Com. v. Hadley

• Decision Date: 02 December 1966
• Citation: 222 N.E.2d 681,351 Mass. 439
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Lewis F. HADLEY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 681

222 N.E.2d 681

351 Mass. 439

COMMONWEALTH v. Lewis F. HADLEY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Argued Nov. 7, 1966.

Decided Dec. 2, 1966.

Louis M. Nordlinger, Boston, for defendant.

Loyd M. Starrett, Legal Asst. to Dist. Atty. (Ruth I. Abrams, Asst. Dist. Atty., with him), for the Commonwealth.

Lewis H. Weinstein and Judith L. Olans, Boston, for Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Malden and Worcester Redevelopment Authorities, amici curiae, joined in the Commonwealth's brief.

Max Rosenblatt, Asst. City Sol., for City of Malden, amicus curiae.

Before WILKINS, C.J., and SPAULDING, CUTTER, SPIEGEL and REARDON, JJ.

CUTTER, Justice.

The code enforcement inspector of the Malden board of health filed a complaint in the District Court alleging that, on June 7, 1965, Hadley 'did wilfully impede or obstruct an inspection * * * by the' code enforcement inspector upon certain premises in Malden. In the District Court, Hadley was found guilty of violating the Sanitary Code of the Department of Public Health, ¹ art. 1, reg. 3.1. ² He appealed. In the Superior Court, Hadley filed a waiver of trial by jury, and was tried upon a statement of agreed facts. The trial judge found him guilty, imposed a fine of $50 and reported the case to this court upon the following issue: '(w)hether the protections embodied in the fourth and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States shelter the owner-occupier of a single family * * * (house) from prosecution for refusing to admit municipal inspectors who demand entry and are without probable cause and without a warrant authorizing entry.' We must consider important practical aspects of the power of administrative officials to inspect dwelling houses in a reasonable manner either (a) to prevent, and warn against, conduct or conditions which may threaten the public health or safety, or (b) to obtain information about such conduct and conditions as a basis for later administative action ³ (and possibly, to some extent, legislative action).

The agreed facts may be summarized: 'Pursuant to a (city) program of code enforcement * * * the objective of which was to reveal conditions in private dwellings that may endanger the health and well being of occupants due to unsanitary circumstances or fire hazards, a staff of inpectors had, prior to * * * (this) case, and by prearrangement with the occupants been entering and inspecting dwellings in the city. Prior to the announced plan to inspect the home of the defendant many homes in the city had been inspected. During * * * August 1964 the first announcement * * * of the city's intention to inspect was delivered * * * in (the) defendant's neighborhood * * * including * * * (his) single family dwelling. Other letters and cards were mailed to the defendant asking for an appointment. * * * (T)he defendant did not reply, but his wife would call the chairman of the code enforcement commission.' A staff inspector 'visited the site and asked about a time for inspection. (The d) efendant's wife asked what the inspectors would be looking for and if there was a complaint, or warrant to enter. The staff inspector assured her there was no specific complaint or warrant and that the city was inspecting all homes in the district as part of a program to insure compliance with sanitary and safety laws. * * * (She) stated she did not want to have the house inspected without a showing of probable cause or a complaint of specific violation. (The d) efendant and his wife stated they would permit an inspection by the code enforcement staff after repairs to the house * * * then underway * * * (were) completed. Later the defendant stated he would not agree to an inspection unless there were a showing of a specific complaint or unless a valid warrant to enter had issued.' Since then, 'additional demands have been made to gain entry by appointment and have been refused * * *. The (city) program of inspecting all homes by area * * * remains in operation * * *.'

1. Examination of the enactments authorizing the Sanitary Code, of the legislative history, and of the code itself indicates that the code's primary purpose from the beginning has been (a) to apply proper health and safety standards reasonably for the protection of the public in the prevention of violations, rather than (b) to punish past violations as criminal offences. See 1957 House Doc. No. 2833; 1965 House Doc. No. 4040 (esp. at pp. 54--55, see fn. 6, infra), a report in part the basis of St. 1965, c. 898, §§ 1, 3 (see 1965 House Bills Nos. 4441, 4449), which transferred the legislative authority for promulgating the code, formerly in G.L. c. 111, § 5, to c. 111, §§ 127A--127J. This type of prevention appears to be the general objective of similar codes throughout the country. See Carlton, Landfield, and Loken, Enforcement of Municipal Housing Codes, 78 Harv.L.Rev. 801, esp. at pp. 806--809. ⁴ We interpret reg. 3.1 (fn. 2) as having this type of preventive objective. Only incidentally does it seem designed to provide a basis for criminal prosecutions of past violators.

