Jamison v. Browning

ADKINS, Judge. When the Garrett County Liquor Control Board/Board of License Commissioners granted appellee James R. Browning a special class D liquor license, appellants Elwood Jamison and others appealed to the Circuit Court for Garrett County (Leasure, J.). The court affirmed the board. Appellants have now brought their grievances here, but we shall not address them because we hold the appeal must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

By virtue of Art. 2B, § 175(a) the decision of a county board of liquor license commissioners may be appealed to the appropriate circuit as provided in subsection (b). Subsection (f) makes the circuit court decision final: “No further appeal shall lie” from that decision unless “any judge of the circuit court of any county shall in any case finally decide a point of law at variance with any decision previously rendered by any other judge of the State on the same question____” No argument is made here that there is another trial court decision conflicting with that of Judge Leasure in this case. Thus, if Art. 2B, § 175(f) applies we must dismiss the appeal. Suttleman v. Board of Liquor License Commissioners, 209 Md. 134 , 120 A.2d 388 (1956).

Appellants argue that § 175(f) is inapplicable because the Garrett County Liquor Control Board is a State agency. Therefore, they assert, the appeal provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act now codified as §§ 10-215 and 10-216 of the State Government Article, control. Under those provisions there is an appeal to this court as of right from the decision of a circuit court rendered on appeal from a State administrative agency in a contested case. We assume, without deciding, that this case is a contested one within the APA definition.

State Government Art. § 10-201(c). The question is whether the board is a State agency. The APA defines an agency as, inter alia, “an officer or unit of the State government authorized ⁴⁰⁸ by law to adjudicate contested cases____” Section 10-201(b)(1). Art. 2B, § 153 provides: In Garrett County, the liquor control board is hereby declared to be a State agency to administer the provisions of this article and as such is clothed with discretionary powers, in granting, refusing, revoking or suspending licenses for the sale of alcoholic beverages, within the limits proscribed under this article.

We know little of the legislative history of this statute except that (with some differences not here pertinent) it was initially adopted by Chs. 547 and 611 of the Acts of 1967. 1 The general purpose of those Acts was to create the liquor control board and to eliminate the liquor licensing powers of the county commissioners, who had theretofore sat ex officio as a board of liquor license commissioners pursuant to Art. 2B, § 151 (Code, 1957, 1966 Supp.). At first reading § 153 would seem to support appellant’s position. But like so many matters arising out of Art. 2B, the question is not so simple. To answer it, that is to ascertain the true legislative intent, we must look to the general scheme of Art. 2B as well as several of its specific provisions.

See Turner v. State, 61 Md.App. 1 , 484 A.2d 641 at 644-645 (1984) (statutes in pari materia are to be construed harmoniously, giving effect to the provisions of each). As a general matter the State policy evidenced by Art. 2B is to be administered and enforced by two types of agencies: “local boards of license commissioners and liquor control boards----” Art. 2B, § 1(a)(2). For present purposes, the ⁴⁰⁹ former are primarily concerned with the issuance of liquor licenses. See, e.g. § 54(a) (applications for most types of licenses to be filed “with the board of license commissioners ... or the clerk of the circuit court ... if there be no such board”) and §§ 148-158 (setting forth in detail the composition, powers, procedures, and compensation applicable to these boards).

The latter are designed chiefly to purchase and sell alcoholic beverages, § 163, and to operate county dispensaries, § 161. See generally §§ 159-168. Separate subtitles of Art. 2B establish the principal powers and duties of each type of agency. It is not uncommon for members of some of these bodies to wear two hats.

For example, in several counties the county commissioners serve ex officio as the board of license commissioners (§ 151), as was once the case in Garrett County. We conclude that two hats are still a la mode in Garrett County, so far as the liquor control board is concerned. That is, we think its members may sit as a board of license commissioners or