Minnesota Supreme Court, 1879

State v. Fleckenstein

Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided October 4, 1879 · Berry

26 Minn. 177; 2 N.W. 475; 1879 Minn. LEXIS 208 (Minnesota Reports)

Counsel

Geo. P. Wilson, Attorney General, for the State., S. W. Graham, for defendant.

Can I rely on this case?

Citation treatment has not been reviewed for this case. The notes below come from the citation graph and the Minnesota Revisor's amendment records, not from a review of how later courts treated this decision.

(as of 9/30/2026)

Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 1887, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

See our Terms of Use before relying on these notes. Report an error

Cases that cite this one

2 later published cases cite this decision.

State v. Nolan (Minn. 1887)
State v. Wheeler (Minn. 1880)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

Berry, J.

The defendant was indicted under Gen. St. c. 16, for selling intoxicating liquor without license, in the village of Blue Barth City, in the county of Faribault.

The village charter (Sp. Laws 1872, c. 36,) declares in section 14, that “the village council shall have the exclusive right to license persons vending, dealing in or disposing of spirituous, vinous, malt or fermented liquors within the limits, of said village; and persons so licensed shall not be required to obtain a license from the board of county commissioners,, and shall not be prosecuted for selling, bartering or disposing; of spirituous, vinous, malt or fermented liquors, if having first obtained license therefor, agreeably to the provisions of chapter 16 of the General Statutes.” This provision is identi*178cal with a provision made by section 3, art. 4, of the charter of the city of Eushford, (Sp. Laws 1869, c. 2,) the effect of which we have at this term had occasion to consider in State v. Pfeifer, ante, p. 175, with the difference that in the Eushford charter the word “without” is used before the words “having first obtained license, ” in place of the word “if” before the same words, in the provision above quoted from the charter of Blue Earth City.

We do not regard this difference as important to the general result. The word “if” cannot be intended to preserve the right of license in the county board, for the leading idea of the sentence in which it occurs is the exclusive authority of the village council to license. The words, “if having first obtained license therefor,” can, without violence, be read as referring to the license which the village council is authorized to grant. By no other reading can they be put in harmony with their context. So read, the provision is that a person licensed by the council shall not be required to obtain a license from the county board, and he shall not be prosecuted under the provisions of Gen. St. c. 16, for selling, etc., intoxicating liquors, if he has first obtained a license to sell, etc., from the village council. From this construction it follows that the rule laid down in the Pfeifer case is applicable to the case at bar.

The instruction given to the jury by the court below was in accordance with this rule, and there was no error in the conviction.

Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.