THE
UNITED STATES vs LUIS TORIBIO
Facts:
Appellant
in the case at bar was charged for the violation of sections 30 & 33 of Act
No. 1147, an Act regulating the registration, branding, and slaughter of large
cattle. Evidence sustained in the trial court found that appellant slaughtered
or caused to be slaughtered for human consumption, the carabao described in the
information, without a permit from the municipal treasurer of the municipality
where it was slaughtered. Appellant contends that he applied for a permit to
slaughter the animal but was not given one because the carabao was not found to
be “unfit for agricultural work” which resulted to appellant to slaughter said
carabao in a place other than the municipal slaughterhouse. Appellant then
assails the validity of a provision under Act No. 1147 which states that only
carabaos unfit for agricultural work can be slaughtered.
Held:
The
extent and limits of what is known as the police power have been a fruitful
subject of discussion in the appellate courts of nearly every State in the Union . It is universally conceded to include everything
essential to the public safely, health, and morals, and to justify the
destruction or abatement, by summary proceedings, of whatever may be regarded
as a public nuisance. Under this power it has been held that the State may
order the destruction of a house falling to decay or otherwise endangering the
lives of passers‐by; the
demolition of such as are in the path of a conflagration; the slaughter of
diseased cattle; the destruction of decayed or unwholesome food; the
prohibition of wooden buildings in cities; the regulation of railways and other
means of public conveyance, and of interments in burial grounds; the
restriction of objectionable trades to certain localities; the compulsary
vaccination of children; the confinement of the insane or those afficted with
contagious deceases; the restraint of vagrants, beggars, and habitual
drunkards; the suppression of obscene publications and houses of ill fame; and
the prohibition of gambling houses and places where intoxicating liquors are
sold. Beyond this, however, the State may interfere wherever the public
interests demand it, and in this particular a large discretion is necessarily
vested in the legislature to determine, not only what the interests of the
public require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such
interests. (Barbier vs. Connolly, 113 U. S. , 27; Kidd vs. Pearson, 128 U. S.
From
what has been said, we think it is
clear that the enactment of the provisions of the statute under consideration
was required by "the interests of the public generally, as distinguished
from those of a particular class;" and that the prohibition of the
slaughter of carabaos for human consumption, so long as these animals are fit
for agricultural work or draft purposes was a "reasonably necessary"
limitation on private ownership, to protect the community from the loss of the
services of such animals by their slaughter by improvident owners, tempted
either by greed of momentary gain, or by a desire to enjoy the luxury of animal
food, even when by so doing the productive power of the community may be
measurably and dangerously affected.
Chief
Justice Redfield, in Thorpe vs. Rutland & Burlington R. R. Co. (27
Vt., 140), said (p. 149) that by this "general police power of the State,
persons and property are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens, in
order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State; of
the perfect right in the legislature to do which no question ever was, or, upon
acknowledge and general principles, ever can be made, so far as natural persons
are concerned."