Municipal Court Los Angeles

Defendants appealed their convictions in the Municipal Court of the City of Los Angeles (California) of selling mislabeled food and for selling food in less quantity than represented.

Defendants were convicted of selling onions, which were mislabeled and misbranded, and with selling the onions in less quantity than represented on the label. Defendants never weighed the sacks of onions, which they received from the shipper and sold, until after the sale had been made. Defendants appealed their convictions. The Los Angeles lawyers know all about Los Angeles employment law.

The court held that defendants' convictions as to selling mislabeled food were proper because they violated Cal. Health & Safety Code § 26510, which prohibited such conduct, even though defendants were ignorant of the fact that the legend on the sacks was incorrect and they did not intend to defraud anyone. Section 26510 did not require proof of knowledge or intent to constitute the offense. Defendants' convictions for selling food in less quantity than represented were reversed. An essential element of said offense was that defendants "represented" the quantity of the onions, by reference to their weight. However, there was no evidence that any of the buyers had ever seen the sacks upon which the purported net weight of the contents was given, nor was there any evidence that the weight had been represented in any other fashion.

The court affirmed defendants' convictions for selling mislabeled food. The court reversed defendants' convictions for selling food in less quantity than represented and remanded the case for new trials as to that count in the complaint.

Appellant city sought review of a decision by the Superior Court of Los Angeles County (California), which awarded a majority of the sales tax collected from a retail sales establishment to respondent city in a mandamus proceeding to compel the State Board of Equalization to pay the entire amount of sales tax collected to one of the two cities.