County of Los Angeles v. Hollywood Cemetery Ass'n

Citations

• 124 Cal. 344
• 57 P. 153
• 1899 Cal. LEXIS 997

Syllabus

<p>Cemetery—Lawful Avocation—Tendency not Injurious.—The establishment and maintenance of a cemetery for the burial of the dead, for the purpose of deriving profit therefrom, is a lawful avocation, which does not presumably have an injurious tendency.'</p> <p>Id.—Nuisance—Police Power.—A cemetery cannot he regarded as a nuisance per se, in measuring the extent of the police power to regulate it, though cemeteries are within the power of reasonable regulation by cities, towns, and counties.</p> <p>Id.—Reasonableness of Regulation — Population.— An ordinance passed pursuant to-the constitutional grant of power to make • police regulations may be reasonable as applied to the regula- ■ tlon of cemeteries by a city or town within its limits, which would be entirely umreasonable when put in operation in all ' parts of a county thinly populated in many of its parts.</p> <p>Id.—Restriction of Individual Rights.—Any restrictions of the rights of individuals to pursue a lawful avocation, by virtue of the police power, must extend to all individuals who'might exercise that right within the same district.</p> <p>Id.—Invalid County Ordinance—Unreasonable and Unequal Regulation— Arbitrary Will of Supervisors.—A county ordinance making it unlawful to establish, extend, or enlarge any cemetery within the limits of the county, without first obtaining permission of the supervisors, but impliedly permitting burials in cemeteries already established, without restriction, is both Unreasonable in making the right to pursue a lawful avocation depend upon the arbitrary will of the supervisors, and unequal in its operation, in assuming to limit the unrestricted privilege of burial to one class of citizens, and to deny it to another class within the same district, or to make the latter subject to the arbitrary will of the supervisors to grant or to refuse that privilege. Such ordinance is invalid, and cannot be enforced by the county.</p>