Court Opinion

ID: 9534279
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:38:15.798956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:07.078069
License: Public Domain

BURKE, J.
I dissent. In my view it strains at reason and logic to hold, as does the majority opinion, that any of the six bulletins here involved sets forth a safety “rule” or “directive” of defendant city.
The bulletins are on six sheets of letter-size (8%" by 11") *485paper, which bear dates from February 2, 1949, through February 14, 1949. Each is entitled “Daily Training Bulletin,” and each is entitled “How to Operate a Motor Vehicle Under Emergency Conditions.” (Italics added.) The first three bulletins (Nos. 51, 52 and 53) carry the additional title of, respectively, “Legal Provisions—I,” “Legal Provisions —II,” and “Legal Provisions—III.” The next two bulletins (Nos. 54 and 55) carry the additional title of, respectively, “Field Tests—I,” and “Field Tests—II.” The last bulletin (No. 56) carries the additional title of “Use of the Siren.” Each bulletin comprises a full two pages (front and back of sheet) of fairly small printed material plus cartoons designed to illustrate certain of the points covered. Each bulletin concludes with a statement that “This lesson” or “This bulletin” was “ compiled from. material prepared ” by a deputy city attorney of defendant city (first three bulletins), or was “prepared from field tests conducted under the supervision of Mr. Fred Crowder, Chief Radio Engineer, Radio Technical Division and through the cooperation of Newton Street Division” (Bulletins 54 and 55), or was “prepared from material submitted by” two named police lieutenants (Bulletin 56). Each bulletin bears the statement “Copyright, 1949, Los Angeles Police Department.”
The bulletins are plainly only informative and instructive in nature. None of them even purports to set forth a “rule” or “directive.” They are in the form of written lectures explaining the law as applied to emergency vehicles, giving the results of comparative tests conducted by skilled members of the police department such as a test to determine distances at which a fender mounted siren could be heard, stating that buildings are barriers which greatly diminish siren noise, recommending limited speeds for emergency vehicles under certain conditions, etc.
The selected short sentences quoted by the majority opinion from Bulletins 53, 54 and 55 (ante, p. 479) are lifted out of context and ascribed a meaning obviously never intended by the authors when the bulletins were issued nearly 20 years ago, or by defendant city in using them. Indeed, the sentence lifted from Bulletin 54 appears therein, as a portion of conclusion No. 3 under the general heading of “Conclusions” flowing from the “lesson” of the bulletin, and the statement lifted from Bulletin 55 is the final sentence at the end of the second page thereof and appears under the general heading of “Analysis ... of the foregoing [lesson], ...”
*486The majority opinion does not disclose which selected portions of Bulletins 51, 52 and 56 it conceives to have stated a “rule” or “directive,” although it declares baldly that “The safety rules in bulletins Nos. 51-56 are admissible. . . .” (ante, p. 481.) The fact is that no such rules are to be found in any of the “ Daily Training Bulletins ’ ’ or lessons prepared for the information and instruction of members of defendant's police department.
I would affirm the judgment.
McComb, J., concurred.