Case ID: tenn_37/html/0608-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Weight, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State vs. Charles S. Douglass.
    1. CRIMINAL Law. Keeping billiard table. Acts of 1817, ah. 179, and 1820, eh. 13. License. It is unlawful and indictable under the laws of this State, to erect or keep a billiard table for use, and no license can be lawfully issued for such purpose.
    2. Statute. Construction. Condition precedent. Where a statute forbids the doing of an act, except upon a condition precedent, which it is impossible to perform, the condition is valid and the prohibition absolute.
    3. Same. Same. Same. If a statute forbids the doing of a thing without license, and provides that no license shall issue therefor, this would prohibit the act entirely.
    FROM KNOX.
    The defendant was indicted in the Circuit Court of Knox county, for keeping a billiard table “without a license.” At the October Term, 1857, Judge WelckeR, quashed the indictment, from which Attorney General McAdoo, on behalf of the State, appealed.
    J. B. Heiskell and W. B. Reese, Jr., for the State.
    J. R. Cocke, for the defendant.
   Weight, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an indictment for unlawfully erecting and keeping a billiard table, without having first obtained a license therefor. The Circuit Judge quashed the indictment, and the State has appealed to this Court.

The Circuit Judge erred in quashing this indictment. The act of 1817, ch. 179, makes it unlawful for any clerk in this State to issue a license to erect, keep, or keep erected for use, any billiard table in this State, and if any license shall issue, declares it void. And if any person shall erect, or keep erected, any billiard table for use, in any county in the State, he is subjected to a forfeiture of $2000 00, to be recovered by action of debt, one-half to the use of the State, and the other half to him who will sue for the same.

The act of 1820, ch. 13, in addition to the penalty imposed by the act of 1817», makes this offense indictable in the Circuit Court of the county where the offense shall have been committed, and on conviction, subjects the offender to fine and imprisonment. Now it is manifest, that under this act the indictment was maintainable.

It is said the Court below proceeded upon the ground, that inasmuch as the act of 1820 forbids the keeping a billiard table without first having obtained a license therefor;” and the act of 1817 prohibits the license altogether, it must be implied that the Legislature meant to provide means to take out license, and having failed to provide the means of doing the act lawfully, which it did not intend absolutely to prohibit, the license cannot be required. This construction cannot be maintained. If the Legislature say that an act shall not be performed, except upon a condition precedent, which it is impossible to perform, the condition is valid and the prohibition absolute.

They might say that a certain act should not be done without license, and that no license should issue, and this would prohibit the act entirely.

Reverse the judgment and remand the cause.