Court Opinion

ID: 9812043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:36:01.319872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:00.803340
License: Public Domain

WaliceR, J.,
concurring. I concur in the conclusion of the Court in this case but not for the reasons given in its opinion. The general or common law rule seems to be that the simple repeal, suspension or expiration of 'a repealing statute revives the repealed statute, whether such repeal was express or implied. Brinkley v. Swicegood, 65 N. C., 626; Southerland Stat. Const., section 168. But this rule is subject to a well-recognized exception, which is that when the repeal of a repealing statute is for the purpose of substituting another provision in its place, the implication of an intention to revive the repealed statute cannot arise, and especially if the substituted provision is repugnant to the *639original provision or is not properly cumulative to it. So the repeal of a statute which was a revision of and a substitute for a former act to the same general effect, and which was therefore repealed, cannot be deemed to revive the previous act; for this would be plainly contrary to the intention of the Legislature. Endlich Interp. of Statutes, section 475; Dwarris on Statutes, p. 159; Sutherland Stat. Const., p. 228. Our ease, I think, falls within the exception. By a succession of acts, commencing with chapter 16 of The Code, which was followed by Acts of 18'95, chapter 159; Acts of 1899, chapter 507; Acts of 1900, chapter 1, and finally by Acts of 1901, chapter 91, the Legislature has, from time to time, provided a complete scheme for the conduct and regulation of elections in the State, and it was manifestly the purpose that each of said acts should be a substitute for the one that preceded it, and that the last act, which entirely covered the ground of each of the others, should supersede them and become itself the final and full expression of the legislative will on the subject. I can discover nothing on the face of the last act to Rebut the intent which the law infers from the very nature of the several acts, but, in my opinion, there is everything to indicate that the real intention of the Legislature was in strict accordance with that which is presumed by the law. Again, the provision by Avliich the sale of liquor within five miles of a polling place and within the twelve hours next preceding or succeeding the day on which any public election is held, was inserted in the Acts of 1899, chapter 507, and the Acts of 1900, chapter 1, it being section 78 of each of said chapters, and it would be strange, indeed, if the Legislature intended to revive section 61 of chapter 159 of the Acts of 1895 containing the same provision, or section 2740 of The Code, .as argued in this Court, that it should have expressly repealed two acts with that provision in them without making *640the slightest reservation in respect to it. As far as the Act of 1895, section 61, is concerned, we find upon examination of the statutes that it was expressly repealed by the Acts of 1899, chapter 16, and as the latter act simply contained a repeal of the Act of 1895, and nothing more, the general rule applied, and the Code, chapter 16, including section 2140, and any intervening general election law repealed by the Act of 1895, were thereby revived; but, as the Acts of 1899 and 1900 revised all prior general election laws and substituted for them a scheme complete in itself, The Code, chapter 16, was repealed by them (Winslow v. Morton, 118 N. C., 486), and the subsequent repeal of those two acts by the Act of 1901, chapter 91, did not revive the provisions of The Code under the rule to which I have referred. It all therefore results in this: that the Act of 1901, chapter 91, was, at the time the offense is alleged to have been committed, the only law in force which regulated elections. I do not attach any special importance in this discussion to the words in section 86 of the Act of 1901, namely, “The law regulating elections as contained in this act shall be construed as above and not in connection with any existing provisions of law for the regulation of elections.” These words could not have referred to The Code, the Act of 1895 or any other intervening act in regard to general elections, for they had been repealed by the Act of 1899 and the Act of 1900 successively, and therefore were not “existing provisions of law,” and they could not have had reference to the Acts of 1899 and 1900, as they were expressly repealed by the Act of 1901, and could not therefore be construed in connection with the latter. While the omission of the words “or sell” from the Act of 1901 may have been the result of inadvertence, the general law, when considered in the light of well-settled rules of interpretation, does not now forbid the sale of liquor in the manner in which it is charged *641in the indictment to have been made, and the Court was right in granting the motion to quash.
Claes, C. J., and Douglas, J., concur in the concurring opinion.