Court Opinion

ID: 9809143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:02:08.37105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:25:18.054499
License: Public Domain

Douglas, J.,
dissenting. Regardless of any personal predilections, I am forced to dissent from the decision of the Court as a pure matter of law. It is impossible for me by any process of reasoning to bring my mind to the conclusion that the Legislature had a legal intention of doing something that I am morally certain never entered their minds.
It is a matter of common knowledge, borne out by the legislative journals and published laws, that the Legislature, after most careful consideration, enacted a general act intended to reduce the regulation of the whiskey traffic throughout the State to a uniform system as far as possible. In framing this act two bills were earnestly pressed by their respective supporters — the Watts bill, which was substantially adopted, and the London bill, which was ably drawn and expressed in clear and exact language the purposes of its distinguished author. These bills represented *619distinct schools of thought, and the adoption of one over the other was an unmistakable expression of legislative preference. At the same term at which the Legislature passed the general act and the act now held by the Court to be amendatory to the general act, it also passed twenty-five or thirty other acts relating to the same general subject. These acts profess to be local, like the act now construed by the Court as general in its operation, and, with four exceptions, are likewise printed in the public laws. Can we suppose that the Legislature intended every section in every one of these numerous acts to operate as an amendment to the general act unless specifically restricted in each section? If one of them can have such an effect, why should not the others ? If that were so, what would become of the general act, and what hope would there be of extricating the law from the hopeless confusion that would result? Oliver Cromwell denounced the laws of England in his time as “a tortuous and ungodly jumble.” If the great Protector were brought face to face with our liquor laws, including the general act with all the amendments constructively adhering thereto, and the infinite variety of municipal ordi nances passed thereunder, I fear that words would fail him.
But it may be asked what other construction is open to us ? The answer seems simple enough to me — construe those statutes to be general which on their face profess to be general, and those to be special which are avowedly special. Of course I am now alluding to conflicting statutes passed at the same session of the Legislature and in pari materia. Where there is neither conflict nor ambiguity in the statute, there is no room for interpretation. The act containing the section which the Court now says is general in its application is specifically entitled, “An Act to prohibit •the manufacture, sale and importation of liquors in Cleve*620land, Gabarrus, Mitchell and Gaston CountiesI know that it has been said that the caption or title is no part of 'the act. This was so originally, because in England all acts of Parliament passed at the same session were considered as one act. The separate acts had no captions when passed, and hence the captions were not the words of Parliament, but of the speaker or some parliamentary clerk, who subsequently added them thereto. But now, since the title has become a part of the act as passed by the Legislature itself, the rule is necessarily different. Indeed, the title has become so essential a part of the act that it is sometimes taken as the act itself. Section 23 of Article II of the Constitution provides that “All bills and resolutions of a legislative character shall be read three times in each House before they pass into laws.”
It is a well known fact that bills are rarely ever read in full except on the second reading, if then; and that they are habitually “read by title” on both the other readings. If the Legislature did not consider the title as an essential part of the bill, giving substantial notice of its contents, would not such habitual action be a flagrant violation of the Constitution ?
I have said that these acts are in pari materia, being passed by the same Legislature, at the same session and upon the same general subject-matter. They should therefore be construed together so as to preserve them both as complete and effective acts, each operating within its own sphere of action. 26 Am. & Eng. Ency. (2 Ed.), 620, el seq., and cases cited therein; Black Int. Laws, sec. 86; Sedgwick Stat. & Const. Law, 241; Endlich on Int. of Stats., secs. 43, 44, 45, 56; State v. Bell, 25 N. C., 506; Simonton v. Lanier, 71 N. C., 498; Rhodes v. Lewis, 80 N. C., 136; Bowles v. Cochran, 93 N. C., 398; Wortham v. Basket, 99 N. C., 70; Wilson v. Jordan, 124 N. C., 683. I do not feel that any *621legal principle forces me to impose such a constructive intent upon the Legislature, and I-feel sure that no such intent existed in fact. Custom permits the writer of a dissenting opinion to allude to known facts outside the record. In the light of such facts it will hardly be contended that the Legislature actually intended the act in question to apply to any counties other than those mentioned in its title. I understand that the author of the bill disclaims any such general application; and I am informed on the highest authority that when the bill was read in the Senate, it was distinctly asked and positively answered that it did not apply to any counties other than those named therein. Upon that assurance it was passed.
It is not for me to discuss the merits of the act, but, in answer to a suggestion in the opinion of the Court, I may say that the practical effect of the section is not so much to restrict the traffic as to force it into the hands of nonresidents who can carry it on with impunity? All that the present defendant has to do is to “move a little further from the road,” over into the State of Virginia, and continue his business. But this does not influence me in my view of the law. As to the moral effect of a statute not resting upon the will of the people, I may be permitted to express-my doubts. After years of faithful devotion to the cause of temperance, I am satisfied that it can never rest upon a legal fiction, and that no great moral question ever made any permanent advancement along the pathway of indirection.