Monterey Oil Co. v. City Court

MUSSELL, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment denying the petition of appellant Monterey Oil Company for a peremptory writ of prohibition to restrain the City Court of the City of Seal Beach (now the Justice’s Court for the Huntington Beach-Seal Beach Judicial District) from proceeding with, hearing or exercising any further jurisdiction over a certain criminal complaint in an action entitled

“People of the State of California

vs.

Monterey Oil Company, No. 5845.”

The issues and proceedings are substantially the same as those in the companion appeal filed in this court, bearing the same title and numbered Civil No. 4735,

ante,

p. 31 [260 P.2d 846] in which the opinion was this day filed. In that case city ordinance No. 230 provided that it was unlawful to construct or install any derrick, machinery or apparatus designed or intended to be used for the purpose of drilling for oil, or to drill for oil, within the territorial limits of the city of Seal Beach. We there held that the city could not, by ordinance, prohibit or regulate building operations on state-owned submerged lands leased to appellant since the state, by general law, was given exclusive jurisdiction over the said lands and drilling operations; that the state law covered the entire field and that there was no room for municipal regulation; that the regulations set forth in the ordinance were in conflict with the state law and that the ordinance was unreasonable and arbitrary as sought to be applied.

In the instant case the ordinance under attack is city ordinance No. 354 and is a building ordinance which purports to prohibit and make unlawful the erection of any building or structure in the city of Seal Beach without first obtaining a separate building permit for each such building or structure from the building official of the city of Seal Beach.

The criminal complaint, filed September 4, 1952, charged appellant with erecting or constructing a building or struc

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ture contrary to the terms of the ordinance and apparently it is conceded that the building or structure involved was a temporary island or fill at a point approximately 1% miles seaward from the shoreline of Seal Beach, which island was being constructed by appellant in accordance with the terms of a lease from the State Lands Commission. The statutory authority for the issuance of the lease, the legislative history of the state laws applicable thereto, the proceedings had in the city and superior courts and the facts relating to the issuance of the complaint herein, as well as those relating to the complaint issued for violation of ordinance No. 230 of said city, are set forth in our prior opinion, Civil No. 4735.