Court Opinion

ID: 9586900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:16:18.669565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:55.462626
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
MacIntyre, P. J.
The act of 1937-38 (Ga. L. 1937-38, Ex. Sess., p. 103) in its title and in its body expressly states that it is an amendatory act, and when we certified a question relative to such act to the Supreme Court, in answering the question, that court, in Pierce v. State, 200 Ga. 384, 386 (37 S. E. 2d, 201), stated: “The -act approved February 3, 1938 (Ga. L. 1937-38, Ex. Sess., p. 103), known as the ‘Revenue Tax Act to Legalize and Control Alcoholic Beverages and Liquors,’ very substantially amended the then-existing prohibition law in certain respects.” (Emphasis added.) We are convinced therefore that the act of 1937-38 is an amendatory act.
The case of Leonard v. State of Georgia, ex rel. Lanier, 204 Ga. 465 (50 S. E. 2d, 212), cited by counsel for the defendant, does not hold that the general prohibition law, as embodied in the “bone dry” law as a whole, Code § 58-101 et seq., is repealed directly or by implication in Georgia in wet counties; but merely held that the act of 1937-38 (Ga. L. 1937-38, Ex. Sess., p. 103, 111, as embodied in Code, Ann. Supp., § 58-1029) was a part *183•of a later revising statute which clearly covered the whole subject-matter of an older statute, as embodied in the act of 1890-91 (Ga. L. 1890-91, pp. 132, 133; Code, Ann. Supp., § 58-601) and that the older act as embodied in Code, Ann. Supp., § 58-601 was impliedly “repealed or suspended” by the later act of 1937-38 (Ga. L. 1937-38, Ex. Sess., p. 103; Code, Ann. Supp., § 58-1029) because it was necessary, on account of the repugnancy between them, in order to make the later act operative, to abrogate the older law and that the later act only abrogated the -older law to the extent that it is inconsistent and irreconcilable with the later act. Some of the older general local option .statutes, when dealing with earlier general acts, “suspended” the prior general acts when a county had voted dry. Crabb v. State, 88 Ga. 584, 588 (supra). Some of the general local option .•acts, under like circumstances, used the words “removed from the operation of” the general act by the later general local option act. We think that in the Leonard case the court was using the words “repealed or suspended” more in the sense of suspended .than repealed and that the Leonard case is not in conüict with what is said in the main opinion in the instant case.
In Mayes v. Daniel, 186 Ga. 345, 354 (4), the only question presented in division four of that opinion was whether the act in question “violates art. 3, sec. 7, par. 17, of the Constitution, ■which declares: ‘No law, or section of the Code, shall be amended -or repealed by mere reference to its title, or to the number of the section of the Code, but the amending or repealing act shall distinctly describe the law to be amended or repealed, as well as -the alteration to be made.’ The plaintiffs allege: (1) Section 2 of said act seeks to amend a general law of the State by reference only to a title number of the Code. (2) Section 3 of said .act seeks to amend a general law of the State by reference only 'to chapter numbers of the Code.” The court decided this question as follows: “When we consider the manifest purpose of •the constitutional provision, which was none other than that the members of the General Assembly should be fully put on notice •of what -law it was that the bill proposed to amend (See Fullington v. Williams, 98 Ga. 807, 810, 27 S. E. 183), and reading the -act itself., we can not believe that the act should be struck •down by reason of any repugnancy to the provision of the Con*184stitution above quoted.” Any other statement of law in division 4 of that opinion enunciated by the court by way of illustration, argument, analogy, or suggestion was not essential to the determination of the question there presented and is obiter dictum.
This same idea, as expressed in Mayes v. Daniel, supra, is expressed in Barber v. Housing Authority of the City of Rome, 189 Ga. 155, 159 (5 S. E. 2d, 425), thus: concerning the rule where there is a failure to describe sufficiently, under art. 3, sec. 7, par. 17, of the Constitution, an act to be amended, the purpose of the requirement is to put the members of the General Assembly on reasonable notice as to the law intended to be amended or repealed so that they may ascertain if and how an old law is intended to be modified. This later case cites and relies upon the Mayes case, supra, as authority and cites Fullington v. Wliliams, supra; Adam v. Wright, 84 Ga. 720 (11 S. E. 893); Town of Maysville v. Smith, 132 Ga. 316, 318-320 (64 S. E. 131); Tyson v. Doerun, 155 Ga. 367 (2), 371 (116 S. E. 615); Holland v. State, 155 Ga. 795 (2), 800 (118 S. E. 203).
The statement in Womack v. State, 60 Ga. App. 761, 762 (5 S. E. 2d, 96), upon which counsel for defendant relies, that in wet counties “the old law, making it a penal offense to possess whisky or to keep it for sale at a place of business, has been directly repealed,” we think, is not an accurate statement. While the statement is too broad, the case was correctly decided on its particular facts, but we think that the effect of the act of 1937-38 (Ga. L. 1937-38, Ex. Sess., p. 103), which permits counties to vote wet, was merely intended to suspend or remove the liquors therein described from the operation of the law as stated in Code § 58-101 et seq.
Where a county has voted wet under the provisions of the act in question, as amended, that county can be restored to its former dry status by merely holding an election under the provisions of such act as amended. No new statute repealing this act, which permits a county to vote wet, is necessary in order for the wet county to return to its dry status; for, under the act in question as amended, by an election as provided for therein the suspension of the general prohibition law, which had been brought about by the county’s voting wet, could be removed and the *185uounty thereby restored to its dry status. Thus, under this act as amended a county may alternately at.its pleasure, within the limitations of the statute, vote wet or vote dry.
We do not think that the act of 1937-38 (Ga. L. 1937-38, Ex. 'Sees., p. 103) directly repealed the entire general prohibition law in wet counties.

Rehearing denied.

Gardner and Townsend, JJ., concur.