People v. Richfield Oil Company

PRESTON, J.

Upon the authority of People v.

Ventura Refining Co., ante,

p. 286 [268 Pac. 347], and

People

v.

Richfield Oil Co., ante,

p. 301 [268 Pac. 353], the judgment in this cause must be affirmed.

The contracts here are identical with the contracts con-sidered in the case last above cited. The only reason for separate appeals in the two cases was that in one of them the question arose as to when the appellant should have claimed the exemption, but in view of our conclusions announced in these cases, this question becomes immaterial.

Judgment affirmed.

Richards, J., Shenk, J., Curtis, J., and Waste, C. J., concurred.

[700]

LANGDON, J., Dissenting.

I dissent. There is no uncertainty or ambiguity in the language of the statute under consideration, and, consequently, no occasion for judicial construction. Such statute provides that it “shall not be held or

construed,

to apply to . . . (e) any motor vehicle fuel delivered under contracts entered into prior to the fourteenth day of May, 1923 ...” The legislature may have had in mind, as contended by the attorney-general, only contracts providing a fixed price for fuel, but it has not so restricted the term and to amend the statute by judicial construction seems to me a usurpation of legislative power which is unjustified even in the interests of public policy.