Bountiful City v. Granato

• Decision Date: 10 October 1930
• Docket Number: 4943
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: BOUNTIFUL CITY v. GRANATO et al

292 P. 205

77 Utah 133

BOUNTIFUL CITY v. GRANATO et al

No. 4943

Supreme Court of Utah

October 10, 1930

Appeal from District Court, Second District, Davis County; Geo. S Barker, Judge.

Sam Granato and others were convicted of violating an ordinance of the City of Bountiful City in the justice court and in the district court, and they appeal.

Affirmed.

O. W Moyle and H. W. Rudine, both of Salt Lake City, for appellants.

Irvine Skeen & Thurman, of Salt Lake City, for respondent.

STRAUP, J. CHERRY, C. J., and ELIAS HANSEN, EPHRAIM HANSON, and FOLLAND, JJ., concur.

OPINION

STRAUP, J.

This is a criminal action, No. 4943, brought by Bountiful City against the defendants for an alleged violation of an ordinance of the city referred to in the civil action between the same parties just considered and decided, Bountiful City V. Frank De Luca and Sam Granato et al., 77 Utah 107, 292 P. 194. It originated in the justice's court and resulted in a conviction. On appeal to the district court where the case was tried to the court without a jury, the trial again resulted in a judgment of conviction from which the defendants have prosecuted this appeal. In the district court a stipulation was entered into as to certain agreed facts. Additional facts, not inconsistent with the stipulation, were offered, to be proved by the defendants, but on objections on behalf of the city that the proffered evidence was immaterial, the evidence was excluded.

The only act in violation of the ordinance charged in the complaint was that the defendants "did wilfully and unlawfully permit goats to water directly from the stream known as Stone Creek in Davis County, Utah, at a point of said stream less than ten miles above the point from which the water thereof is taken by said city into its water works system," the waters of which were used for culinary and domestic purposes for the inhabitants of the city. The complaint was demurred to on grounds that it did not state sufficient facts to constitute a public offense, and that the ordinance violated federal and state constitutional provisions referred to in the civil action.

The stipulation entered into was with respect to the existence and terms of the ordinance, the location of Stone creek, that the city used waters therefrom for culinary and domestic purposes, the location of the city's intake and of the defendants' lands, that at the time charged in the complaint the defendants, while driving their goats from the place they were grazing on the north side of the creek in a southerly direction and across Stone creek, permitted the goats to drink directly from the creek within one hundred feet above the city's intake from which waters of the creek were taken by the city by means of a pipe line and carried to its waterworks system. No other evidence was given on behalf of the city. The evidence offered by the defendants and rejected related to the character of the defendants' lands, that it was suitable only for grazing purposes, that the grazing of lands by sheep or goats did not cause as much pollution of the waters as grazing by cattle, horses, or hogs, that the...