City of Oakland v. Brock

SHENK, J.

The City of Oakland filed a complaint in the superior court asking for declaratory relief and an injunction to restrain the defendant, as director of agriculture, from withdrawing his approval of municipal inspection of slaughter houses maintained outside the city’s boundaries but from which meat products are furnished to the inhabitants of -the city. The defendant’s general demurrer to the complaint was overruled. He declined to answer and the court entered judgment declaring the extraterritorial inspection by the plaintiff of the slaughter houses involved to be authorized and valid and decreeing that the defendant Brock continue his approval of such municipal inspection. The defendant appealed from the judgment.

The complaint alleges the maintenance of a meat inspection department by the city; the existence of four slaughter houses in contiguous incorporated territory in which meat inspection departments are not maintained and from which eighty per cent of the meat from the animals slaughtered is sold within the corporate limits of the City of Oakland; the adoption in

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1928 of Ordinance No. 4123, New Series, reenacted in 1932 as part of the Municipal Code of Oakland, providing for inspection of slaughter houses, and the continued inspection service thereunder of such outlying slaughter houses; the enactment of state legislation (Stats. 1931, p. 567; Stats. 1933, p. 60), providing for state inspection of slaughter houses and approval by the director of agriculture of municipal inspection thereof; the previous approval pursuant thereto of the plaintiff’s inspection of such outlying slaughter houses; and the threatened withdrawal by said director of his approval of the municipal inspection of such outlying slaughter houses on the ground of alleged lack of authority to approve municipal inspection of slaughter houses outside the limits of the municipality.

The only allegation in the complaint respecting the provisions of Ordinance No. 4123, New Series, is the following: “That in and by the terms of said ordinance, and in section 55 thereof, it is provided for the inspection of meats at slaughter houses lying outside the corporate boundaries of the said City of Oakland when meats therefrom arc sold within said City of Oakland.”

This court will not take judicial notice of municipal ordinances in a proceeding originating in the superior court.