Case ID: iowa_82/html/0400-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Kotheock, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State of Iowa, Appellee, v. John M. Coonan, Appellant.
    Intoxicating Liquors: original package house : nuisance. The defendant, as agent for parties residing in Wisconsin, received from the latter at the town of Spencer, in this state, consignments of intoxicating liquors, which had been put up in bottles, sealed, labeled and packed in boxes or barrels, for convenience of shipment, in Wisconsin. The liquors thus received were removed ; from the boxes or barrels, and were kept for sale and sold by the defendant in said town, in the sealed bottles, which were not permitted to be opened upon the premises. Held, that such sales were by original packages,. and, being made prior to the enactment of the act of August 8, 1890, the Fifty-first Congress, 26 St. 318, were not illegal under the provisions of chapter 143 of the Acts of the Twentieth General Assembly.
    
      Appeal from, Q lay District Court. — Hon. Lot Thomas, Judge.
    Wednesday, May 13, 1891.
    j This is an action in equity' to enjoin tbe defendant from maintaining a nuisance by keeping intoxicating liquors for sale contrary to law. Notice was given of tbe application for an injunction, and a bearing was bad, and a temporary injunction was granted. Tbe defendant appeals.
    
    Reversed.
    
      B. B. Kelley, for appellant.
    No appearance for appellee.
   Kotheock, J.

Tbe defendant was tbe keeper of wbat was known as an “original package bouse,” at Spencer, in Clay county. He was not tbe owner of the packages of liquor which be kept for sale, but was tbe agent of certain parties in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. These parties were lessees of tbe building, and tbe same was occupied by tbe defendant as their agent. They shipped the liquors kept for sale in said building' from Milwaukee to Spencer, Iowa, consigned to themselves; and the defendant received them as the agent of said Milwaukee parties. The beer which was kept for sale was put up in bottles at Milwaukee, sealed and labeled, a,nd for convenience of shipment was placed in open frame boxes with twenty-four separate compartments. The whiskey was in bottles, sealed and labeled, which bottles were, for convenience of shipment, packed in barrels. The defendant removed the bottles from the boxes and barrels, and sold them as they were sealed and labeled, and purchasers were not permitted to open the bottles and use the liquor upon the premises. As we understand it this was strictly an original package establishment, and was authorized by the decision of the supreme court of the United States in Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100; 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 681. That the separate bottles were original packages — that is, in the form in which they were put up by the shipper for sale — we think there can be no doubt. At least such has been the holding of this court. Collins v. Hills, 77 Iowa, 181; In re Beine, 42 Fed. Rep. 545.

It is proper to observe that the case at bar was heard and determined in the court below before the recent act of congress relating to the laws of the several states pertaining to the regulation or prohibition of the traffic in intoxicating liquors.

The decree of the district court will be reversed.