Louisiana State Board of Agriculture And Immigration v. Tanzmann

• Decision Date: 15 January 1917
• Docket Number: 22087
• Citation: 73 So. 854,140 La. 756
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: LOUISIANA STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND IMMIGRATION v. TANZMANN

73 So. 854

140 La. 756

LOUISIANA STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND IMMIGRATION v. TANZMANN

No. 22087

Supreme Court of Louisiana

January 15, 1917

SYLLABUS

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Article 31 of the Constitution does not prohibit the embracing in a statute of the means provided for the accomplishment of its object; nor does the fact that such provision is made render the statute obnoxious to the objection that it embraces more than one object.

The destruction by legislative authority of orange trees affected by a disease for which no cure has been discovered and which is highly contagious and infectious is not a taking of private property for a public purpose without previous adequate compensation, nor a taking of such property without due process of law, but is a competent exercise of the police power of the state.

The proposition that, though all the orange groves in the state may, in the meanwhile, be destroyed by citrus canker defendant should be allowed to maintain that disease in his grove, upon the chance that he may discover, and until he does discover, a remedy for it which may be less drastic than the burning of the trees, is untenable. The owners of the other groves are entitled to protection now before the destruction emanating from defendant's place overtakes their groves.

Girault Farrar, of New Orleans, for appellant.

A. V. Coco, Atty. Gen., and H. P. Gamble, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Sanders, Brian & Sanders, of New Orleans, of counsel), for appellee.

Statement of the Case.

OPINION

MONROE, C. J.

Defendant prosecutes this appeal from a judgment enjoining him from interfering with plaintiff in the work of entering upon his property and destroying certain orange and other citrus trees affected with citrus canker.

Plaintiff was proceeding under the authority of Act 36 of 1910, p. 55, entitled:

'An act to provide measures relative to fruit and crop pests and diseases; to divide the work incident to said subject between the Louisiana state board of agriculture and immigration and the experiment stations of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College; to delegate to the Louisiana state board of agriculture and immigration power to make rules, ordinances and regulations and providing penalties for the violation thereof; and to repeal Act No. 6 of the Extra Session of the General Assembly of 1903.'

The act provides for the transfer to the 'experiment stations' of the apparatus, literature, and other property of the 'state crop pest commission,' repeals Act No. 6, Ex. Sess. 1903, which created that commission, and divides the entomological work of the state between those stations and the plaintiff board, declares that the commissioner of agriculture shall see that the regulations of the board are executed, and vests him with authority to take steps to that end during the intervals between the meetings of the Board. It further declares (section 4) that:

Said board 'shall have full and plenary power to deal with all crop and fruit pests and such contagious and infectious crop and fruit diseases as in the opinion of the entomologist, may be prevented, controlled, or eradicated; with full power to make, promulgate and enforce such rules, ordinances and regulations, and to do and perform such acts as, in the judgment of the entomologist, may be necessary to control, eradicate or prevent the introduction, spread or dissemination of all injurious crop and fruit pests and diseases, and all the rules, ordinances and regulations of said board shall have the force and effect of law so far as they conform to the general laws of the state and of the United States, five days after their promulgation in the official journal of the state. * * *'

That (section 5):

'The said board * * * shall have power * * * to enforce its * * * regulations in any court of competent jurisdiction by civil, as well as criminal proceedings, and if the remedy elected to be pursued be by writ of injunction, no court of this state shall have the right previous to a trial upon the merits, to set aside such a writ on bond. * * *'

That (section 6):

'The entomologist shall prepare and publish a list of dangerous crop and fruit pests and infectious and contagious plant diseases, known or suspected to be present within the state, or which might be introduced; * * * that said entomologist, with the approval of the commissioner of agriculture, shall have printed from time to time bulletins containing such information, remedies, preventatives, etc., as he may consider necessary, * * * also, the * * * regulations of the said board, * * * which said bulletins shall be distributed to all farmers and other interested persons. * * * When the entomologist suspects that any pest or plant disease, tested by him as dangerous, exists in any part of the state, he shall verify such suspicion, and, if same be well founded, said entomologist shall take immediate charge of said infested or infected property and adopted such measures for the treatment or extermination of such pest or disease as he may deem advisable; said entomologist, or any of his duly authorized assistants, shall have authority to inspect any building, warehouse, depot or other place where property is located, or premises, nurseries, orchards, groves or fields suspected to be infested or infected by any crop pest or disease, listed or bulletined * * * by said entomologist, and if, in his opinion it is necessary to destroy the property so infested or infected in order to prevent the further spread of said injurious crop pest or disease, he shall have authority to destroy said property and without compensation to the owner or owners. * * * Any one who shall seek to prevent any inspection under the direction of said state board, * * * by said entomologist, or his authorized assistants, or who shall otherwise interfere with the agents or employes of said board of said entomologist while in the performance of their duties, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of, * * * or imprisoned for, * * * or by both fine and imprisonment. * * *'

In the petition herein filed plaintiff alleges that in 1913 it was reported to it and to the entomologist that a pest or plant disease, not theretofore listed by him, but thereafter listed, and known as 'citrus canker,' existed in the orange districts of the state, and that the entomologist verified the report; that he and his associates, in collaboration with the scientists of the Department of Agriculture of the United States, made a thorough and systematic study of the disease, its causes and remedies, and reached the conclusion that the...