Van Gammeren v. City of Fresno

California Court of Appeal Apr 13, 1942 No. Civ. 2672Published

Before: Marks

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Holding. The court held that a municipal ordinance requiring milk to be pasteurized within city limits as a condition for sale is unconstitutional, discriminatory, and void because it lacks a reasonable relationship to a proper legislative object.

Issues

Whether a city ordinance requiring milk to be pasteurized within city limits is a valid exercise of police power.
Whether respondents were required to exhaust administrative remedies before challenging the ordinance.
Whether the trial court's injunction was overly broad in preventing the city from regulating milk quality.

Disposition. Modified and affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“it has been held quite generally that the city limits as the boundary line outside of which plants may not be located if the milk is to be sold within the city do not have a reasonable relationship to a proper legislative object”

“The law does not require useless acts from litigants as prerequisites to seeking relief from the courts.”

“For the same reason we must hold that the provisions of the subsection four of section nine of the Fresno ordinance which we have quoted is void and of no effect.”

MARKS, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment enjoining appellants from interfering with respondents in their delivery of Grade A pasteurized milk within the limits of the city of Fresno.

Fresno is a chartered- city. The individual appellants are the members of its board of health, its city health officer, and the city veterinarian and chief milk inspector.

In 1922, the city of Fresno adopted an ordinance regulating the sale of milk within its limits. Subsection four of section nine provided in part as follows:

“It shall be and is hereby declared unlawful for any person in said City: ... to sell or deliver any milk or cream for drinking purposes within said City that has been pasteurized, unless it has been pasteurized within the City and under the inspection herein required.”

While the ordinance has been variously amended, this subsection has remained substantially unchanged.

Respondents are processors and deliverers of milk for human consumption. They each operate a pasteurizing plant outside the limits of the city of Fresno. The distance of the farthest plant from the city limits is four miles. The closest was about one mile from those limits when this action was

[237]

instituted, and only about three blocks distant after the annexation of certain territory to the city of Fresno. This annexation took place after this ease was started.

In 1940, the proceedings to annex the Sierra Vista Addition to the city were had. After the annexation election, but before those proceedings became final, D. F. Coyner, as chief milk inspector of the city of Fresno, notified respondents that as soon as the annexation proceedings became final they would be required to discontinue delivery of milk to their customers within the annexed district for the sole reason that their pasteurization plants were not within the city limits. Respondents promptly brought this action to enjoin appellants from enforcing this order.

After the complaint was filed another district in which respondents had customers was annexed to the city of Fresno and a supplemental complaint was filed seeking the same relief as to this territory.

Van Gammeren v. City of Fresno

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MARKS, J.

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