In Re Page

California Court of Appeal Apr 17, 1931 No. Docket No. 2045.Published

Before: Houser

AI Brief

AI-generated · verify before citing

Holding. The court held that the city ordinance was unconstitutional because the requirements regarding the printing and formatting of 'form charts' bore no real or substantial relation to the legislative goal of suppressing gambling.

Issues

Whether a city ordinance regulating the printing and formatting of horse racing 'form charts' is a valid exercise of police power.
Whether the requirements of the ordinance have a substantial relation to the object of preventing gambling.

Disposition. Petitioner discharged from custody.

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“the means prescribed by such remedial legislation must bear some real or substantial relation to the object which is sought to be obtained.”

“the inhibitory conditions attached to the printing of a “form chart” have no relation, nor would they have any tendency, to the eradication or suppression of gambling”

“the condition is but a fanciful or fastidious requirement which is unreasonable, is wholly irrelevant, and has no relation to the end sought to be accomplished.”

HOUSER, J.

For the purposes of this decision only, it may be considered that the petitioner herein was convicted of the offense of having in his possession a “form chart” with reference to horse races. Following and in pursuance of such conviction, petitioner was sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the county jail. In this proceeding petitioner seeks to show that the city ordinance under the provision of which his conviction resulted was unconstitutional, and consequently that he is being illegally restrained of his liberty.

Omitting unnecessary verbiage, the following is deemed to be a fair presentation of certain phases of the essentials of the city ordinance in question: “It shall be unlawful for any person to have in his possession in the City of Los Angeles any publication of any kind purporting to give any probable or possible list of entries for any horse race which has already taken place if there be published in any other publication referring thereto any information as to the probable result of any such race or the probable standing of any horse therein or any reference to the possible state, past, present or future of the odds upon or against any horse named in such probable or possible list of entries, or unless the names of such horses shall be arranged in such probable or possible list in alphabetical order, and shall all be printed in type of the same size and face and of identical appearance, and shall all be printed flush with the left side of the column

[3]

in which the same are printed, or all an equal distance therefrom. ’ ’

Fundamentally, a briefer, if not a more understandable, statement of the same elements of such ordinance would be: That if any prior publication has contained any information as to the probable result of, or wagered odds upon, any horse race, it shall be unlawful for any person to have in his possession a “form chart” relating to such horse race, unless the names of the horses in such race shall be arranged on the “form chart” in an alphabetical manner and in a uniform size of type, etc.

In other words, the possession by any person of a “form chart” which in effect gives “tips” on horse races is perfectly legal and has no tendency to corrupt the morals of the general public, provided such “form chart” be printed in a specified manner; or, otherwise stated, the possession of a “form chart” becomes a criminal offense only when in its makeup it differs from the prescribed form with reference to the size of the type used, or the style of the composition adopted, in the printing of the “form chart”.

In Re Page

AI Brief

HOUSER, J.

More from California Court of Appeal

Related research

THE COURT.

AI Brief