intended to be given entirely to suppress and break up that branch of trade? Again the same terms occur in the three preceding paragraphs, “to regulate public wharves, the manner of erecting and the rates of wharf-age;” "to regulate the stationing, anchorage, [707]

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Bluebook (online)
29 F. Cas. 705, 2 Hayw. & H.D.C. 175, 1854 U.S. App. LEXIS 539, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/werner-v-washington-circtddc-1854.