Court Opinion

ID: 9529378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:50:19.658088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:45.828639
License: Public Domain

BRAND, J.,
dissenting.
I join in the dissent of Mr. Justice Lusk, which is not only lucid, but in my opinion, unanswerable. I shall add only a brief comment.
*185The majority opinion, speaking of local cartage operations, expressly states that “plaintiff’s permit was not specifically directed to local cartage operations, because no such permit was required”. It is obvious that a permit granted by public authority operates to make lawful certain acts which would be unlawful if done without the permit. A permit, the terms of which authorized a person to wall? on the public street, or to eat his breakfast, would be utterly void. Permission imports the power or authority of refusal. Caldwell v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board, 117 W Va 706, 188 SE 122. As a noun, the word permit connotes the power to grant or withhold. Didlake v. Standard Insurance Company, 195 F2d 217. Again, a permit is defined as a written license or permission given by a person or persons having authority. Lazich v. City of Butte, 116 Mont 386, 151 P2d 260. A permit is a license granted by a competent authority by which some restraint or illegality is removed. Gordy v. Maestri, 170 L2 282, 127 So 628.
If Berry Transport, Inc., could have lawfully conducted intracity transportation without any permit, then the permit could not possibly be construed as authorizing what could be done without authorization. How then can the majority say, as they do, that “Such operations [i.e., intracity] are fully authorized under the permit it held at the time the 1917 Act was adopted, and now holds * * The majority statement, first, that no permit was required, and second, that intracity operations are fully authorized under a permit which was not required and which therefore could not authorize the doing of the acts in question, constitutes a basic contradiction which is beyond my power of comprehension.