19 Haw. 628 | Haw. | 1909
Lead Opinion
OPINION OF THE COURT BY
The defendant was charged with carrying on a laundry business without obtaining a license therefor which is required by Sec. 1418 I, Act 96 S. L. 1907. The defendant demurring to
The act was probably not intended to authorize the treasurer to impose conditions for granting an application for a laundry license and it is only if such meaning is clear that the act ought to be declared invalid; but even if such power were given to the treasurer the remainder of the act would not therefore be invalid provided the certificate of the board of health is properly required.
In the Tai Kee case, 12 Haw. 164, it was held that a statute giving the minister of the interior power to refuse a license for a lodging house “in any location which in the opinion of the Executive Council is unsuited for the purpose, or which the
King v. Tong Lee, 4 Haw. 335, held that an act was valid which prohibited public laundry business in Honolulu except in laundries erected by the minister of the interior and under the supervision and control of the board of health. The court remarked that under the general law giving the board power “to enter upon any land, building or vessel for the purpose of examining and preventing any nuisance or source of filth” it had “all the power over this business of crashing * * * to enable it to carry out its functions as guardians of the public health;” and that laundries “are not manifestly and palpably nuisances. With proper drainage or sewerage whereby to dispose of the contaminated water and soapsuds, a laundry is far from being unwholesome or capable of affecting the public health. The want of sewerage in this town of Honolulu was undoubtedly the ground for the enactment of this law. The proper disposition of the contaminated water from either public or private laundries is a legitimate matter for the regulation of the Board of Health.” But the court held that the object of the act, “however injudiciously expressed, is plainly to repress what in the opinion of the Legislature tends to the dissemination and propagation of disease.”
While laundries may not be “manifestly and palpably nuisances” and with proper attention to sewerage and drainage they may not per se be “unwholesome or capable of affecting the public health,” they may be injurious to the health of persons residing near them for clothing not disinfected is capable of carrying germs of disease, especially in an epidemic, and the risk of their being sprayed as in Territory v. Ah Choy and Ah Tuck, 17 Haw. 331, would render their proximity unsafe in a sanitary point of view.
We see no reason why the legislature could not properly regard a laundry as liable to be harmful to the public health and
The demurrer should be overruled.
Dissenting Opinion
DISSENTING OPINION OP
There is a clear distinction between occupations which may be regarded as harmful or dangerous in themselves, such as that of selling intoxicating liquors, and those which, like keeping a lodging house or doing a laundry business, are necessary to the welfare or convenience of the community, and which are harmful or dangerous, if at all, only because in the particular way in which they may be conducted. In the former no person has an absolute right to engage; in the latter all persons have an equal right to engage. The former may be regulated or restricted to any extent even to the extent of prohibition; the latter may be regulated only to a reasonable extent ‘and with reference to the evils to be remedied or avoided. Where discretionary powers are placed in executive officers there should be something in the statute to guide or control the action of the officers. Tai Kee v. Minister, 11 Haw. 51, 63; 12 Haw. 161, 165.
In the present case the statute provides that one desiring to operate a laundry shall be unable to procure a license therefor without a certificate of the board of health that the location at which it is proposed to operate such a laundry is suitable for the purpose. Thus it is within the arbitrary power of the board of health to say that the proposed location of a laundry
It is urged that the court in the first Tai Kee case in 11 Haw., at p. 62, practically upheld such a provision in regard to lodging houses. The statute there required as a condition for obtaining a license that the applicant procure a certificate from the board of health certifying that the premises are in good sanitary condition and suitable to be used for the desired purpose. In that case then there was something in the statute to control or guide the action of the board of health, that is, that the building desired to be used as a lodging house should be in good sanitary condition and consequently suitable for the purpose. If it was not in good sanitary condition the applicant could make it so and then be entitled to the certificate. If the board of health had power in that case to arbitrarily withhold the certificate because in its opinion it was not suitable to have a lodging house on any particular street, regardless of any sanitary reason, it would be practically like the case at bar. I fail to see what the location of a laundry has to do with any evil to be remedied in connection with the carrying on of such a business. There are many places in Honolulu which without doubt would be regarded as unsuitable locations for laundries simply from an aesthetic standpoint, or because they were to be operated by orientals, or on account of other reasons not connected with sanitation, and which would be within the power-of the board of health to so hold; and yet I think it is clear the legislature has no power to allow the board of health to withhokl a certificate on such grounds.
It is suggested that the statute should be held constitutional if possible and that in order to hold it so it should be presumed that the legislature intended that the board of health should refuse a certificate for sanitary reasons only. That same argument in regard to the executive council was made in Tai Kee v. Minister, 12 Haw. 164, 167, and this court answered it as follows: “But it is not sufficient that the executive council may act fairly under the statute or even that it has acted fairly in any particular case. The statute is unconstitutional because by its terms the executive council may act arbitrarily however unlikely it may be to do so.”
It is further suggested that, from the fact that the board of health as such is designated -as the body to issue a certificate that the proposed location of a laundry is suitable, thus giving the power to refuse a certificate if in its opinion the location-is not suitable, the statute should be construed to mean that the
In The City of Richmond v. Dudley, 129 Ind. 112, an ordinance purported to confer power on the common council to grant permission to an applicant to keep inflammable or explosive oils in quantities greater than five barrels at a time, “if the location,” among other things, should be deemed “suitable and proper.” The ordinance was held invalid, the court saying, •among other tilings, “Language better calculated to enable the common council to arbitrarily control the business, without any fixed or known rules, can not well be imagined. The business of keeping, storing and dealing in such oils is a legitimate business, and every citizen has an inherent right to engage in the business upon equal terms with any other citizen. * * It seems from the foregoing authorities to be well established that municipal ordinances placing restrictions upon lawful conduct, or the lawful use of property, must, in order to be valid, specify the rules and conditions to be observed in such conduct or business;
According to the definitions in Webster’s and the Century dictionaries “suitable” means fitting, capable of suiting, appropriate. White v. U. S., 69 Fed. 93.
To strike out of the statute all reference to the location of a laundry would necessitate holding the rest of the statute invalid.
I dissent from the opinion of the majority.