Some summaries are concise and to the point. Those are awesome. But sometimes they do even more. Maybe even give some historical background, discuss precedent, etc.
Today's opinion is a good example of the latter category.
Here's how Justice Grimes begins the opinion. One that's important in its own right on the merits, but also a great example of style:
"In 1890, the California Supreme Court rejected a
constitutional challenge to a “vaccination act” that required
schools to exclude any child who had not been vaccinated against
small-pox. (Abeel v. Clark (1890) 84 Cal. 226, 227-228, 230
(Abeel).) In dismissing the suggestion that the act was “not
within the scope of a police regulation,” the court observed that,
“[w]hile vaccination may not be the best and safest preventive
possible, experience and observation . . . dating from the year
1796 . . . have proved it to be the best method known to medical
science to lessen the liability to infection with the disease.” (Id.
at p. 230.) That being so, “it was for the legislature to determine
whether the scholars of the public schools should be subjected to
it, and we think it was justified in deeming it a necessary and
salutary burden to impose upon that general class.” (Ibid.)
More than 125 years have passed since Abeel, during which
many federal and state cases, beginning with the high court’s
decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) 197 U.S. 11
(Jacobson), have upheld, against various constitutional
challenges, laws requiring immunization against various
diseases. This is another such case, with a variation on the
theme but with the same result.
We affirm the trial court’s order dismissing plaintiffs’
challenge to an amendment to California law that eliminated the
previously existing “personal beliefs” exemption from mandatory
immunization requirements for school children."
Nicely done.
