Witt v. Klimm

274 P. 1039, 97 Cal. App. 131, 1929 Cal. App. LEXIS 664
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 21, 1929
DocketDocket No. 6491.
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 274 P. 1039 (Witt v. Klimm) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Witt v. Klimm, 274 P. 1039, 97 Cal. App. 131, 1929 Cal. App. LEXIS 664 (Cal. Ct. App. 1929).

Opinion

PRESTON (H. L.), J., pro tem.

This is an original proceeding in mandamus.

The petitioners seek an order of this court compelling the Board of Health and Milk Inspection Service of the City and County of San Francisco to issue to them a permit to distribute and sell in San Francisco milk produced, pasteurized, and bottled in Colma, San Mateo County, California.

The facts are not in dispute and are briefly these: Petitioners are dealers in milk, which they produce, pasteurize and bottle at Colma, San Mateo County, California. They have applied for a permit to sell “Grade A Pasteurized Market Milk” in the city and county of San Francisco, which has been refused by the Department of Health on the ground that San Francisco ordinance No. 7025 (N. S.) requires such milk to he pasteurized within the city and county of San Francisco. The real and personal property used at Colma by petitioners in the conduct of their dairy business has a value in excess of $100,000, and includes dairy cows, a pasteurizing plant, cow barns, milking barns, etc. They produce and pasteurize not less than eight hundred gallons of “Grade A Pasteurized Market Milk” per day.

The Pure Milk Law of California (Stats. 1927, p. 1944), establishes uniform regulations for the production and sale of milk within the state. Section 4 (a) thereof provides for the establishment and maintenance of a milk inspection service and laboratory by counties, or groups of counties; cities, or groups of cities, or groups of cities and counties.

Pursuant to this authorization, the county of San Mateo has established and now maintains in connection with its health department such a milk inspection service, which has been, and now is, approved by the director of agriculture *133 of the state of California, in accordance with the authority granted to him by section 4 (d) of said Pure Milk Law of California.

The city and county of San Francisco maintains a similar approved milk inspection service. The milk produced by petitioners is produced under the supervision of the milk inspection service of San Mateo County. Section 5 of said Pure Milk Law of California provides that it shall be unlawful to sell guaranteed “Grade A or Grade B Milk,” except under the supervision of an approved inspection service, and further provides that milk so produced under such supervision may be sold “in territory within the jurisdiction of any other milk inspection service, if the consent of said other milk inspection service has been obtained.”

The pasteurizing plant operated by petitioners in Colma is situated less than two miles from the south boundary of the city and county of San Francisco. The milk pasteurized and bottled at this plant can be transported across the county line and into San Francisco by automobile trucks in about fifteen or twenty minutes. Petitioners now have customers in San Francisco to whom they are selling and delivering their milk in the aggregate quantity of thirty gallons per day, and contend that in the event they are permitted to sell milk in San Francisco they will be able to procure many additional customers.

As above stated, petitioners applied on May 6, 1928, for a permit to sell their pasteurized milk within the city and county of San Francisco, and on May 8, 1928, the Board of Health of said city denied petitioners’ application for a permit on the sole ground that the pasteurized milk which petitioners desired to sell in San Francisco “was not and is not to be pasteurized within San Francisco- as required by sub-division 10 of Section 3 of said Ordinance No. 7025, which provides: . . . All milk intended for human consumption, in San Francisco, that comes from cows that have not passed the tuberculin test, except when sold in bulk to the wholesale trade, shall be pasteurized in San Francisco in accordance with the method set forth herein. ...”

The milk pasteurized by petitioners in their plant at Colma is pasteurized according to the method outlined in the above ordinance, and the Colma plant is equipped as required in said ordinance, and the “Grade A. Pasteurized *134 Market Milk” produced by petitioners conform to the standard established by the said Pure Milk Law.

Petitioners contend that the ordinance in question is unconstitutional for various reasons, among them being that it is unreasonable and unduly oppressive and makes an arbitrary discrimination against outside producers of milk.

The ordinance in question is a health ordinance prescribing, among other things, what is required of dealers in fourth-grade milk in order to sell the same within the city and county of San Francisco, to wit, it must be pasteurized within the city and county of San Francisco and under the immediate supervision of respondents.

It is not denied by petitioners that the city and county of San Francisco has the power under section 11 of article XI of the constitution to enact police regulations and ordinances promoting considerations of public welfare, public morals, public health, and public safety, provided that such regulations and ordinances are not in conflict with general laws. It is also admitted that the charter of the city and county of San Francisco vests in the board of supervisors power to enact all those ordinances necessary for the protection of the public health, so long as such ordinances are not in conflict with the state law.

As we have noted above, the legislature has seen fit to enact the “Pure Milk Law of California,” which prescribes certain general rules applicable in all cities and elsewhere in California, regulating the production and sale of milk for human consumption. This law, however, does not prohibit the enactment of additional local regulations by municipalities in keeping with the purpose of said “Pure Milk Law,” so long as the requirements of the municipal ordinance are not in themselves pernicious, as being unreasonable or discriminatory. There may be different regulations without a conflict. (Ex parte John, 17 Cal. App. 58 [118 Pac. 722]; Ex parte Hong Shen, 98 Cal. 681 [33 Pac. 799] ; In re Murphy, 128 Cal. 29 [60 Pac. 465]; In re Hoffman, 155 Cal. 114 [132 Am. St. Rep. 75, 99 Pac. 517]; In re Iverson, 199 Cal. 582 [250 Pac. 681].)

In re Iverson, supra, the court said: “Where the legislature has assumed to regulate a given course of conduct by prohibitory enactments, a municipality with subordinate *135 power to act in the matter may make such new and additional regulations in aid and furtherance of the purposes of the general law as may seem fit and appropriate to the necessities of the particular locality and which are not in themselves unreasonable.”

The provisions of the ordinance requiring that the milk be pasteurized within the city and county of San Francisco is simply a new and additional and more stringent regulation than that contained in the state law on the same subject. These requirements of the ordinance are not in themselves unreasonable or discriminatory and do not conflict with the state law, therefore, both may stand.

The ordinance is not destructive of petitioners’ business.

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Bluebook (online)
274 P. 1039, 97 Cal. App. 131, 1929 Cal. App. LEXIS 664, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/witt-v-klimm-calctapp-1929.