DocketNumber: Crim. No. 1462.
Citation Numbers: 99 P. 517, 155 Cal. 114
Judges: Henshaw
Filed Date: 1/6/1909
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 10/19/2024
Habeas corpus. The city of Los Angeles passed an ordinance, No. 13,171 (new series), regulating the sale of milk and cream. The ordinance contained many regulatory provisions making for hygienic conditions which are not necessary here to consider, for the petitioner was charged with and convicted of a violation of a single section of the ordinance. That section is number 9 and fixes the standard of milk sold in the city. It does this in the following language: —
"Section 9. The standard of milk . . . in and for the city of Los Angeles is hereby defined and prescribed as follows:
"For Milk:
"Total milk solids, 12.5 per centum by weight.
"Butter fat, 3.5 per centum by weight.
"Water, 87.5 per centum by weight."
Against the validity of this section petitioner advances several arguments.
1. He insists that the section is void because its provisions are vague, uncertain, and contradictory. In this his argument is that the required standard is 87.5 per centum water, 12.5 per centum milk solids, and 3.5 per centum butter fat, or a total of 103.5 per centum of ingredients, which, as is very justly argued, is a physical impossibility, since the component parts of a single article cannot constitute more than 100 per centum, else the whole would be greater than all its parts. The answer to this, however, obviously is that the ordinance means that of the 12.5 per centum milk solids, at least 3.5 per centum shall be butter fat. So read, the ordinance is not objectionable upon the ground urged.
2. Subsequent to the passage of this ordinance, the state in 1907 placed upon its statute books "An act to prohibit adulteration and deception in the sale of dairy products, defining adulteration in dairy products, and to provide for enforcing *Page 117 its provisions." (Stats. 1907, p. 265.) This statute declared that it shall be unlawful for any person to produce, manufacture, or prepare for sale, or to sell or offer for sale, or have on hand for sale, any milk that is adulterated within the meaning of the act. As to what should constitute adulteration, the act provided (sec. 2) that milk should be deemed adulterated that did not conform with the following definition and standard: "Milk is the fresh, clean, lacteal secretion obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows . . . and contains not less than three per cent of milk fat, and not less than eight and five-tenths per cent of solids — not fat. . . ." The constitution (art. XI, sec. 11), empowers a city to make and enforce within its limits "all such local, police, sanitary, and other regulations as are not in conflict with general laws." It is insisted that the state, having thus provided a standard for pure milk, the attempt of the city ordinance to vary that standard creates a conflict in the law, with the necessary result that the ordinance must fall.
Undoubtedly if such a conflict exists, the ordinance must give way to the paramount law of the state. But does such a conflict exist? for, if it does not, then it is well settled that the mere fact that the state in the exercise of the police power has made certain regulations, does not prohibit a municipality from exacting additional requirements. So long as there be no conflict between the two, and so long as the requirements of the municipal by-law are not in themselves pernicious as being unreasonable or discriminatory, both will stand. (Ex parte Hong Shen,
3. Petitioner charges that this particular ordinance is unreasonable and in restraint of trade in exacting too high a *Page 119
standard for the milk permitted to be sold. In his petition he avers "that milk may come direct and pure in its natural state from the cow, and especially from Holstein cows, and yet be below the standard fixed by the city ordinance, and, upon his best information and belief, the milk used in his restaurant, and upon which his conviction is based, could have been milk from Holstein cows." This averment stands unchallenged and is, therefore, to be taken as true. (Ex parte Smith,
4. Section 198b of the charter of the city of Los Angeles declares that no ordinance passed by the council (. . . "except an ordinance for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety which contains a statement of its urgency and is passed by a two-thirds vote of the council) shall go into effect before thirty days from the time of its final passage and its approval by the mayor. If during said thirty days a petition, signed by the electors of the city equal in number to at least seven per cent of the entire vote cast for all the candidates for mayor at the last preceding general election at which a mayor was elected, protesting against its passage be presented to the council, the same shall thereupon be suspended from going into operation," etc. This ordinance declared (section 18) that "it is urgently required for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety." It is contended that the provision under consideration can by no possibility be one required for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety; that the declaration of the council to that effect is of no binding force, *Page 120
and that the ordinance therefore is a bold attempt to destroy the right to the referendum preserved to the people in section 198b, above quoted. We agree that it cannot be a matter for the immediate preservation of the public health that milk vended must contain 3.5 per centum of milk fat instead of 3 per centum, and that the total amount of water shall be 84.5 instead of 85 per centum. Furthermore, we agree that the mere declaration of the council in such a case that the ordinance is passed for the immediate preservation of the public health is neither conclusive nor yet sufficient. The nature of the ordinance itself will, in most instances, be determinative, and where a sudden emergency has arisen, a statement of the nature of the urgency finds proper place to support the declaration. So says the supreme court inWheeler v. Chubbuck,
For the foregoing reasons the writ is discharged and the prisoner remanded.
Lorigan, J., Shaw, J., Melvin, J., Angellotti, J., Sloss, J., and Beatty, C.J., concurred. *Page 121
Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley , 17 Cal. 3d 129 ( 1976 )
Hatfield v. Meers , 1966 Mo. App. LEXIS 672 ( 1966 )
People v. Phillips , 76 Cal. App. 2d 515 ( 1946 )
Joplin v. Ten Brook , 124 Or. 36 ( 1928 )
Hunter v. Adams , 4 Cal. Rptr. 776 ( 1960 )
Hutchens v. Jackson , 37 N.M. 325 ( 1933 )
Pipoly v. Benson , 20 Cal. 2d 366 ( 1942 )
In Re Portnoy , 21 Cal. 2d 237 ( 1942 )
LaFranchi v. City of Santa Rosa , 8 Cal. 2d 331 ( 1937 )
In Re Lane , 58 Cal. 2d 99 ( 1962 )
Davis v. County of Los Angeles , 12 Cal. 2d 412 ( 1938 )
Eckl v. Davis , 124 Cal. Rptr. 685 ( 1975 )
Olsen v. McGillicuddy , 93 Cal. Rptr. 530 ( 1971 )
Greenberg v. LEE , 196 Or. 157 ( 1952 )
Remmer v. Municipal Court , 90 Cal. App. 2d 854 ( 1949 )
People v. Villarino , 134 Cal. App. Supp. 2d 893 ( 1955 )
People v. Smith , 161 Cal. App. Supp. 2d 860 ( 1958 )
People v. Willert , 3 Cal. Sup. 155 ( 1939 )
Cohen v. Board of Supervisors , 40 Cal. 3d 277 ( 1985 )