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121 Mont. 437

193 P.2d 810

Stallinger v. Goss

Montana Supreme Court

Decided May 13, 1948

Montana Supreme Court · decided 1948-05-13

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Appellant contends that a retail liquor license is not personal property subject to attachment. * * * “Chapter 84, section 8, Laws of 1937, permits the transfer 'of retail 'liquor licenses, with the consent Of the Montana liquor control board; thus, a retail liquor dealer’s license could be purchased by a qualified person at sheriff’s sale, and such purchaser could insist that the license, so purchased, be transferred to'him, subject to his meeting the requirements of law and the regulations of the state liquor control board. “Section 6672 of the Revised Codes of Montana 1935, defines personal property: ‘Every kind of property that is not real is personal.’ A retail liquor license is saleable and is personal property of value and subject to attachment.”-”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Kafka v. MONTANA DEPARTMENT OF FISH, Nelson v. Naranjo

Relies on Risdon Iron & Locomotive Works v. Citizens' Traction Co. of San Diego

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1948-05-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently December 2008

20 state decisions

801948195019601970198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

THE HONORABLE WILLIAM R. TAYLOR,

¶1 District Judge (sitting in place of MR. JUSTICE GIBSON, disqualified) delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2 Defendant appealed from an order of the district court of Park County, Montana, denying his motion to release or *438 vacate an attachment of a retail liquor license issued to him by the Montana liquor control board for the years 1947 and 1948. At the time of argument before this court, plaintiff moved to dismiss the appeal, on the ground that the order is not appeal-able, for the reason that the language of the statute was not used, in that the motion was to vacate or release the attachment, rather than to dissolve the attachment. There is no merit in plaintiff’s contention. See Risdon Iron & Locomotive Works v. Citizens’ Traction Co. of San Diego, 122 Cal. 94, 54 Pac. 529, 68 Am. St. Rep. 25.

¶3 Appellant contends that a retail liquor license is not personal property subject to attachment. This court has decided that the Montana liquor control board is an administrative body and that it cannot arbitrarily refuse to grant a retail liquor license to one who has suitable premises for carrying on such business and who has met all valid regulations of the board and all requirements of the law. See State ex rel. McCarten v. Corwin, Mont., 177 Pac. (2d) 189.

¶4 Chapter 84, section 8, Laws of 1937, permits the transfer of retail liquor licenses, with the consent of the Montana liquor control board; thus, a retail liquor dealer’s license could be purchased by a'qualified person at sheriff’s sale, and such purchaser could insist that the license, so purchased, be transferred to him, subject to his meeting the requirements of law and the regulations of the state liquor control board.

¶5 Section 6672 of the Revised Codes of Montana 1935, defines personal property: “Every kind of property that is not real is personal.” A retail liquor license is saleable and is personal property of value and subject to attachment.

¶6 The order denying defendant’s motion to vacate, release or dissolve plaintiff’s attachment, is affirmed.

Mr. Chief Justice Adair and Associate Justices Choate, Angst-man and Metcalf concur.
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