Court Opinion

ID: 9546989
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:39:12.104334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:06.963836
License: Public Domain

PORTER, Justice
(dissenting).
It appears to me that the majority opinion well and correctly states in the abstract the applicable principles of law. However, I conceive that the opinion, in the light of such principles, does not correctly interpret the 1947 local option law.
The opinion recognizes that liquor licenses are automatically terminated by an adverse local option election unless there is a saving clause or an intention to the contrary to be found in the local option law. There is no saving clause in the 1947 act. Let us consider the grounds upon which the opinion concludes that the act, as a whole, expresses the intention that outstanding liquor licenses should not be terminated by an adverse election.
It is stated that the 1947 legislature is presumed to have considered and consulted the repealed local option law of 1909. The fact that the 1947 act does not follow the act of 1909, indicates, it is averred, a change of policy. The 1909 act contained *222an express saving clause providing that outstanding licenses issued after the passage of the act would expire three months after a negative local option election. Absent such saving clause, licenses would have expired immediately upon such negative election. To me, the fact that the 1947 legislature did not follow the saving clause in the 1909 act, indicates that the legislature intended the outstanding licenses to terminate immediately.
The 1909 act provided for a refund of the unearned portion of the license fees. The 1947 act has no such express provision. The majority opinion cites and paraphrases Roberts v. Boise City, 23 Idaho 716, 132 P. 306, wherein it is stated that where a license granted by a municipality becomes inoperative by the act of the municipality or by operation of law, the licensee may recover the unearned portion of- the license fees. Under such authority, the provision in the 1909 act for the refund of the unearned portion of the license fees, did not add anything to the rights of licensees under the act. The absence of such provision in the 1947 act does not deprive the licensees of their right to recover the unearned portion of their license fees.
The majority opinion' states that the license fees are substantial and, “that the legislature did not intend that any refund should be made is obvious.” I inquire, what provision in the law makes such conclusion obvious? If the unearned portions of the license fees are recoverable, wherein would the municipality be transgressing “the same rules of honesty and fair dealing that are expected and demanded under like circumstances from the individual”?. It seems to me that the 1947 act more surely violates fair dealing if it be interpreted to mean that the citizens of Nampa were compelled to tolerate the sale of liquor by the drink with its attendant evils for a period of over nine months after they had voted to prohibit such sales.
The fact that the licenses are all made to expire on December 31 of each year, is not peculiar to the 1947 act. Liquor licenses •usually are issued on an annual basis.
I do not find anything in the 1947 local option law nor in its analysis in the majority opinion which indicates an intention on the part of the legislature to depart from the general law that liquor licenses automatically expire at the time óf an adverse local option election. The judgment of the trial court should be reversed.