Court Opinion

ID: 9866281
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 02:45:31.365153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:17:29.327273
License: Public Domain

Upon Petition for Rehearing.
On November 26, 1948, the following opinion was filed:
Per Curiam.
In his petition for rehearing, respondent contends that appellant Benz company made no objection to any part of L. 1947, c. 528, ex*22cept the portion which provides that any person licensed to manufacture and wholesale intoxicating liquor may not have a license to manufacture and wholesale wine. All of c. 528, including the license fee provision, was attacked on constitutional grounds in the complaints of interveners Ed. Phillips & Sons Company and Griggs Cooper & Company, which brought before us the constitutionality of the license fee provisions of the amendment, as well as the separation feature of intoxicating liquor and wine. We set forth in the original opinion that the “allegations of the complaints in intervention indicate that interveners have a legal interest in the determination of the constitutionality of the amendment to § 340.11, subd. 12.”
The only pertinent changes made by L. 1947, c. 528 (hereinafter referred to as the amendment) in clause (a) of M. S. A. 340.11, subd. 12 (hereinafter referred to as the old law), was the omission of the following words in that clause: “except that a manufacturer of wines containing not more than 24 per cent of alcohol by volume shall pay to the state an annual license fee of $250.”
The only pertinent changes made by the 1947 amendment in clause (b) of the old law was the omission in that clause of “wholesalers of wine containing not more than 24 per cent of alcohol by volume” from those who were required to pay to the state an annual license fee of $250.
Clause (c) of the amendment is new, and provides in the first sentence that manufacturers and wholesalers of wines shall pay an annual license fee of $1,000 instead of $250, as provided in the old law. The next sentence of clause (c) of the amendment provides for the separation of the manufacture and wholesale of intoxicating liquors from wines. Clause (c) of the old law became clause (d) of the amendment and contained identically the same language as before) and was neither specifically attacked by the contesting parties nor considered by us.
M. S. A. 645.20 provides in part as follows:
“* * * If any provision of a law is found to be unconstitutional and void, the remaining provisions of the law shall remain valid, unless the court finds the valid provisions of the law are so essen*23tially and inseparably connected with, and so dependent upon, the void provisions that the court cannot presume the legislature would have enacted the remaining valid provisions without the void one.”
Respondent argues that there should be a rehearing for the purpose of clarifying the court’s decision. He claims that he does not know from the decision whether it was the intention of the court to hold L. 1947, c. 528, unconstitutional in its entirety or only that part of it which provides that a wine manufacturer and wholesaler cannot have a hard liquor manufacturer’s and wholesaler’s license.
It is our intention to hold clauses (a), (b), and (c) of the amendment unconstitutional, since it appears to us that the valid provisions of these clauses are so essentially and inseparably connected with and dependent upon the void provisions that this court cannot presume that the legislature would have enacted the remaining valid provisions without the void ones. It is reasonable to believe that when the legislature attempted to separate the manufacturing and wholesaling of intoxicating liquors from wines and increase the license fees for wines from $250 to $1,000 it must have considered that the elimination of intoxicating liquor manufacturers and wholesalers from the sale of wine would justify an increase in the license fees for manufacturers and wholesalers of wine. Otherwise we do not think that it would have singled out the wine manufacturers and wholesalers alone for an increase in the license fee unless it believed that the separation feature of the amendment was valid. In declaring clauses (a), (b), and (c) of the amendment unconstitutional, it does not change the license provisions contained in clauses (a), (b), and (c) of the old law (M. S. A. 340.11, subd. 12), and it is our opinion that any of the groups required to pay license fees under those provisions prior to the enactment of L. 1947, c. 528, clauses (a), (b), and (c), since declared unconstitutional, would be required to strictly comply with the provisions thereof and pay the license fees provided for by § 340.11, subd. 12, clauses (a), (b), and (c), the same as though L. 1947, c. 528, clauses (a), (b), and (■c), had never been enacted or declared unconstitutional.
Petition for rehearing denied.