United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Everard's Breweries v. Day, 265 U.S. 545 (1924)

Everard's Breweries v. Day

Nos. 200 and 245

Argued March 4, 5, 1924

Decided June 9, 1924

265 U.S. 545

Syllabus

1. Section 2 of the Supplemental Prohibition Act of November 23, 1921, insofar as it prevents physicians from prescribing intoxicating malt liquors for medicinal purposes, is constitutional. P. 265 U. S. 557.

2. This provision does not violate the Tenth Amendment, since it is not an invasion of power reserved to the states. P. 265 U. S. 558.

3. It is supported both by the implied power of Congress to make laws necessary and proper for executing powers expressly granted

Page 265 U. S. 546

(Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 18) and by the clause of the Eighteenth Amendment specifically conferring power to enforce by "appropriate legislation" the prohibition of traffic in intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes. P. 265 U. S. 558.

4. The Court cannot say, in face of the contrary affirmation by Congress, that prohibiting traffic in intoxicating malt liquors for medicinal purposes has no real or substantial relation to the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment. P. 265 U. S. 560.

5. Nor can it be held that the act is an arbitrary and unreasonable prohibition of the use of valuable medicinal agents, in view of the determination of Congress, and the evidence supporting it, that intoxicating malt liquor possesses no substantial and essential medicinal properties, which, as respects the public health, cannot be supplied by permitting physician to prescribe spirituous and vinous intoxicating liquors in addition to nonintoxicating malt liquors. P. 265 U. S. 561.

6. Dealers in beer, ale and stout, who were prevented by the act from disposing of stocks acquired before it was passed, were not thereby. deprived of property without due process of law in violation of the Fifth Amendment. P. 265 U. S. 563.

Affirmed.

Appeals from decrees of the district court which dismissed the bills, for want of equity, in two suits brought by manufacturers and dealers in intoxicating malt liquors, to enjoin the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and other officials from enforcing a Supplemental Prohibition Act.

Page 265 U. S. 554