Opinion ID: 339025
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Source of Authority

Text: 15 California Commercial Code § 7210 provides warehousemen with an extra-judicial sale remedy for the lien that they have on goods deposited with them. 5 Its historical predecessor was enacted in 1851. 1851 Stats., c. 12, p. 170. 6 This statutory authorization of a private right of sale was a departure from the common law, under which enforcement of a warehouseman's lien was by sheriff's sale. Melara argues that, since the statute is the only source of the extra-judicial sale remedy, the enactment alone significantly involves the state in the conduct challenged. 16 We note, however, that even though private enforcement of warehouseman's liens was unknown at common law, this is not determinative of the state action issue. This lack of common law origin is a factor of dubious worth. See Culbertson, supra. 7 Moreover, the challenged statute has been in existence in California in some form or another for over 120 years, and there is no claim that it was enacted so that the state could avoid its obligations under the fourteenth amendment. See Adams v. Southern California First National Bank, supra, at 333. 17 Further, the statute creates only the right to act; it does not require that such action be taken. Kennedy's exercise of the choice allowed by state law where the initiative comes from (him) and not from the State, does not make (his) actions in doing so 'state action' for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 357, 95 S.Ct. 449, 457, 42 L.Ed.2d 447 (1974).