Opinion ID: 1408111
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Expansion and Contraction of Criminal Equity

Text: With the legitimacy of equitable relief to control public nuisances well established, American courts began to enlarge the jurisdiction of what has been called by some criminal equity and, by others, government by injunction. (See Mack, The Revival of Criminal Equity (1903) 16 Harv. L.Rev. 389, 397; Fiss, Injunctions (1972) p. 580.) The high-water mark of this trend may have been reached in In re Debs (1895) 158 U.S. 564 [15 S.Ct. 900, 39 L.Ed. 1092], where a strike by employees at the Pullman car works in Chicago paralyzed much of the nation's rail transportation and, with it, national commerce. The strike was broken by the entry of a public nuisance injunction  the controversial Pullman injunction. Whatever its merit as a question of commerce clause jurisprudence (see 8 Fiss, History of the Supreme Court of the United States: Troubled Beginnings of the Modern State, 1888-1910 (1993) pp. 58-72), and whatever its place in the history of American labor strife, Justice Brewer's opinion for the court in In re Debs, supra, 158 U.S. 564, reads like a primer on the first duty of government by consent  maintenance of the public order  and the utility of the public nuisance injunction in fulfilling that aspect of the social contract. Justice Brewer rested the power of the courts to issue such an injunction on the obligations which [government] is under to promote the interest of all, and to prevent the wrongdoing of one resulting in injury to the general welfare, a duty which the court's opinion said was often of itself sufficient to give [the government] standing in court. ( Id. at p. 584 [15 S.Ct. at p. 906].) An end to this expansive trend, at least as it was reflected in the jurisprudence of this court, came with Chief Justice Gibson's opinion in People v. Lim (1941) 18 Cal.2d 872 [118 P.2d 472]. Although we upheld the complaint as sufficient, our opinion in People v. Lim, supra, 18 Cal.2d 872, articulated an important limitation on the scope of the government's power to exploit the public nuisance injunction as an adjunct of general legal policy. [T]he tendency to utilize the equity injunction as a means of enforcing public policy is a relatively recent development in the law, the Chief Justice wrote. ( Id. at p. 877.) This development has resulted in a continuous expansion of the field of public nuisances in which equitable relief is available at the request of the state. ( Ibid. ) After identifying a division among the authorities as to whether the expansion of the field of public nuisances in which equity will grant injunctions must be accomplished by an act of the legislature, the Lim court came down firmly on the side of legislative supremacy. ( People v. Lim, supra, 18 Cal.2d at p. 878.) The courts of this state, we wrote, have refused to sanction the granting of injunctions on behalf of the state merely by a judicial extension of the definition of `public nuisance.' ... [They have] refused to grant injunctions on behalf of the state except where the objectionable activity can be brought within the terms of the statutory definition of public nuisance. ( Id. at pp. 878-879, italics added.) Reflected in the light of our holding in People v. Lim, supra, 18 Cal.2d 872, two features of California's public nuisance scheme stand out. (2) First, subject to overriding constitutional limitations, the ultimate legal authority to declare a given act or condition a public nuisance rests with the Legislature; the courts lack power to extend the definition of the wrong or to grant equitable relief against conduct not reasonably within the ambit of the statutory definition of a public nuisance. This lawmaking supremacy serves as a brake on any tendency in the courts to enjoin conduct and punish it with the contempt power under a standardless notion of what constitutes a public nuisance. (See, e.g., People v. Seccombe (1930) 103 Cal. App. 306, 310 [284 P. 725] [Although defendant follow[ed] the despicable calling of usurer and had twice been convicted under the criminal statute, his conduct was not a public nuisance under the provisions of Civil Code section 3479 and was not enjoinable].) Second, our opinion in People v. Lim, supra, 18 Cal.2d 872, affirms the equal dignity, at least as far as the protection of equity is concerned, of private, property-based interests and those values that are in essence collective, arising out of a shared ideal of community life and the minimum conditions for a civilized society. Courts have held that public and social interests, as well as the rights of property, Chief Justice Gibson wrote, are entitled to the protection of equity. ( Id. at p. 877.) In a sense that cannot easily be dismissed, the availability of equitable relief to counter public nuisances is an expression of `the interest of the public in the quality of life and the total community environment.' ( People ex rel. Busch v. Projection Room Theater, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 52.)