Murphy v. California

Citations

• 225 U.S. 623
• 32 S. Ct. 697
• 56 L. Ed. 1229
• 1912 U.S. LEXIS 2109

Syllabus

<p>While the Fourteenth Amendment protects the citizen in his right to engage in any lawful business, it does not prevent legislation intended to.regulate useful occupations, which because of their nature and location, may prove injurious or offensive to the public.</p> <p>The Fourteenth Amendment docs not prevent a municipality from prohibitiñg any business which is inherently vicious and harmful.</p> <p>The Fourteenth Amendment does not prevent a State from regulating or prohibiting a non-useful occupation which may become harmful to the public, and the regulation or prohibition need not be postponed until the evil is flagrant.</p> <p>An ordinance prohibiting the keeping of billiard halls is not unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, either as depriving the owner of the hall of his property without duo process of law dr as denying him the equal protection of the laws.</p> <p>Where, in the exercise of the police power, the municipal authorities by ordinance determine that a certain- class of resorts should be prohibited as harmful to the public, the courts cannot except from the operation of the statute one of the class affected on the ground that his particular place does not produce the evil aimed at by the ordinance.</p> <p>One cannot be heard to complain of his money loss by reason of the legislating out of existence of a business in which he had invested and which is not protected by the Federal or state constitution and which he knew was subject to police regulation or prohibition.</p> <p>A classification in a statute regulating billiard halls based on hotels having twenty-five rooms is reasonable; and the Owner of a billiard hall, not connected with a hotel, is not denied equal protection of the laws by an ordinance prohibiting keeping billiard halls for hire because hotels having twenty-five rooms can maintain’a billiard hall for their regular guests.</p> <p>One who does not keep a hotel 'with less than the specified number of rooms, cannot be hea