Case ID: ala_3/html/0735-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "ORMOND, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State v. Fillyaw.
    1. The penalty provided by law, for keeping a billiard table for play without a license, can only be enforced by a gvi tain action at the Bmtof an informer.
    Error to the Circuit Court of Barbour.
    THIS was an indictment against the defendant, for setting up and using a billiard table for play, without first obtaining a license therefor, contrary to the-statufe, &c. The jury found the defendant guilty, and assessed his fine to one hundred a.nd fifty dollars. The defendant moved in arrest of judgment on the ground,
    1. That keeping a billiard table for play was not an in-, dictable offence.
    3. That the penalty for a violation of the statute was only recoverable at the suit of a common informer.
    The Court refused to arrest the judgment, hut reserved, the questions of law for the revision of this Court, as novel and difficult.
    The Attorney General, for the State.
    Lewis, contra,
   ORMOND, J.

The indictment in this case cannot be sustained. The penalty for keeping a billiard table for play, without license, is the sum of “ four thousand dollars, to be recovered in any Court having jurisdiction thereof, one half to the person for suing the same, and the other half to the State,” Aik. Dig. 411. The act of January 9th 1836, which abolishes taxation'in the State for the support of the government, retains this tax on billiard tables; it is therefore certain that the only mode in which the penalty can be enforced, is by a qui tam action at the suit of an informer.

The judgment must therefore be reversed.