Court Opinion

ID: 9625040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:25:46.119785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:59.766312
License: Public Domain

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE ADAIR:
(dissenting).
This is a timely and proper appeal from a final judgment entered August 9, 1954, in the district court of Lewis and Clark County adjudging, inter alia, that the Montana Liquor Control Board is without right or authority to issue licenses for the retail sale of beer or liquor within the exterior boundaries of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, including the town of Browning, Montana, unless the applicant therefor has first obtained a tribal permit from the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council, in accordance with Blackfeet Tribal Ordinance No. 134-53 and prohibiting the Montana Liquor Control Board from granting or issuing to Margaret R. Walter, Joe H. Lewis and Thomas E. Rodgers, Jr., licenses to sell liquor and beer at retail in the town of Browning, Montana, or within five miles thereof, within the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, except that said board may issue to Thomas E. Rodgers, Jr., a license to sell beer only at retail.
Both the Blackfeet Indian Tribe and the Montana Liquor ControlsBoard are subject to the laws enacted by the Congress of the United States as to matters within the boundaries of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the local Blackfeet tribal governing bodies are entitled to a voice as to who, among various persons fully meeting the qualifications prescribed by the state law, shall be permitted to engage in the beer or liquor traffic on the Indian Reservation.
The majority opinion states that it is unnecessary to go into the merits of the cause and decide the questions presented by the appeal for the reason that the cause as here presented has now become moot. I am wholly unable to subscribe to this view As was said in State ex rel. Henderson v. Cook, 353 Mo. 272, 182 S.W. (2d) 292, at page 294: “We think that it is not a moot case, for the reason that these parties have a right to a final determination of their rights. Moreover, the public will be affected by the proper enforcement of the liquor laws, and *562there is, also, a matter of costs. State ex rel. Brown v. Bird, 228 Mo. App. 800, 73 S.W. (2d) 821.”
This appeal should be decided on its merits. It appears to me that the judgment of the trial court is correct and it should be affirmed.