Court Opinion

ID: 9623313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:31:13.738892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:28.250460
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.,
Dissenting. I agree with the dissenting opinion of the Chief Justice that the San Bruno City Code section 14-1 requiring water service to be terminated for failure to pay charges for any municipal *897services cannot withstand scrutiny under California Constitution article I, section 7, subdivision (a), either on its face, or certainly as applied here. The fundamental charter of our state protects all persons from deprivation of life without due process; it seems obvious that the arbitrary denial of water—merely to satisfy a civil debt—imperils life and thus cannot be reconciled with the process due any person in a constitutional society. (See Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft (1978) 461 U.S. 1 [56 L.Ed.2d 30, 98 S.Ct. 1554].)
The city has ample remedies to employ against a recalcitrant homeowner. It may obtain a civil judgment for an unpaid municipal service bill. That was done through small claims court, but curiously the city has not attempted to satisfy its judgment. It may also terminate that service for which payment has not been made. When it attempts, however, to shut off water—a necessity of life—to satisfy a debt for garbage collection, it transcends constitutional or statutory authority.
The statute upon which the majority rely is Government Code section 54346, but I find that reliance to be misplaced. The section provides that if the bill is not paid in full a local agency “may discontinue any and all service for which the bill is rendered” (italics added). It is unquestioned here that the bill was rendered and unpaid only for garbage collection service. In my view the city was thus permitted to discontinue that service and that service alone, a remedy in which Mrs. Perez would have enthusiastically acquiesced. Had the city adopted that rational course, it would have avoided a Simon Legree image and the courts would have been spared this unnecessary litigation.
The contention that water service, sewerage service, and garbage disposal service are interlocking components of a public health program has a certain superficial appeal. But the fact is that in this instance each is separately calculated, particularly the garbage collection which is undertaken by a private business enterprise and not by a department of the municipal government.
As the majority indicate, there are no cases on this subject in California and remarkably few anywhere. Perhaps that is because a general rule has long been accepted that a public utility corporation cannot refuse to render the service which it is authorized to furnish, because of some collateral matter not related to that service. This rule, and its specific application denying to a public service corporation any right to refuse its public service because the patron is in arrears with it on ac*898count of some collateral or independent transaction, not strictly connected with the particular service, has been generally applied to deny the right of a municipality to cut off a service provided by it to one of its residents for his failure to pay for another unrelated service provided by the municipality. (60 A.L.R.3d 715-716.)
The only exception to the foregoing rule is if the services rendered by the utility or the municipality are identical in nature or so closely related that they may be said to interlock. The only case directly in point was decided by the Nebraska Supreme Court. In Garner v. City of Aurora (1948) 149 Neb. 295 [30 N.W.2d 917], a city collected garbage and trash and, like the instant case, submitted one bill to homeowners. For failure to pay the delinquent garbage collection portion of the bill, the water service to petitioner was terminated. The court enjoined the city from disconnecting water service, holding that garbage collection and water service are separate and distinct provisions. (Also see Owens v. City of Beresford (1972) 87 S.D. 8 [201 N.W.2d 890, 60 A.L.RJd 707].)
Our Legislature has consistently frowned upon the arbitrary termination of essential utility services. Where improperly undertaken by a private landlord severe civil sanctions are authorized. (Civ. Code, § 789.3; Kinney v. Vaccari (1980) 27 Cal.3d 348 [165 Cal.Rptr. 787, 612 P.2d 877].) Specific due process requirements have been prescribed prior to termination of service by a public utility. (Pub. Util. Code, §§ 779, 780.) What is improper conduct for a private landlord and for a public utility would seem to be equally improper for a municipality. Here the city has acted inconsistently with the implied legislative intent to prevent unnecessary denial of utility service. Such insensitive conduct demonstrates that to a bureaucrat with a hammer in his hand everything looks like a nail.
Mrs. Perez, who has acted in propria persona throughout these proceedings, has undoubtedly annoyed city officials by insisting that one should not pay for municipal services unneeded and unused. Of such quiet heroics are martyrs born.1 Two and a half decades ago Mrs. Rosa *899Parks annoyed the officials of Montgomery, Alabama, simply by insisting that she should not be required to sit in the back of the bus. (Kluger, Simple Justice (1975) p. 750.) Just as Mrs. Parks resisted bureaucracy for a principle—and ultimately brought about the end of compulsory segregation in the south—so Mrs. Perez in apparent splendid solitude is resisting a municipal bureaucracy for a principle. Although the majority fail to see if, I believe due process and justice are her companions.
I would reverse the judgment.
Newman, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied September 11, 1980. Bird, C. J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

The city officials apparently agree with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who once wrote: “I do despise a martyr. He is a pigheaded adherent of an inadequate idea.” (Howe, Holmes-Laski Letters (1953) p. 119.) And later he added that “martyrs were apt to be damned fools.” (Id., p. 227.) Yet history has demonstrated over and again that principled zealots frequently achieve an ultimate transition from obloquy to apotheosis.