People v. Wahl

Section 654a of the Penal Code prohibits advertising containing any statement which “is false or untrue, in any respect, or which is deceptive or misleading, and which is known, or by the exercise of reasonable care should be known, to be false or untrue, deceptive or misleading”. The controlling words here are: False, untrue, deceptive, misleading. Whatever construction may be put, in this statute, on the word “false”, which sometimes connotes an intent to deceive and sometimes does not (25 Cor. Jur. 436; People v. Wong Fook Sam, (1905) 146 Cal. 114, 118 [79 Pac. 848]), or on the word…