Rocklite Products v. Municipal Court of Los Angeles Judicial Dist.

• Decision Date: 27 June 1963
• Citation: 217 Cal.App.2d 638,32 Cal.Rptr. 183
• Parties: ROCKLITE PRODUCTS, a California Corporation, Edmund F. Brovelli, E. A. Peterson and Michael E. Fitzpatrick, Petitioners and Appellants, v. The MUNICIPAL COURT OF LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT, State of California, Defendant and Respondent; The PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party in Interest. Civ. 26795.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 183

32 Cal.Rptr. 183

217 Cal.App.2d 638

ROCKLITE PRODUCTS, a California Corporation, Edmund F. Brovelli, E. A. Peterson and Michael E. Fitzpatrick, Petitioners and Appellants, v. The MUNICIPAL COURT OF LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT, State of California, Defendant and Respondent The PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party in Interest.

Civ. 26795.

District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

June 27, 1963.

Rehearing Denied July 23, 1963.

Hearing Denied Aug. 20, 1963.

William T. Selby, Ventura, for appellant, Rocklite Products.

Ben K. Ashby and Leighton G. Long., Ventura, for appellants Edmund F. Brovelli, E. A. Peterson and Michael Fitzpatrick.

Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., Vincent W. Thorpe and Otto J. Hetzel, Deputy Attys. Gen., for the People, Real Party in Interest

HERNDON, Justice.

This appeal is taken from a judgment discharging an alternative writ of prohibition and denying appellants' petition for a peremptory writ.

Appellants and others were named as defendants in an action brought by the Attorney General in the Los Angeles Municipal Court. Appellants demurred to the complaint and moved for its dismissal on the ground of lack of jurisdiction. These demurrers were overruled, the motions were denied and appellants were ordered to file their answers to the complaint.

By the instant proceeding in the superior court, appellants sought to restrain the municipal court from taking further proceedings. It was stipulated that there were no material issues of fact and that no proof was necessary because the facts alleged in appellants' petitions were undisputed. Therefore, the issues presented to the court below and to this court are issues of law only.

By way of their assignment of error, appellants make the following contentions: (1) That the municipal court does not have jurisdiction over criminal prosecutions relating to violations of the Cartwright Act (Sections 16700 et seq., Business and Professions Code); (2) that the complaint filed in the municipal court does not state a criminal offense; and, (3) that at the time alleged in the complaint, the Cartwright Act was unconstitutional. We find no merit in any of these contentions.

Appellants' arguments in support of their claim of unconstitutionality are essentially as follows: (1) a Colorado statute containing provisions substantially the same as those found in section 16723 ¹ has been held to be too vague to permit of constitutional enforcement, (Cline v. Frink Dairy Co., 274 U.S. 445, 47 S.Ct. 681, 71 L.Ed. 1146); (2) the provisions of section 16723 are necessarily included within the definition of 'illegal trusts' as et forth in section 16720 ² by reason of the exception provided for in section 16726 ³; and (3) it follows, therefore, that the entire act is unconstitutional.

Twice this identical argument has been made to our Supreme Court and twice it has been squarely rejected. (People v. Building Maintenance Etc. Ass'n, 41 Cal.2d 719, 723-726, 264 P.2d 31, and Speegle v. Board of Fire Underwriters, 29 Cal.2d 34, 46-48, 172 P.2d 867.) In each instance it was held that because the exemption created by section 16723 was added to the statute by amendment, it was separable from the rest of the act and therefore its unconstitutional vagueness invalidated only the exemption provision and not the act itself. It is to be emphasized at the outset that the action filed by the Attorney General which is here involved was filed after the effective date of the 1961 amendments of the Cartwright Act.

No useful purpose would be served by repeating here the excellent and comprehensive analyses of the arguments set forth in the cited decisions. While it is true that the appeals in those cases involved civil actions, logic dictates that the rule that 'an invalid amendment to a valid statute is ineffective for any purpose [citations]' (Emphasis added) (People v. Building Maintenanced Etc. Ass'n, supra, 41 Cal.2d p. 726, 264 P.2d p. 36), must apply with equal force to criminal actions.

Appellants' contention regarding the lack of the jurisdiction of the municipal court over criminal prosecutions for violations of the act is based upon their interpretation of language found in section 16754 ⁴ as amended in 1961. Prior to the 1961 amendments to the act, section 16750 ⁵ provided for the recovery of treble damages by any person injured in his business or property as the result of any violation of the act, and section 16754 ⁶ provided for prosecutions by the Attorney General, to recover a forfeiture of $50 per day from any person who violated the act.

