People v. McClain

33 P.2d 710, 2 Cal. App. Supp. 2d 751, 1934 Cal. App. LEXIS 1511
CourtAppellate Division of the Superior Court of California
DecidedJune 2, 1934
DocketCr. A. No. 1030
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 33 P.2d 710 (People v. McClain) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Superior Court of California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. McClain, 33 P.2d 710, 2 Cal. App. Supp. 2d 751, 1934 Cal. App. LEXIS 1511 (Cal. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinions

SHAW, P. J.

This case, like People v. Garcia, 1 Cal. App. (Supp.) (2d) 761 [32 Pac. (2d) 445, 2 Cal. Supp. 122], and People v. Arthur, 1 Cal. App. (Supp.) (2d) 768 [32 Pac. (2d) 1002, 2 Cal. Supp. 127], recently decided by us, arises under the State Pharmacy Act (Stats. 1905, p. 535), as amended in 1933 (Stats. 1933, p. 2192). The complaint here contains three counts, each charging that [753]*753the defendant permitted the sale of “drugs and medicines, to-wit, aspirin”, by an unregistered person, at a store or shop of which defendant “was the manager”.

Attack is made on the complaint because it does not allege that defendant was the proprietor of the store where the sale occurred. The same point was considered in People v. Arthur, supra, where we upheld the complaint on the ground that the manager of a store can be properly charged with violating section 12 of the act, which makes it unlawful for any person to permit the sale of drugs and medicines “in his or her store” by unregistered persons. We are satisfied with that decision and adhere to it.

The article sold here was aspirin. This is a drug or medicine and its sale is covered by the Pharmacy Act. (People v. Garcia, supra.) Defendant contends that the aspirin sold in this case was shown by the evidence to be a proprietary medicine and therefore excepted from the act by section 12. The question, what evidence is necessary to show that a medicine is proprietary was not decided in People v. Garcia, but its solution is required by the record here. The provision of section 12 of the act on which defendant relies reads as follows: “Nor does this act apply to registered, trade-marked or copyrighted proprietary medicine, registered in the United States Patent Office, but does apply to the sale by or through any mechanical device, of drugs, medicines and proprietary medicines registered or trademarked in the United States Patent Office. Nor does this act apply to the sale of proprietary medicines, when manufactured under the supervision of a registered pharmacist in the State of California, for which trade-marks may have been filed with the Secretary of State of California, by merchants possessing a license issued by the Board of Pharmacy as described in section 16 of this act.” The last sentence of this quotation is important here only because it indicates that the words accompanying the term “proprietary medicine” in the sentence first quoted were not intended to define that term, but to impose additional limitations on the articles described by the exception. To bring an article .within the exception stated by this first sentence, two things are necessary: (1) it must be a proprietary medicine, and (2) it must be “registered, trade-marked or copyrighted . . . registered in the United States Patent Office”.

[754]*754The term “proprietary medicine” has received considerable attention from the courts. Its first appearance in a statutory provision seems to have been in the United States revenue laws. The case of Ferguson v. Arthur, 117 U. S. 482, 488 [6 Sup. Ct. 861, 29 L. Ed. 979], involved a tariff on imported medicinal preparations “recommended to the public as proprietary medicines or prepared according to some private formula or secret art as remedies or specifics for any disease” and related to a preparation designated by its manufacturers as “Henry’s Calcined Magnesia”. These words were blown in the bottle and printed on a label which also named the manufacturer, referred to the contents as “their calcined magnesia” and stated that certain named persons were the sole agents for its sale. Accompanying the bottle was a circular which extolled the medicinal virtues of the product and stated it was made by an improved process of manufacture. The court held that this preparation was dutiable under the statute, although it appeared that calcined magnesia was a well-known medicinal preparation which in its ordinary form sold for much less than Henry’s, saying “we cannot doubt that this was an article recommended to the public as a proprietary medicine, within the statute. It may fall within that clause, without being prepared according to some private formula or secret art, as a remedy for disease. The statute is in the alternative . . . It was undoubtedly to reach just such medicinal preparations as this—the monopoly of a particular person, commanding a price due to a special mode of manufacture, sold in bottles, having a name attached identifying the manufacturer as the proprietor of all that imparted the special merit and produced the special price—that the special revenue tax was laid.” The court also quoted the dictionary definitions of proprietary as “belonging to ownership” or “belonging, or pertaining, to a proprietor”, “relating to a certain owner or proprietor”. There are several cases in the lower federal courts following this case, one of which goes so far as to hold that labeling plasters as “Johnson’s Belladonna Plasters” amounted to a holding out to the public that they were proprietary, because “Johnson’s” plasters necessarily belong to Johnson. (Johnson v. Herold, 161 Fed. 593, 605.) The rulings in all of these cases are distinguishable here on the ground that the statute to which they related required [755]*755only that the preparation be recommended or held out as a proprietary medicine, and their effect is merely that the manufacturer does this if he claims them as proprietary, whether his claim be true or not. Here, under the Pharmacy Act, we are not concerned with the manufacturer’s claims, but with the question whether the medicine is proprietary in fact. However, the language we have quoted from Ferguson v. Arthur, supra, clearly implies that to be proprietary a medicinal preparation must be á monopoly, that is, some person must have the exclusive right to its manufacture, but this may be true even though the article is similar to those made by others, if it has a special merit by reason of' some special and exclusive mode of manufacture of which the manufacturer is the owner. The definition of proprietary medicine in this case has been referred to with approval in cases dealing with pharmacy statutes which contain provisions excepting proprietary medicines from their operation. (State v. F. W. Woolworth Co., 184 Minn. 51, 54 [237 N. W. 817, 818, 76 A. L. R. 1202]; Tiedje v. Haney, 184 Minn. 569, 575 [239 N. W. 611, 613]; State v. Jewett Market Co., 209 Iowa, 567, 570 [228 N. W. 288, 289].) . In State v. F. W. Woolworth Co. the court referred to the facts that the preparation sold bore no distinctive name, was labeled as a U. S. P. preparation and came within the U. S. P. formula, as showing that it was not a proprietary medicine, although there was testimony that it was of superior quality and made by a special secret process. In Tiedje v. Haney the court said that a medicine cannot be considered as proprietary unless the manufacturer’s name is on the package containing it. In McHenry v. Royal Neighbors, 211 Mo. App. 230, 236 [242 S. W. 147], where it was claimed that an applicant for life insurance had falsely answered a question as to his use of proprietary medicines, the court quoted with approval a definition of proprietary articles as “manufactured articles which some persons have an exclusive right to make and sell”. In Riggs v. Hot Springs, 181 Ark. 377, 381 [26 S. W.

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90 P.2d 154 (California Court of Appeal, 1939)
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Bluebook (online)
33 P.2d 710, 2 Cal. App. Supp. 2d 751, 1934 Cal. App. LEXIS 1511, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-mcclain-calappdeptsuper-1934.