THIRTIETH BIENNIAL REPORT 



10!) 



The canner was still entitled to use sardines in his reduction plant to 

 the amount of 25 per cent of the cannery's capacity, hut that part of 

 the law which defined how this capacity should he determined had heen 

 declared unconstitutional, and a later decision left it doubtful if the 

 Commission had the power to hold hearings or to determine the capacity 

 of a cannery. 



Further litigation. 



When in December, 192f>, the District Court of Appeal (in the ease 

 of Van Camp Sea Food Co., Inc., vs. Fish and Game Commission) held 

 that the Commission did not have the judicial powers conferred on it 

 in the reduction act, the Commission was advised by its attorney that 

 it followed that it did not have the power to hold hearings on the appli- 



Fig. 37. Department of Commercial Fisheries patrol boat Albacore confiscating 

 a net being illegally used in waters off the coast of southern California. Photo- 

 graph by E. S. Cheney. 



cations of companies to use a reduction process to manufacture edible 

 products from sardines or to grant permits to such concerns. 



In September, 1926, the Bayside Fish Flour Company, of Monterey, 

 proceeded to operate and the Commission brought injunction proceed- 

 ings in the Monterey County superior court, taking the position that the 

 permit which had been given the company was null and void, as the 

 Commission had no authority to issue it. Technicalities were waived 

 and the matter speedily came up before Judge Fred A. Treat at Salinas. 

 The decision in this case was for the Bayside Fish Flour Company, the 

 judge's decision being to the effect that the Commission had the powers 

 the legislature had conferred on it in the act. This decision was in 

 conflict with the Los Angeles court which had held the Commission did 

 not have these powers. 



