finding no constitutional violation in case involving dairy farmer who alleged that defendant milk inspector had maliciously denied him a license to ship milk out of state, where, after scouring the record for evidence of malicious or bad faith intent to injure the plaintiff, court found none beyond the fact that the farm inspector “was in a spiteful mood”
How later courts described this case
- finding no constitutional violation in case involving dairy farmer who alleged that defendant milk inspector had maliciously denied him a license to ship milk out of state, where, after scouring the record for evidence of malicious or bad faith intent to injure the plaintiff, court found none beyond the fact that the farm inspector “was in a spiteful mood”
- holding that six elements of evidence, including that the inspector was in a spiteful mood due to an earlier incident with another farmer and performed an unusually detailed inspection did not constitute a showing that he acted maliciously or with intent to injure
- holding that inspector did not suspend a farm’s license out of malice despite evidence that the inspector was in a spiteful mood and conducted unusually rigorous inspection
- holding that evidence that inspector was angry with another farmer visited immediately before plaintiff did not prove malice toward plaintiffs
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ORDER ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
Appellees-cross-appellants Harmasse Le-Clair and Elizabeth LeClair have filed a petition for rehearing. The petition correctly states that the 1965 memorandum *612 from the director of the Division of Dairying and Animal Husbandry mentioned at slip op. 4303 and referred to at slip op. 4312 was excluded from the evidence. Unfortunately Defendant’s Exhibit L without indication that it was only for identification was printed in the appendix at A390 and we omitted to note the court’s ruling excluding it contained just before the close of the defense case at A269. However, the omission from evidence of the 1965 memorandum does not affect the result in the case. The 1967 Massachusetts Milk Board’s regulations governing farm inspections required farm water supplies to be “easily accessible, adequate and of a safe sanitary quality” so as to insure safe water for cleansing milk storage tanks and utensils. Properly covered and protected private supplies such as deep wells or springs were mentioned as acceptable in the explanation of the regulation as set forth in Defendant’s Exhibit K which was admitted at the same time Exhibit L was excluded.
It is true that the same explanation is relied upon by appellees-cross-appellants on the basis that it states that “the quality of the water shall be determined by analysis of the State Board of Health of the state in which such water supply is located, or other qualified laboratory.” They point out that in fact in February of 1976 they did not obtain a state water certificate in respect to their pond. But this does not indicate that the pond was “properly covered over and protected from all possible sources of contamination” as the explanation to regulation required. We read, and we think appellant Saunders could reasonably have read, the reference to certification of the quality of the water to relate to private supplies (including wells, springs, artesian wells, or other sources) “properly covered over and protected from all possible sources of contamination,” not to open ponds. Thus the LeClairs’ water supply was not acceptable under the regulations as interpreted in the explanation.
Accordingly we have amended the original opinion.
We have examined the other points made in the petition for rehearing and consider that they are answered in the original opinion.