87 Cal. 124 | Cal. | 1890
The appellant inaugurated a contest in the superior court of Alameda County for the office of councilman of the city council of Oakland, under sections 1111 et seq. of the Code of Civil Procedure. The respondent demurred, upon the ground of want of jurisdiction; and the court sustained the demurrer, and entered judgment dismissing the contest. From said judgment this appeal is taken.
The judgment was rendered upon the ground that the act reincorporating the city of Oakland, which was enacted in March, 1854, gave to the common council of Oakland exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine an election contest such as is involved in this proceeding. Waiving the question whether the language of the charter is broad enough to include the subject-matter of the present litigation, and waiving the constitutional question as to the authority of the legislature to grant such judicial power to the common council, it is clear, to our
Of course a general statute does not always, by implication, repeal a special one. It is always a question of intention, to be gathered from the language used, and from the subject-matter of the legislation. With respect to the matter before us, we think that the legislature, when enacting the sections of the code above mentioned, clearly intended to adopt a uniform rule for all election contests about the officers named in section 1111, and necessarily repealed all former statutes inconsistent with that intention.
The judgment appealed from is reversed, with instructions to the trial court to overrule the demurrer.
Thornton, J., Fox, J., Paterson, J., and Beatty, C. J., concurred.