Court Opinion

ID: 9855636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:28:37.844689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:36:16.850637
License: Public Domain

EDMONDS, J., Dissenting.
I am unable to agree that the legislature may constitutionally require the owner of real estate who desires to sell it in five or more parcels to notify the real estate commissioner of his intention so to do and to pay $50 or more for “an examination of the project”. The Constitution of this state provides that all persons have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of “acquiring, possessing and protecting property”. (Art. I, sec. 1, Const.) This provision guarantees an owner of property the right to dispose of it “in such innocent manner as he pleases, and to sell it for such price as he can obtain in fair barter”. (Ex parte Quarg, 149 Cal. 79 [84 Pac. 766, 117 Am. St. Rep. 115, 9 Ann. Cas. 747, 5 L. R. A. (N. S.) 183].)
Although under the police power the state may properly limit the enjoyment and disposition of property, ordinarily such regulations will be upheld only where they are reasonably related to the health, morals or safety of the public. Even a purpose to protect people from their own folly will not overcome constitutional rights. Both the federal and state Constitutions guarantee the individual’s freedom of conduct, and although there are certain limitations which may be placed upon that freedom, in my opinion the act here before the court is not a regulation which it is within the legislative power to impose.
In the leading case of People v. Pace, 73 Cal. App. 548, 559 [238 Pac. 1089], the defendant was prosecuted for a violation of the Corporate Securities Act. The court held that the police power of the state may not be invoked, under the guise of general welfare, “to interfere with the sale by an *439individual of liis own property when the acquiring and possession of such property is not contrary to law”. This case was followed by the District Court of Appeal in Clover v. Jackson, 81 Cal. App. 55 [253 Pac. 187], and in Pollak v. Staunton, 210 Cal. 656, 659 [293 Pac. 26], it was cited for authority for the statement that “a natural person owning securities of which he is not the issuer or underwriter may sell such securities for his own account without procuring a permit from the Commissioner of Corporations”. Later, one Lesser appealed from a judgment of conviction for violating the Corporate Securities Act and it was held that “in so far as the regulation [provided by it] takes away the right of the owner to sell his own property, it is void. . . . Under the guise of ‘regulation’ a long-established constitutional right, such as is here involved, may not be abridged”. (People v. Lesser, 123 Cal. App. 489 [11 Pac. (2d) 668].) The case of People v. Pace, supra, said the court, states a principle of constitutional rights which has broad application.
Nothing which was said in People v. Craven, 219 Cal. 522 [27 Pac. (2d) 906], is authority for upholding the statute challenged in the present case. In the Craven case this court held that the state may properly prohibit an individual from selling a security of his own issue. But the sale of a security created by an individual stands in a different category from the sale of tangible property and the regulation of the sále of securities rests upon the principle that it is within the power of government to prevent deception concerning them because their value consists in what they represent. The intangibility of securities, said the Supreme Court of the United States, require and allow regulations concerning their sale different than those which may be applied to other property. (Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co., 242 U. S. 539 [37 Sup. Ct. 217, 61 L. Ed. 480, Ann. Cas. 1917C, 643, L. R. A. 1917F, 514].)
In my opinion the statute which the petitioner was charged with violating imposes onerous and unreasonable restrictions upon owners of real property precluding them from enjoying the constitutional guaranty of ownership and control of it; hence the writ should be granted and the petitioner discharged.
Houser, J., concurred.