2. Regulation 3.1 (fn. 2) in terms requires that any inspection pursuant to its provisions shall be at a 'reasonable time.' The Malden code enforcement inspector correctly interpreted this provision as requiring that he respect the convenience and privacy of the occupants of premises so far as practicable and consistent with the public interest in the circumstances. The area inspection now in progress does not appear to have been of an emergency character, and we do not now consider the greatly different issues which might be created by emergency conditions. ⁵ We treat this case as one in which the code contemplated that such an area inspection would proceed in an orderly manner (but, of course, without undue delay) and with due consideration for the interests and privacy of occupants.

The enforcement inspector seems to have acted throughout with commendable respect for the defendant's privacy and convenience. Efforts to make an appointment for an inspection were continued patiently until the defendant unequivocally refused to cooperate at all in the absence of a warrant or a specific complaint. Even then, it was only after additional demands for entry with the defendant's consent that the inspector initiated a criminal complaint. The inspector has not attempted to enter without consent or by force, and we have, of course, no occasion to consider the use (in any unlikely prosecution of a past violation) of evidence obtained by means of the inspection. Cf. People v. Laverne, 14 N.Y.2d 304, 251 N.Y.S.2d 452, 200 N.E.2d 441. Ct. also annotation, 65 Col.L.Rev. 288, 293.

3. The statute and the code (see fns. 1, 2) would have permitted the inspector to seek, by bill in equity in the Superior Court, an order requiring the defendant to permit an inspection at a reasonable time. In such a proceeding the defendant would have been able to present, in his effort to defeat the issuance of an order, any available evidence (a) that the proposed inspection had no reasonable relation to the enforcement of the Sanitary Code, or was to be made for purposes not within the scope of the code, (b) that it was undertaken without proper authority, or (c) that it was in some significant respect discriminatory, arbitrary, or capricious, or designed to harass the defendant. Such an equity proceeding, of course, would have been likely to involve some delay and more than nominal expense. The inspector thus reasonably may have thought that the criminal sanction under reg. 3.1 provided a simpler and less cumbersome method for encouraging the cooperation of the defendant through the imposition of a fine. See COMMONWEALTH V. SOSTILIO, MASS. , 221 N.E.2D 764^A.

The present record contains no suggestion (a) that the area inspection was unauthorized, unreasonable, ⁶ or for any improper purpose, or designed to be a basis for any criminal prosecution (at least until after the defendant had reasonable opportunity to eliminate any violations which might be discovered and had failed to do so); or (b) that any discriminatory, arbitrary, or capricious action affecting the defendant or his property was proposed; or (c) that there was harassment. The defendant simply refuses to permit '(i) nspection without a warrant, as an adjunct to a regulatory scheme for the general welfare of the community and not as a means of enforcing the criminal law.' See Frank v. State of Maryland, 359 U.S. 360, 367, 79 S.Ct. 804, 809, 3 L.Ed.2d 877. See also State ex rel. Eaton v. Price, 168 Ohio St. 123, 151 N.E.2d 523, affirmed by an equally divided court, 364 U.S. 263, 80 S.Ct. 1463, 4 L.Ed.2d 1708.

4. The agreed facts present directly no question concerning what defences the defendant could have raised and what evidence he could have presented at the trial of a criminal complaint under reg. 3.1. The answers to these questions, however, bear indirectly upon whether the criminal sanction in reg. 3.1 is a constitutionally valid method of encouraging consent to an administrative public health inspection. We think that reg. 3.1 does not make it an offence for an occupant to refuse to permit an unauthorized, unreasonable, or discriminatory inspection. Accordingly, we interpret the regulation as permitting a defendant, prosecuted under it, to prove any one or more of the defences which he could assert in equity in opposition to the granting of an order to permit an inspection. The general nature of these defences has already been stated.

The practical consideration supporting health inspections, discussed in the majority opinion in the Frank case, 359 U.S. 360, 371--372, 79 S.Ct. 804, and the result of that case, amply justify a prosecution for refusing to consent to an administrative inspection without a warrant of the type permitted by reg. 3.1 as we interpret it. To prevent, for the benefit of the whole community, health hazards and unsafe conditions...