Ex Parte Dietrich (1906) · DecisionDepot

Ex Parte Dietrich

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Supreme Court Mar 31, 1906 No. Crim. No. 1296.Published

Before: Sitaw, McFarland

AI Brief

AI-generated · verify before citing

Holding. The court held that the act requiring specific weight markings on butter packages is unconstitutional because it imposes onerous and unnecessary burdens on property and business rights without falling under the legitimate scope of the police power.

Issues

Whether the act requiring specific weight markings on butter packages is a constitutional exercise of the state's police power.
Whether the act constitutes an unwarranted restriction on the constitutional right to property and the privilege of following a legitimate business.

Disposition. Petitioner discharged from custody.

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“In our opinion the act is unconstitutional and void”

“The act does not come within the legitimate scope of the police power”

Synopsis

WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS to the Sheriff of the City and County of San Francisco.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Opinion — McFARLAND

McFARLAND, J.

Petitioner was convicted of violating the provisions of an act of the legislature approved March 20, 1905, (Stats. 1905, p. 316, c. 302,) and was sentenced to imprisonment, and he seeks to be discharged on habeas corpus upon the ground that the said act is unconstitutional and void because violative of petitioner’s common right to the enjoyment of property and to make ordinary and lawful contracts. The title of the act and section 1 thereof—-which alone are important here—are as follows:—

“An act requiring the marking of packages of butter containing less than six pounds and more than one half pound so as to advise the purchaser or others as to the weight of butter contained in such package.

“Section 1. No person or persons, firms or corporations, by themselves or their agents or employees, shall sell, manufacture or prepare for sale, offer for sale or expose for sale, or have in his or their possession for sale, or consign, ship or present to any dealer, commission merchant, consumer, or other person, any butter in packages containing less than six pounds and more than one half pound, unless the exact weight of such butter contained in such package or packages, rolls, prints or other form of package, expressed in the number of pounds or ounces or in both pounds and ounces, shall be printed or durably and legibly marked upon the wrapper or other container of such butter in letters or figures, or in both letters and figures, not less than one fourth inch highland upon the same side or face of such package upon which the producer’s or seller’s name and address appears, and if such name and address does not appear, the weight alone shall be legibly and durably placed upon such package in letters or figures not less than one fourth of an inch high. ’ ’

A violation of this section is made a misdemeanor.

The clear purpose, as expressed in the title, is that of “re

[106]

quintog the marking of packages of butter” which the owner proposes to sell; and the body of the act requires that each package, between certain weights, shall have its “exact weight” marked on it in letters or figures not- less than one fourth of an inch high. In our opinion the act is unconstitutional and void, within the decisions of this court in

Related research

Dissent — Sitaw

SITAW, J.

I dissent. The act is intended to prevent in

[107]

some degree the practice of fraudulently selling packages of butter at underweight, a practice which we cannot'say is infrequent. The prevention of fraud is a legitimate exercise of the police power. That the putting of a label on the outside of every package, showing its weight correctly, will tend to prevent the fraud at which the law is directed, must be admitted. If so, the extent of the preventive effect, and whether the results are sufficient to justify the inconvenience entailed upon a lawful business, are questions which the legislature must in the first instance decide. Its decision on such questions is conclusive upon the courts, unless it appears that the interference with the- business, as compared with the benefits resulting therefrom, will be so great as to render the law an unreasonable exercise of the police power. This we cannot do without violating the rule of statutory construction to the effect that a statute must, if possible, be so construed as to make it constitutional. The requirement that the package shall be marked with its “exact weight,’’ must receive a reasonable interpretation, and a slight deviation from the precise weight, not willfully or knowingly made, would not be held a violation of the law. Thus construed, I am of the opinion that the - burden imposed on the business is not sufficiently onerous to justify this court in declaring it void as an unreasonable interference with business. It is common knowledge that in this state butter is almost invariably pressed in molds and wrapped in cloth or paper to prepare it for the market. The weight is always known or very easily ascertained by the maker. With modern facilities for printing, it will not be difficult or expensive to make that weight appear on the outside of the package, as required by the law in question. That it may be oppressive in rare instances, is not a judicial objection to the validity of a law of this character. The legislative judgment that such frauds are so prevalent as to justify the preventive legislation is not so clearly wrong as to require interference by the court. The error must be beyond reasonable doubt, or the legislative decision must be upheld.

(Bourland

Hildreth,

26 Cal. 184;

University

Bernard,

57 Cal. 612;

In re Madera Irr. Hist.,

92 Cal. 310, [28 Pac. 272, 675, 27 Am. St. Rep. 106]; Cooley on Constitutional Limitations, 7th ed., 228.)

Sloss, J., and Angellotti, J., concurred.

AI Brief

Synopsis

Opinion — McFARLAND

More from California Supreme Court

Related research

Dissent — Sitaw

SITAW, J.

AI Brief