In Re Dayton

By the petition herein it is shown that the chief of police of the city of Los Angeles, acting under instructions from the health department of said city, is depriving petitioner of her liberty and detaining her at the city jail; that such detention is being enforced by reason of a purported order of quarantine issued by the said health department, which order is based upon the alleged ground that the health authorities have reasonable and probable cause to believe that petitioner is affected with a contagious or infectious venereal disease. Petitioner alleges further that said health department has demanded that petitioner submit herself for examination to determine the presence of such disease and that she has refused to obey that order. Respondent justifies the detention of petitioner upon the ground that she is a lewd and dissolute person and, in fact, a prostitute.

[1] In a recent case this court has had occasion to consider a similar situation affecting the right of quarantine officers and has marked out a measure of that right. (In re Arata, ante, p. 380, [ 198 Pac. 814 ].) In that ease it was held that the health department was authorized to enforce quarantine measures…