Prescott v. City of Borger

158 S.W.2d 578
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 12, 1942
DocketNo. 5375.
StatusPublished
Cited by39 cases

This text of 158 S.W.2d 578 (Prescott v. City of Borger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Prescott v. City of Borger, 158 S.W.2d 578 (Tex. Ct. App. 1942).

Opinion

STOKES, Justice.

On and before the 7th of May, 1940, appellant, Neal Prescott, was engaged in the business of selling and distributing Grade A pasteurized milk within the corporate limits of the City of Borger, in Hutchinson County. He did not produce nor pasteurize his milk but procured it at wholesale prices from the Plains Creamery, Inc., located at Amarillo, in Potter County, some sixty miles from Borger. The agreed statement of facts shows that the City Health Department of Amarillo and its milk inspector tested and approved the Grade A pasteurized milk which was being sold at Borger by appellant and that upon receiving it from the Plains Creamery he placed it in his trucks which were refrigerated and equipped for the proper preservation of the temperature required by the process of pasteurization and, in such trucks, immediately conveyed it to Borger where it was sold to his customers in the bottles in which it was placed by the Plains Creamery. It is further shown by the agreed statement of facts that the Plains Creamery conforms to the laws of the state and the ordinance of the city of Amarillo with respect to the pasteurization of milk and the process of bottling, capping, handling and preparing the same for sale as Grade A pasteurized milk. The Plains Creamery and the producing dairies from which it procures its raw milk for pasteurization are equipped, and the milk is handled and processed, under the supervision and control of the State Health Officer and the producing dairies and pasteurization plants at Amarillo are inspected and approved by the same inspector for that department who inspects and approves them at Borger. The agreed facts further show that appellant conformed to all of the laws of the State of Texas in handling, distributing and selling Grade A pasteurized milk at Borger and that the milk being sold there by him was bought solely from the Plains Creamery who purchased and pasteurized the same in accordance with the laws of the State and that appellant delivered the same to his customers at Borger by the same methods as other distributors and vendors sold and delivered milk there.

*580 The City of Borger is a Home Rule City and is organized under a charter adopted by the electors under the provisions of Sec. 5, Art. 11, of the Constitution, Vernon’s Ann.St., and Art. 1165 et seq., R.C.S.1925, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 1165 et seq. On the 7th of May, 1940, the city commission enacted an ordinance which provided in substance that no milk or cream should be sold in the City of Borger that had been pasteurized outside of Hutchinson County except as may be authorized by the City Health Officer and attached a penalty for violation thereof of a fine in any sum not exceeding $100. It further provided that anyone who should sell, offer for sale or have in his possession within the corporate limits of the City of Borger for the purpose of sale, pasteurized milk or cream that was pasteurized outside of Hutchinson County, should be deemed to have violated the ordinance and would be subject to the penalty therein provided. It is not an ordinance treating generally the subject of the sale of milk and its products, but contains only the provisions we have mentioned.

It is further shown by the agreed statement of facts that the authorities of the City of Borger had threatened to and would arrest and prosecute appellant and his employees if they should sell or distribute, or attempt to sell or distribute, Grade A pasteurized milk within the city limits unless the same had been pasteurized within the boundaries of Hutchinson County.

On the 19th of December, 1940, appellant filed this suit against the City of Bor-ger and its mayor and other officials, seeking an injunction against the enforcement of the ordinance and making all necessary allegations to entitle him thereto if the ordinance is invalid and unenforceable as alleged by him. The case was tried on the 5th of April, 1941, without the intervention of a jury and resulted in a judgment for the defendants, appellees herein, denying appellant the injunction for which he prayed, and assessing the costs against him.

Appellant duly excepted to the judgment and presents the case on appeal in this court upon a number of assignments of- error and propositions in which he contends that the ordinance is unenforceable and void because (a) it is in conflict with the general laws of the state regulating and supervising the production, distribution and sale of Grade A pasteurized milk; (b) that it clothes the officials of the City of Borger with arbitrary and unreasonable discretion in granting or refusing permits for the sale and distribution of pasteurized milk; (c) that it is discriminatory in its nature and not one of regulation such as the governing body of the city was authorized to enact, and (d) its enforcement would deprive appellant of his property rights under the laws and constitution of the state.