Section 16750 was amended in 1961 to declare specifically that 'the State and any of its political subdivisions and public agencies shall be deemed a person within the meaning of this section' and to authorize the Attorney General to maintain actions thereunder to recover the specified damages on behalf of these governmental bodies. Section 16754 was amended to eliminate the prior forfeiture provisions thereof and to provide that the Attorney General, or a district attorney on the order of the Attorney General, 'shall initiate civil actions or criminal proceedings for violation of this chapter.'

It appears to be appellants' contention that because the Legislature saw fit to retain the expression found in former section 16754 regarding initiating actions thereunder 'in the superior court' in the new section 16754, that it meant to render nugatory the express provisions of amended section 16750 that civil actions may be brought 'in any court having jurisdiction in the county where etc.' (Emphasis added) and to create by implication an exception to section 1462 of the Penal Code providing that in counties having municipal courts such courts shall have jurisdiction over misdemeanor prosecutions. This contention is wholly without merit.

Article VI, Section 5, of the California Constitution provides that the superior courts shall have original jurisdiction in 'cases of misdemeanor not otherwise provided for'. Violations of the provisions of the Cartwright Act constitute misdemeanors (section 16755) and, in counties having inferior courts with appropriate misdemeanor jurisdiction, prosecutions therefor shall be had therein (Union Ice Company v. Rose, 11 Cal.App. 357, 359-364, 104 P. 1006), but in counties lacking such inferior courts, prosecutions shall be had in the superior court (People v. Sacramento Butchers' Protective Ass'n, 12 Cal.App.471, 487-490, 107 P. 712).

Therefore the mere statement in section 16754 that criminal proceedings 'may be brought in the superior court', the court having original jurisdiction in all such misdemeanor prosecutions 'not otherwise provided for,' falls far short of a showing of a legislative intent thereby to terminate the jurisdiction of inferior courts 'otherwise provided for' in section 1462 Penal Code.

Appellants argue in effect that we should regard the amendment of section 16754 as being the equivalent of the specific amendment of section 1462 Penal Code in 1929 which created an exception to the jurisdiction over misdemeanors otherwise granted the municipal court therein, in cases in which the juvenile court is given jurisdiction. (Cf. In Re Gamo, 122 Cal.App. 725, 729, 10 P.2d 770.)

This we cannot do for two reasons. First, as our Supreme Court noted in connection with a somewhat analogous situation, 'The word 'may' is not usually construed as laying down an absolute requirement. The statute [Section 182 Penal Code] does not, therefore, state a legislative intention to give exclusive jurisdiction to the superior court of all prosecutions based upon an asserted conspiracy and, for that reason, does not fall within the exception stated in section 1425 [Penal Code relating to jurisdiction of Justice Courts].' (In Re Williamson, 43 Cal.2d 651, 655-656, 276 P.2d 593, 595.)

Secondly, as noted by the trial court in its memorandum opinion, the same 1961 legislative session that enacted Assembly Bill 897 amending section 16754, had before it Assembly Bill 895 which would have amended Penal Code section 1462 by adding thereto the words 'except those arising out of Chapter 2 and 4 of Division 7, Part 2 of the Business and Professions Code.' But this bill was not enacted into law.

'Recourse to legislative history is proper for the purpose of ascertaining the intent in enacting legislation where there is a question with respect to that intention. [Citations].' (People v. Superior Court, 199 Cal.App.2d 303, 310, 18 Cal.Rptr. 557, 562.) That the Legislature was cognizant of the possible propriety of amending section 1462 is clear and its rejection of an express provision to that effect is a very persuasive indication of the legislative intent. 'It cannot be inferred that the Legislature intended to do indirectly what it refrained from doing directly.' (People v. Superior Court, supra, 199 Cal.App.2d p. 308, 18 Cal.Rptr p. 560.)

We must now comment briefly on appellants' novel arguments in support of their final contention that 'the complaint does not state a criminal offense'. Appellants, of course, do not assert that the complaint fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a public offense or that it does not comply with section 16756 ⁷ of the Business and Professions Code. Any such assertion obviously would be futile, for the complaint not only contains 'the words of the enactment describing the offense' (Penal Code section 952), but it also sets forth facts that concisely but comprehensively, describe the acts of appellants which are alleged to have constituted the violations charged therein.

Rather, it is appellants' contention that although the individual defendants were arrested on warrants on which the bail was set at $500 and the corporate defendant was served with a 'Summons on a Criminal Complaint', and notwithstanding that the defendants, both individual and corporate, were given copies of the document captioned 'Criminal Complaint'...