Skivers v. State of California

• Decision Date: 18 December 1970
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Catherine SKIVERS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. STATE of California, Defendant and Respondent. Civ. 27196.

Page 707

91 Cal.Rptr. 707

13 Cal.App.3d 652

Catherine SKIVERS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. STATE of California, Defendant and Respondent.

Civ. 27196.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 4, California.

Dec. 18, 1970.

Hearing Denied Feb. 10, 1971.

Louis M. Bernstein, Oakland, for appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., Wayman M. Robertson, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., San Francisco, for respondent.

RATTIGAN, Associate Justice.

Catherine Skivers (hereinafter 'plaintiff') appeals from an adverse judgment in her action against the State of California.

The undisputed facts, which are set forth in a settled statement as well as in a conventional record on appeal, include these: Plaintiff buys from California Industries for the Blind ('CIB'), a state agency, products manufactured by blind persons pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code sections 19550 et seq. ¹ CIB sells the same products to other agencies of the State of California and to agencies of the federal government. Plaintiff is a wholesaler of the products, the federal agencies are retailers and the state agencies are consumers thereof. Although plaintiff is herself a blind person, CIB sells to the governmental agencies at prices lower than it charges plaintiff for the same products.

This action, in which plaintiff seeks injunctive relief and damages, is based upon her contention that CIB's practices of selling to its governmental customers at prices which are preferential (as to plaintiff) is in violation of section 19573. ² The trial court based its judgment (which denies plaintiff any relief) upon its conclusions of law that the practice did not violate the statute because CIB's governmental customers were not 'other persons' within its meaning, and not because of the 'trade level' element to which it refers. ³ While we disagree wtih with interpretation of the statute, we agree with the result reached; we therefore affirm the judgment. Our reasons in both respects follow.

As is evident from the opposing arguments advanced on the appeal, application of most of the familiar canons of statutory construction to the term 'other persons' both supports and negates the interpretation reached by the trial court. Moreover (and as plaintiff points out), the court's resort to section 19574 (formerly section 18842, in the chronology recited in fn. 2, Ante), as the basis of its interpretation of 'other persons' as used in section 19573, is not consistent with the language of section 19572. The problem here is that the trial court chose to construe the term 'other persons' alone. In our view, and by reason of the context presented by the entire language of section 19573, the decisive term in it is 'other persons in the same trade level,' not 'other persons' alone, and the significant words are 'trade level.'

According to common usage in statutes, judicial decisions, business, and even conversation, the word 'trade' includes the buying and selling of merchandise (see 42 Words and Phrases 216, 223 et seq.; Webster's Third New Int. Dict. (1967), p. 2421 ('trade,' 4b(1))) which passes, progressively, through the respective 'levels' of manufacturer (or producer), wholesaler, retailer, and consumer. The words 'trade level,' therefore, convey a clear meaning. This invokes the prime rule of construction that the legislative intent underlying the effect to be given a statute must be ascertained from its language; if the language is clear, 'there can be no room for interpretation' (Caminetti v. Pac. Mutual Life Ins. Co. (1943) 22 Cal.2d 344, 353--354, 139 P.2d 908, 913; Estate of Sharp (1968) 257 Cal.App.2d 851, 855, 65 Cal.Rptr. 438) and effect must be given to the plain meaning of the language. (Estate of Sharp, supra.)

The commerce in CIB-manufactured products constituted 'trade' under the facts, and it is clearly contemplated to be such under the statutes controlling it. (§ 19550 et seq.) Under the facts, plaintiff occupied the 'trade level' of wholesaler. As CIB's federal customers were retailers, and its state customers consumers, each governmental customer occupied a different 'trade level' than plaintiff's. Consequently (and within the plain meaning of section 19573, but in point of fact rather than law alone), plaintiff was not entitled to any relief by reason of the price practices followed by CIB in dealing with its governmental customers....