Neer v. State Live Stock Sanitary Board

168 N.W. 601, 40 N.D. 340, 1918 N.D. LEXIS 70
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedMay 4, 1918
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 168 N.W. 601 (Neer v. State Live Stock Sanitary Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Neer v. State Live Stock Sanitary Board, 168 N.W. 601, 40 N.D. 340, 1918 N.D. LEXIS 70 (N.D. 1918).

Opinions

Bruce, CL J.

This is an appeal from an order dissolving a temporary restraining order, and from a judgment dismissing the action. The plaintiff sought to permanently restrain the State Live Stock Sanitary Board from destroying a certain mare, which the said board had determined to be “infected with a dangerous, contagious, and infectious disease known as dourine.”

The statutes [Comp. Laws 1913] under which the board acted are as follows:

“Section 2678: A board is hereby established to be known as the ‘State Live Stock Sanitary Board.’ This board shall consist of five members to be appointed by the governor. . . . Each member of said board shall be a qualified elector of the state of North Dakota. Three members of said board shall be persons who are financially interested in the breeding and maintenance of live stock in the state of North Dakota and the other two members of said board shall be competent veterinarians who are graduates of some regularly organized and recognized veterinary college or university.”
“Section 2686. Authority is hereby given to said State Live Stock Sanitary Board to take all steps it may deem necessary to control, suppress and eradicate any and all contagious and infectious diseases among any of the domestic animals of the state, and to that end said board is hereby empowered to quarantine any domestic animal which is infected with any such disease or which has been exposed to infection therefrom, and to kill any animal so infected; to regulate or prohibit the arrival in or departure from the state, or any portion of the state, of any such exposed or infected animal, and at the cost of the owner thereof to detain any domestic animal found in violation of any such regulation or prohibition.”
“Section 2687. Whenever a domestic animal has been adjudged to be affected with- a contagious or infectious disease and has been ordered killed by said State Live Stock Sanitary Board or by an accredited agent thereof, the owner or keeper of said animal shall be notified thereof, and within twenty-four hours thereafter its owner or keeper may file a protest against the killing thereof with said board or its accredited agent who has ordered such animal killed. Such notice shall state under oath that to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person making such protest, such animal is not infected [347]*347with any contagious or infectious disease; whereupon an examination of the animal involved shall be made .by three experts, one of said experts to be appointed by said State Live Stock Sanitary Board, one to be appointed by the person making such protest and the two thus appointed .to choose a third, but all experts shall be persons learned in veterinary medicine and surgery and graduates of a regularly organized and recognized veterinary college.”
“Section 2688. In case all three experts or any two of them declare that such animal is free from any contagious or infectious disease, then the expense of the consultation shall be paid by the State Live Stock Sanitary Board out of the funds appropriated for the carrying into effect of this act [§ 2696], and in case the three experts or any two of them declare the animal to be affected with a contagious or infectious disease then the expenses incurred in the consultation shall be paid by the person malting the protest, and said expenses may be collected the same as in case of appeal in civil action.”

The board also acted under the .following rules and regulations which had been regularly adopted by it.

“The State Live Stock Sanitary Board having determined that dourine existing in horses in this state can only be eradicated by adopting rigid measures, therefore by authority granted in §§ 2 and 9 of chapter 169, Sess. Laws 1907, the following regulations for the eradication of dourine are hereby established.
“Section 1. Any owner or person in charge of any mares, stallions, or jackasses, shall when ordered by an unauthorized agent of the Live Stock Sanitary Board, round up or gather and submit said animals to such inspection as the agent of the Live Stock Sanitary Board shall direct, or be subjected to arrest, as provided for in § 15, chapter 169, Sess. Laws 1907.
“Section 2. Whenever it has been determined by the application of the complement fixation test that any mare, stallion, jack or gelding is infected with dourine said infected animal shall be appraised by the agent of the Live Stock Sanitary Board as hereinafter provided, and said animal shall be immediately destroyed.
“Section 3. The value of any stallion, jack, mare or gelding, infected with dourine shall be determined by the actual market selling price, and the appraisement made accordingly.
[348]*348“Section 4. Owners will be indemnified for animals destroyed on account of being infected with dourine as hereinafter provided.
“Section 5. The United States Department of Agriculture will pay one half the indemnity on mares, grade stallions, jacks and geldings destroyed for dourine, and the state will assume the payment of one half the indemnity subject to an appropriation being created by the next legislature to provide for said indemnity provided in no instance shall the full indemnity to be paid on said animals exceed $100. Provided in the instance of pure bred registered stallions and mares as determined by pedigree of registration in a recognized horse registry association, the maximum indemnity shall be $150. The state shall assume the payment of one half of said maximum indemnity as hereinbefore provided and the United States Department of Agriculture will pay the balance.”

The trial court found the following facts:

1. Plaintiff is the owner of a certain mare which the defendant board has ordered destroyed on account of being infected, as the defendant board claims, with dourine.^

2. The defendants acted and arc acting pursuant to rules-adopted by the State Live Stock Board, which provide that animals infected with dourine shall be destroyed.

3. In the administration of the law, the defendant board has elected that its agents shall base their diagnosis, as to dourine, upon the complement fixation test, that is to say, even if an animal exhibits symptoms of dourine they do not destroy it unless it reacts positively to this test. On the other hand, if it has no symptoms of dourine at all they, nevertheless, order it destroyed if it shows a positive reaction to this test.

4. The defendant board and its agents have in all things acted in strict compliance with rules regularly adopted by the State Live Stock Sanitary Board.

5. Dourine is an infectious disease caused by a miscrosopic germ which exists in the blood of the diseased animals.

6. The complement fixation test is a blood test conducted by sending blood from the animal to be tested, to the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, where the test is performed by a man in the employ of the United States govern[349]*349ment. It is not a bacteriological test, but is a chemical test.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
168 N.W. 601, 40 N.D. 340, 1918 N.D. LEXIS 70, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/neer-v-state-live-stock-sanitary-board-nd-1918.