Ex Parte Vaughan

• Decision Date: 20 December 1922
• Docket Number: (No. 6719.)
• Parties: Ex parte VAUGHAN.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 373

246 S.W. 373

Ex parte VAUGHAN.

(No. 6719.)

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

December 20, 1922.

Original application by G. H. Vaughan for writ of habeas corpus. Application refused, and relator remanded into custody.

W. Gregory Hatcher, of Dallas, for appellant.

Jas. J. Collins and Carl B. Callaway, both of Dallas, and R. G. Storey, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

MORROW, P. J.

By way of original application for writ of habeas corpus, relator calls in question the validity of his conviction for violation of an ordinance of the city of Dallas.

The complaint charges, in appropriate language, that he was the proprietor of a meat market and worked therein for more than five days "without a certificate from some reputable physician of the city of Dallas attesting that the bearer had been examined at any time within the last six months before the filing of this complaint and had been found free from infectious and contagious diseases."

Many grounds are specified in the application. None will be adverted to except such as are necessary in deciding whether there be a valid ordinance of the city of Dallas upon which the complaint may be lawfully based. Section 2 and subdivision (b) thereof reads thus:

"Hereafter it shall be unlawful for any person, firm, organization or corporation, operating a food products establishment, to work, employ, or to keep in their employ, any person infected with or affected by any infectious or contagious disease. It shall be unlawful for the proprietor to work in such an establishment, if he is infected with or affected by any infectious or contagious disease, and all proprietors shall be subject to the medical examination hereinafter provided for."

"It shall be unlawful for any individual, firm, corporation or organization operating any food establishment to employ any person to work in such establishment who, at the time of their employment, had not in his or her possession a certificate from some reputable physician attesting the fact that the bearer has been examined by such physician within one week prior to the time of employment, and that such examination discloses the fact that such person to be employed was free from any and all infectious or contagious diseases."

The city of Dallas, in its charter, is given —

"the power to enact and enforce ordinances necessary to protect health, life, and property, * * * to protect the lives, health, and property of the inhabitants of said city, * * * and it shall have and exercise all powers of municipal government not prohibited by this charter, or by some general law of the state of Texas, or by the provisions of the Constitution of the state of Texas."

That the enactment of suitable legislation to protect the public health against the use of impure food is within the general scope of the police power is not an open question. Ex parte Drane, 80 Tex. Cr. R. 543, 191 S. W. 1156, and authorities there cited. See, also, Cozine v. State, 87 Tex. Cr. R. 92, 220 S. W. 102; Corzine v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 227 S. W. 1102; Vaughn v. State, 86 Tex. Cr. R. 255, 219 S. W. 206; Sanchez v. State, 27 Tex. App. 14, 10 S. W. 756; Quaternick v. State, 84 Tex. Cr. R. 40, 204 S. W. 328; Howard v. State, 80 Tex. Cr. R. 588, 192 S. W. 770, L. R. A....