Jersey Maid Milk Products Co. v. Brock

CURTIS, J. This proceeding was instituted for the purpose of restraining the defendant, the Director of Agriculture, from enforcing as against the plaintiffs, the provisions of chapter 10, division IV, of the Agricultural Code of this state and the marketing plan for stabilization of the milk industry formulated by him pursuant thereto for the Los Angeles County area. The plaintiffs consist of producers, distributors, and consumers of milk within said area. The appellants herein to whom we shall refer hereafter as interveners, filed a petition in the Superior Court in and for the County of Los Angeles in which this proceeding was pending, asking that they be permitted to intervene in said proceeding. Their petition was granted, and they thereupon filed their complaint in intervention. Thereafter the plaintiffs, and later the defendant, moved the trial court to strike said complaint in intervention from the files of said action. These motions were granted, and the interveners have appealed from the order granting said motions and striking out their complaint in intervention.

The original action, as instituted by the plaintiffs, was before this court and bears the L. A. No. 16986 (ante, p. 620 [91 Pac. (2d) 577].) The decision in said action has this day been filed. In that decision the facts of said case are fully set out and may be ascertained by a reading of said decision. It will not be necessary, therefore, to set forth said facts in any detail herein. As noted above, the action was instituted to restrain the defendant from enforcing as against plaintiffs herein chapter 10 of division IV of the Agricultural Code, and the marketing plan for the stabilization of the milk industry formulated under the terms of said chapter.

Interveners are distributors of milk within the Los Angeles County area, and like the plaintiffs in this action are interested in the validity of said chapter of the Agricultural Code, and also like the plaintiffs, they are opposed to the enforcement of the provisions of said chapter and ^ the stabilization plan formulated thereunder. They contend, therefore, that they have such “an interest in the matter in litigation”, and in the success of the plaintiffs in said action that entitles them to intervene in the action under the terms of section 387 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The sole question for decision, therefore, is whether the [663]interveners have any interest in the proceeding that will entitle them to intervene as parties therein.

Section 387 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides in part that, “At any time before trial, any person, who has an interest in the matter in litigation, or in the success of either of the parties, or an interest against both, may intervene in the action or proceeding.” We find no direct authority upon the precise question before us under facts similar to those in the present action. Section 387 of the Code of Civil Procedure has been the subject of frequent discussion in numerous decisions of the appellate courts of the state.