People v. Sivin

[645]

BARNARD, P. J.

The defendant was convicted of the crime of forgery and has appealed from the judgment upon the sole ground that section 473 of the Penal Code is unconstitutional. It is argued that a corporation is a person within the meaning of section 470 of the Penal Code; that no punishment is provided for a corporation by section 473; that this constitutes an arbitrary discrimination between individuals and corporations; and that section 473 is therefore void and the judgment must be reversed.

It is well settled that a reasonable classification is permitted if the same be based upon a natural, intrinsic or constitutional distinction. As was pointed out in

People

v.

Schomig,

74 Cal. App. 109 [239 Pac. 413, 414] :

“The Constitution does not deprive the legislature of power to pass all special acts; but forbids special laws in all cases where a general .and uniform law can be made applicable

(Argyle Dredging Co.

v.

Chambers,

40 Cal. App. 332 [181 Pac. 84]), and in order to declare a law unconstitutional, as being discriminatory, it must appear that it is not founded upon a natural, intrinsic or constitutional distinction, but that it confers particular privileges or imposes peculiar disabilities or burdensome conditions in the exercise of a common right, upon a class arbitrarily selected from the general body of those who stand in precisely the same relation to the subject of the law.”

In

Martin

v.

Superior Court,

194 Cal. 93 [227 Pac. 762, 765], the court said:

“It is conceded, as indeed it must be, that where a classification of persons or things is distinctive and such distinction is based upon some 1 constitutional, or natural, or intrinsic distinction’, laws may be made applicable to such class alone, providing that the act is uniform as to all persons or things within such class.”