Skyline Materials, Inc. v. City of Belmont

• Decision Date: 26 December 1961
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: SKYLINE MATERIALS, INC., a corporation, Plaintiff, Defendant in Intervention and Respondent, v. CITY OF BELMONT, a municipal corporation, Victor G. Wandmayer, as Mayor of the City of Belmont, John Watts, as City Administrator of the City of Belmont, Charles L. Judd, Warren R. Mendel, L. C. Reynolds and Wallace Benson, as Members of the City Council of the City of Belmont, and James Lyall, as Chief of Police of the City of Belmont, Defendants and Appellants. Civ. 19243.

Page 95

18 Cal.Rptr. 95

198 Cal.App.2d 449

SKYLINE MATERIALS, INC., a corporation, Plaintiff, Defendant in Intervention and Respondent, v. CITY OF BELMONT, a municipal corporation, Victor G. Wandmayer, as Mayor of the City of Belmont, John Watts, as City Administrator of the City of Belmont, Charles L. Judd, Warren R. Mendel, L. C. Reynolds and Wallace Benson, as Members of the City Council of the City of Belmont, and James Lyall, as Chief of Police of the City of Belmont, Defendants and Appellants.

Civ. 19243.

District Court of Appeal, First District, Division 3, California.

Dec. 26, 1961.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 23, 1962.

Hearing Denied Feb. 21, 1962.

Sam J. Whiting, Jr., Redwood City, Kirkbride, Wilson, Harzfeld & Wallace, San Mateo, Paul A. McCarthy, Redwood City, for defendants and appellants.

Dinkelspiel & Dinkelspiel, John W. Dinkelspiel, Robert E. Burness, Jr., John F. Taylor, San Francisco, for respondent.

DRAPER, Presiding Justice.

Defendants, the City of Belmont and its officials, were permanently enjoined from enforcing an ordinance establishing a maximum gross weight of 8 tons for vehicles using Ralston Avenue west of El Camino Real. They appeal from the decree.

Ralston runs from Bayshore Highway on the east to a county road on the west. The latter road, in turn, runs west to Skyline Boulevard. This combination is one of a limited number of roads in San Mateo County connecting Skyline, which is a north-south highway traversing the foothills of the Coast Range, with the populous area more nearly at the level of San Francisco Bay. No other such connecting road runs through Belmont. The westernmost mile of Ralston lies in unincorporated territory, but for most of its length it is wholly within the city limits of Belmont.

Plaintiff, since 1950, has leased and operated a quarry just off Skyline, southwest of the westerly end of Ralston. In 1956 plaintiff acquired land southeast of Belmont and east of the Bayshore Highway. An asphalt plant has been constructed on this site.

In 1955 Belmont adopted an ordinance limiting to 13 tons the gross weight of any vehicle using Ralston Avenue. A limit of 3 tons was fixed for other restricted streets. No signs were posted pursuant to this ordinance, and it was not enforced. In December, 1956 the ordinance was amended to allow the city administrator to issue permits, upon application and payment of prescribed fees, for hauling of 'earthen material' over the restricted streets in vehicles exceeding the weight limits. The ordinance as thus amended was enforced. In November, 1957 the ordinance was further amended to reduce the allowed gross weight on Ralston and to modify some of the provisions for permits to haul earth. This amendment followed filing of an initiative petition, but was not the result of a vote of the electorate upon such petition.

The market for rock from plaintiff's quarry lies in the populous area along the bay. Whether picked up at the quarry by customers or delivered by plaintiff, this product is transported in trucks whose weight, with load, is 18 tons or more. It is apparent that any increase in hauling costs adversely affects the market for plaintiff's product, and this is the essence of plaintiff's quarrel with the Belmont ordinance.

From plaintiff's quarry to El Camino Real is 5.6 miles via Ralston Avenue. North of Ralston is Crystal Springs Road, a state highway which is another east-west road connecting Skyline and Bayshore, on which no weight restriction save that of the Vehicle Code applies. The distance from quarry to El Camino and Ralston, by this route, is 10.9 miles, 5.3 miles longer than the route over Ralston. Before there was any ordinance restricting truck weight on Ralston, plaintiff and its customers nonetheless made all deliveries to and north of Nineteenth Avenue in San Mateo via Crystal Springs Road, and it is conceded that if there were no ordinance such deliveries would be made by the same route. Thus it is only deliveries south of this point which are adversely affected by the ordinance. For such deliveries to and south of Belmont along the bay, the restriction has increased the trucking haul by 5.3 miles along El Camino (the distance now stipulated to by the parties, although the trial court found it to be 4.89 miles), by 5 miles if deliveries are over Bayshore, and by lesser distances for points between Ralston and Nineteenth.

