State Ex Rel. Watts v. Cain
State Ex Rel. Watts v. Cain
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
The petitioner applied in the original jurisdiction of this Court for a rule requiring respondents to show cause why they should not be perpetually enjoined from bottling beer for sale and maintaining an establishment for such bottling.
The respondents made answer to the rule issued and also submitted a demurrer to the petition for insufficiency. By an order, filed June 14, 1907, this Court dismissed the petition and the reasons therefore will now be briefly stated.
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The main question is whether sections 6 and 12 of the said act authorize respondents to maintain the bottling establishment. Section six authorizes the members of the county dispensary board to buy in any market and retail within the State liquors and beverages as provided herein. Section -twelve provides: “The county dispensary board before permitting any dispenser to offer any liquor for sale shall cause the same to be put into packages of not less than one-half pint nor more than five gallons, and seal the same. The dispenser shall sell by the package only, and no person shall open the same or drink any of the contents on the premises.”
The power to purchase liquors in bulk and to retail liquors through the county dispensaries is undoubtedly given, and we think it also clear that the power to cause the liquors to be put into certain packages and sealed necessarily involves the power to bottle the same through such agencies as they may deem best, and that the establishment of a bottling plant *351 of their own is not beyond the power granted in the act. If the Legislature had intended that the liquors purchased in bulk by the board should be turned over to licensed bottlers to be put into packages required by law, other language would have been used. To cause, according to the Century Dictionary, means “(1) to act as a cause or agent in producing; effect; bring about, be the occasion of; (2) to make; force; compel;” and according to Webster’s International Dictionary, means’: “To effect as an agent; to produce; to be the occasion of; to bring about; to bring into existence; to make.” The language is certainly broad enough to include the power to effect or bring about the bottling through appliances and instrumentalities under their direct supervision. If the power to establish a bottling plant is not expressly given, it is necessarily implied.
“Where a power is conferred by statute everything necessary to carry out the power and make it effectual and complete will be implied.” 24 A. & E. Ency. Law, p. 614, and cases cited. “What is implied in a statute is as much a part of it as what is expressed.” Wilson v. National Bank of Nashville, 103 U. S., 770.
The fact that this construction would authorize the board to compete with petitioner in the manner of bottling is not a fatal objection, although to the extent of the loss of the patronage of the board of Richland County the value of petitioner’s license to him would be impaired.
While under section 36 of said act the petitioner became a licensee upon the payment of the annual license fee to the Richland county board, the license was not granted by the board but by the State under the statute, so that the same authority which licensed petitioner empowered the respondents to bottle. There being no exclusive grant to petitioner, such impairment of the value of his license as was incident to the exercise of the power conferred upon respondents is without remedy. City of Joplin v. Southwest Missouri Light Co., 191 U. S., 150; North Springs Water Co. v. Tacoma, 47 L. R. A., 214.
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Rule discharged and petition dismissed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- State Ex Rel. Watts v. Cain.
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- Syllabus
- 1. Mandamus. — An action for mandamus to protect a private right may be brought in the name of the citizen, and if he sue in name of State without permission it may be treated as surplusage. 2. Dispensaba' Law — County Board. — -Under secs. 6 and 12 of the Carey-Cothran act (25 stat., 1), a county dispensary board is empowered by implication to establish a bottling plant and to buy beer in bulk and bottle in its own plant for sale through the county dispensaries. 3. Constitutional Law. — One deriving all his authority to do an act from a special statute will not be heard to say any part of the act is unconstitutional. 4. Ibid. — Pleadings.—The question of the constitutionality of a statute not raised in a petition for mandamus will not be considered at instance of petitioner.