The trial court held that the provision of the ordinance which gives discretion to the City Health Officer in the matter of granting permits for the sale of pasteurized milk was invalid but that, after -removing that provision, it constituted a local law which the governing authorities of the city, under the police power, had authority to enact.

In 1937 the 45th Legislature enacted what is now Art. 165 — 3, Vernon’s Annotated Revised Civil Statutes, being that portion of Title 4 which regulates the pasteurization, handling and sale of milk and its products. Sub. “Q” of Sec. 1 of that Act defines Grades A, B and C pasteurized milk as being milk or milk products which have been produced and pasteurized in accordance with the specifications and requirements promulgated by the State Health Officer. Sec. 2 empowers the State Health Officer to define what constitutes such grades of pasteurized milk and to promulgate specifications for the production and handling thereof and the sanitary conditions under which the same are produced. It provides that such specifications shall be based upon, and in harmony with, the specifications for such grades that are set forth in the current United States Public Health Service Milk Ordinance and that any city adopting any specifications and regulations for any grade of milk shall be governed by the specifications and regulations promulgated by the State Health Officer.

Sec. 3 of, the Act provides that any person desiring to use labels representing, publishing or advertising milk or milk products offered for sale as Grades A, B, C or D shall make application to the City Health Officer for a permit to use such labels in advertising, representing or labeling the same and makes provision for reports by the City Health Officer to the State Health Officer of such permits.

Sec. 4 provides that no milk shall be sold under a label of a certain grade unless it is of that grade and prohibits the representa *581 tion, advertising or labeling of milk as Grade A pasteurized milk unless it has been produced, treated and handled in accordance with the provisions of the Act and the rules promulgated by the State Health Officer.

Sec. 6 authorizes the State Health Officer to supervise and regulate the grading and labeling of milk and its products in accordance with the standards, specifications and requirements which he promulgates for such grades and in conformity with the definitions contained in the Act, giving him power also to revoke and re-grade permits issued by local authorities.

Sec.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

City of Houston v. BCCA Appeal Group, Inc.
485 S.W.3d 444 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2013)
Southern Crushed Concrete, LLC v. City of Houston
402 S.W.3d 1 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2010)
Opinion No.
Texas Attorney General Reports, 1987
Untitled Texas Attorney General Opinion
Texas Attorney General Reports, 1987
City of Houston v. Harris County Outdoor Advertising Ass'n
732 S.W.2d 42 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1987)
Royer v. Ritter
531 S.W.2d 448 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1975)
City of San Marcos v. Lower Colorado River Authority
508 S.W.2d 403 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1974)
City of Baytown v. Angel
469 S.W.2d 923 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1971)
City of Jefferson v. Railroad Commission
453 S.W.2d 906 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1970)
Young v. City of Seagoville
421 S.W.2d 485 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1967)
Jere Dairy, Inc. v. City of Mt. Pleasant
417 S.W.2d 872 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1967)
Producers Ass'n of San Antonio v. City of San Antonio
326 S.W.2d 222 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1959)
Tenny v. Sainsbury
7 A.D.2d 514 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1959)
City of Weslaco v. Melton
308 S.W.2d 18 (Texas Supreme Court, 1957)
Melton v. City of Weslaco
301 S.W.2d 470 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1957)
Cabell's, Incorporated v. City of Nacogdoches
288 S.W.2d 154 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1956)
Falfurrias Creamery Company v. City of Laredo
276 S.W.2d 351 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1955)
Gustafson v. City of Ocala
53 So. 2d 658 (Supreme Court of Florida, 1951)
City of Port Arthur v. Carnation Co.
238 S.W.2d 559 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1951)
Moultrie Milk Shed Inc. v. City of Cairo
57 S.E.2d 199 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1950)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
158 S.W.2d 578, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/prescott-v-city-of-borger-texapp-1942.