Gilchrist Drug Co. v. City of Birmingham

174 So. 609, 234 Ala. 204, 111 A.L.R. 103, 1937 Ala. LEXIS 228
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedApril 22, 1937
Docket6 Div. 71.
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 174 So. 609 (Gilchrist Drug Co. v. City of Birmingham) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gilchrist Drug Co. v. City of Birmingham, 174 So. 609, 234 Ala. 204, 111 A.L.R. 103, 1937 Ala. LEXIS 228 (Ala. 1937).

Opinion

*206 GARDNER, Justice.

Complainant, within the police jurisdiction of the City of Birmingham, is operating a drug store in which is made and sold to the public ice cream manufactured by what is known ,as the “counter freezer” method, and seeks in this proceeding injunctive relief against the enforcement of an ordinance of the City of Birmingham, requiring its manufacture by a different process referred to as the “pasteurized continuous flow method,” as found in the City Code, as follows: “Sect. 5249. (g). All ingredients used in the manufacture of ice cream or other frozen substances, composed in whole or in part of milk or milk products, shall be pasteurized as provided herein, and shall flow or be conveyed through appropriate pipes or conveyors from the pasteurizing apparatus directly into the freezing apparatus, and from that directly into a sterile can, carton or other final container, in such manner as to protect the same against contamination.”

By another provision of the ordinance, ice' cream manufactured by any other method is condemned as unsanitary and the manufacture and sale prohibited.

Upon submission' for final decree on. pleadings and proof, heard orally in open court, the chancellor denied injunctive relief, and dismissed the bill, and from the decree rendered complainant prosecutes this appeal.

The counter freezer method for the manufacture of ice cream is a modern invention, and was introduced into this state four or five years ago. Quite a number have been sold and put into operation in different cities in the state, but the ordinance here in question challenges complainant’s right to manufacture ice cream in that vicinity by this method, and hence the litigation.

It may be said, however, at the outset, that the adoption of this ordinance was before the counter freezer method was introduced, and bore no relation thereto. It was inspired by the typhoid fever epidemic of 1916, and the result of an investigation conducted by Dr. Lumsden, Medical Director of the United States Public Health Service, who testified in this case, and who came to Birmingham in 1916, at the request of local and state authorities, to make a study of the typhoid outbreak. He concluded, after completing his studies of the situation, that the outbreak was caused by infection in a supply of ice cream distributed in the city by one wholesale plant, and, as a result, he recommended the enactment of this particular ordinance.

The ordinance, as will be observed, requires that the mix be pasteurized and 'flow or be conveyed through appropriate pipes or conveyors from the pasteurizing apparatus directly into the freezing apparatus, and from that directly into a sterile can, carton, or other final container, the purpose of such flow being, .of course, to reduce to a minimum the -handling of the product by the human hands, and thus avoid any question of contamination as much as may be possible or practicable.

The manufacturing plants in Birmingham, it seems, now conform to these requirements, and have the pasteurizing apparatus so connected as to give the conunuous -flow specified in the ordinance.

The counter freezer operated by complainant has no such arrangement for continuous flow, though the mix it uses is-pasteurized, as required by the ordinance. This mix, however, is not pasteurized on the premises, but is shipped to complainant from a point in Kentucky in a ten-gallon sealed can, with parchment paper between the mix and the sealed lid. When it reaches complainant, the mix is poured into cans, which hold five quarts each, and these cans are stored in the storage cabinet of the freezer which is kept at a temperature of thirty-five degrees. From these cans, the mix is poured into the counter freezer as needed, the freezers -usually being of a capacity of two and one-half and five gallons. Thereafter the operation is practically as that of the other method; though the city insists that in the matter of cleansing’ the parts, particularly the dasher of the counter freezer, the advantage is with the continuous flow method so far as the matter of contamination is concerned.

Clear enough from the proof, the more-the handling of the mix and the freezer parts the greater the hazard of contamination and infection. And undisputedly ice cream, being a milk product, is peculiarly susceptible to contamination and infection. Dr. Lumsden says : “Milk and milk products come in contact with a human being who is-infected, either conveying the disease or being a carrier of infection without having the disease or infection at the time, and coming in contact with milk. Milk is a favorable bacterial culture medium.”

Numerous adjudicated cases sustaining-legislative regulations concerning this sub *207 ject are found cited in the note to Cofman v. Ousterhous, 18 A.L.R. 219, and fully support this view. See, also, Pfeffer v. Milwaukee, 171 Wis. 514, 177 N.W. 850, 10 A.L.R. 128, and note.

Dr. Burke, of the Dairy Science Department of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, stated the advantages of the counter flow method in this succinct statement: “The direct flow method prevents, in so far as we know, in a practical way, contamination of the mix from the point of processing to freezing. * * * It is the best way. The only feasible way that we know.” The continuous flow, says Dr. Burke, is a safer method, and with the hazard of the counter freezer method “there is all the possibility of contamination as a result of dipping the mix, or pouring the mix from one container to another or separating the mix into two batches prior to freezing, two or more batches, — there is always the possibility of contamination directly by the handlers.”

Detail testimony as to the handling of the mix, by whom and in what manner, as well as the cleaning of any parts, may well be omitted as unnecessary to relate.

In the matter of inspection also the proof is to the effect the continuous flow method has the advantage. It is not, as argued, a mere matter of convenience, but the proof is that in so large a population, from a practical standpoint, the continuous flow method is the only feasible one for efficient inspection, and that the counter freezer method opens a wide door for deception of oversight.

C. A. Abele is director of inspection of our State Health Department, with much study and experience in public health for more than twenty years. His duties carry him over the entire state, and he is familiar with, and has inspected, numerous counter freezers, and is likewise familiar with the continuous flow method. In his testimony, the reasons are given for so decided a preference for the continuous flow method from a standpoint of preservation of public health. One of these reasons was not alluded to by other witnesses. The mix, he says, used in this state is shipped here from other states, and a laboratory study has been made as to the condition of the mix as it reaches the counter freezer: the temperature which will best maintain bacterial growth at a minimum is fifty degrees or less. Above that temperature it grows more rapidly. “Some of the mix was found to reach the distributing point at seventy-six degrees. A freezing of mix which has bacteria count as a result of that high temperature can 'never lower the count.

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Bluebook (online)
174 So. 609, 234 Ala. 204, 111 A.L.R. 103, 1937 Ala. LEXIS 228, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gilchrist-drug-co-v-city-of-birmingham-ala-1937.