In re Donnellan

Citations

• 49 Wash. 460
• 95 P. 1085
• 1908 Wash. LEXIS 604

Syllabus

<p>Constitutional Law — Class Legislation — Sunday—Prohibition oe Amusements — Police Power. Bal. Code, § 7250, prohibiting the keeping open of any theater on Sunday is not unconstitutional as unreasonable, arbitrary or unnecessary for the protection of public health, safety or morals, or objectionable as class legislation, but is valid as an appropriate exercise of the police power.</p> <p>Statutes — Implied Repeal. The act of 1866 prohibiting the engaging of certain callings on Sunday was impliedly repealed by the act of 1881 covering the same subject.</p> <p>Statutes — Subjects and Titles — Number—Expression in Title —Crimes and Punishments. A general statute enacted as a complete penal code, relating to all ordinary crimes, entitled “an act relative to crimes and punishments and proceedings in criminal cases” does not violate the organic act (U. S. Rev. St., § 1924) which provides that every law shall embrace hut one subject expressed in its title; and the act may include a statute making it a misdemeanor to open a theater on Sunday.</p> <p>Same — Enactment—Validity. The penal code of 1881 having been enacted as an original bill, it is immaterial that the same was compiled by a commissioner who was without authority to prepare it.</p> <p>Same — Continuation of Prior Laws. The fact that an original bill embraces a portion of a prior law on the same subject does not make it a mere continuation of the prior law.</p> <p>Same — Repealing Provisions — Effect. The penal code of 1881 is shown to be an independent act complete in itself by § 1295 repealing all former laws.</p> <p>Same — Subjects and Titles — Expression in Title. An act entitled “an act defining certain crimes and declaring their punishment and amending the code of 1881 and certain statutes on the same subject” is sufficiently broad to include the re-enactment of a section of the code of 1881 providing a punishment for keeping open a theater on Sunday.</p> <p>Same — Repeal—Invalid Reenactment of Prior Law