The findings and memorandum opinion of the trial court make clear that a principal basis of its decision was the view that an alternate route wholly within the City of Belmont must be provided. Although respondent's brief does not directly espouse this view, the same argument is made, by indirection, in the contention that the ordinance itself must provide for an alternate route. Obviously, the ordinance can have no extra-territorial effect, and it follows that if this argument is accepted, an alternate route wholly within the city must be provided.

But such is not the true rule. One opinion (Neary v. Town of Los Altos Hills, 172 Cal.App.2d 721, 343 P.2d 155, 159) does contain the statement that an ordinance restricting weight limits 'must in fact designate an alternate route within the city.' But this language is unnecessary to the decision. In Neary, a newly incorporated city bounded upon three sides a quarry which had been in operation for some 50 years. On the fourth side, the quarry was adjoined by a mountain over which no road ran and the grade of which was 40%. By this route, the nearest road was some three miles from the quarry, and the intermediate property was not owned by the quarry owner. The city adopted an ordinance barring all of its streets to all vehicles having a gross weight in excess of 12 tons. The ordinance was not within the legislative grant to cities of power to restrict vehicle weight upon 'a street to be described in the ordinance' (Veh. Code § 713, now § 35701) because it applied to all streets in the city (Neary v. Town of Los Altos Hills, supra, p. 728, 343 P.2d 155). Further, the ordinance clearly was confiscatory in wholly isolating the long-established quarry from all access to any business, in or out of the city.

It is apparent that the Neary statement was inadvertent. The sole authority cited for it (McCammon v. City of Redwood City, 149 Cal.App.2d 421, 308 P.2d 831) holds precisely to the contrary. In McCammon, the court pointed out that designation of an alternate route is required by Section 713 (now Vehicle Code §§ 35701 et seq.) only when a state highway is the subject of the ordinance limitation, and said (p. 424, 308 P.2d p. 834) 'Inasmuch as the ordinance did not contain any restriction upon the use of any state highway it was not necessary to do so.' After holding that 'there must in fact be such an alternate route or otherwise the ordinance is unreasonable' (p. 424, 308 P.2d p. 834), the court in McCammon states 'Appellants argue that the alternate route must be entirely within the city limits * * *. There is no such requirement in section 713 of the Vehicle Code or otherwise.' The 'alternate route' in McCammon in fact was largely outside the city limits.

While we are in complete agreement with the result reached in Neary, we are convinced that the statement relied upon in this case by court and counsel was not necessary to the decision, was inadvertent, and is not to be applied outside the factual context in which it was used in Neary. We hold that the 'alternate route' required by McCammon need not be provided by the city whose ordinance is in question, and need not be wholly within the city.

Here, as in McCammon, the ordinance does not cut off access to plaintiff's quarry. There is, contrary to the trial court's view, an alternate route. The true question here, as in all cases of exercise of the police power, is whether the injury sought to be prevented by the ordinance reasonably justifies the burden it places upon plaintiff. In other words, is the ordinance, under all the circumstances, arbitrary, unreasonable or confiscatory as to plaintiff?

The trial court found, as to the need for the ordinance, that 'the type of road construction on * * * Ralston * * * will permit' movement of vehicles in excess of 8 tons 'without unreasonable damage', and that use of Ralston by heavy vehicles 'will not constitute an unreasonable traffic hazard'.

In reviewing these findings, we must bear in mind that the Legislature in ceding to cities the right to enforce weight restrictions, and the city council in adopting this ordinance, acted in a legislative and not a judicial capacity. It is eminently clear that the ordinance is an exercise of the police power. The decision of the city's legislative body 'as to matters of opinion and policy will not be set aside or disregarded by the courts unless the regulations have no reasonable relation to the public welfare or unless the physicial facts show that there has been an unreasonable, oppressive, or unwarranted interference with property rights in the exercise of the police power. [Citations] The wisdom of the prohibitions and restrictions is a matter for legislative determination, and even though a court may not agree with that determination, it will not substitute its judgment for that of the zoning authorities if there is any reasonable justification for their action.' (Lockard v. City of Los Angeles, 33 Cal.2d 453, 461, 202 P.2d 38, 42, 7 A.L.R.2d 990; Johnston v. City of Claremont, 49 Cal.2d 826, 323 P.2d 71; 3 Witkin, Calif. Proc. 2255.) Although these decisions dealt with zoning ordinances, the same principles apply to other ordinances exercising the police power (Lynch Meats of Oakland, Inc. v. City of Oakland, 196 A.C.A. 99, 16 Cal.Rptr. 302. Thus we are not to apply the usual substantial evidence rule in reviewing the findings of the trial court as to the wisdom of and necessity for the legislation. Rather, the intendments are in favor of validity of the ordinance, and it is presumed...