156 P. 506 | Cal. | 1916
The Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District petitioned this court for a writ of prohibition to prevent the judge of the superior court of the state of California, in and for the county of Merced, from proceeding to hear and act upon a demurrer in a case pending in said county in which the petitioner is defendant and Miller and Lux, a corporation, is plaintiff. It appears from the affidavit of one of the attorneys for petitioner that the action in question involves the validity of a certain assessment made by petitioner, and affecting real property of said Miller and Lux in Merced County. It is also shown that the said judge of the said superior court has refused to ask the Governor of the state of California to designate and request some other judge of the superior court of the state of California to try said cause. The refusal was based upon the ground that the statute, under which petitioner *387 asserts the judge's disqualification to preside in the proceedings connected with the case, is unconstitutional.
Upon the filing of the petition an alternative writ of prohibition issued from this court and the matter was duly heard. We are now to determine whether the temporary writ shall be dismissed or made permanent.
The statute involved in this application is subdivision 5 of section
"In an action or proceeding brought in the superior court or justices' court by or against the reclamation board of the State of California, or any reclamation, levee, swamp land or drainage district, or any public agency, or trustee, officer or employee thereof, affecting or relating to any real property or any easement or right of way, levee, embankment, canal, or any work provided for or approved by the reclamation board of the State of California, the judge of the superior court of the county, or justice of the peace of the township in which such real property, or any part thereof, or such easement or right of way, levee, embankment, canal or work, or any part thereof, is situated, shall be disqualified to sit or act, and such action, if brought in the superior court, shall be heard and tried by some other judge of the superior court requested to sit therein by the governor, or if brought in the justices' court, by some other justice of the peace requested to sit therein by the governor; unless the parties to the action shall sign and file in the action or proceeding a stipulation in writing, waiving the disqualification in this subdivision of this section provided, in which case such judge or justice of the peace may proceed with the trial or hearing with the same legal effect as if no such legal disqualification existed. If, however, the parties to the action shall sign and file a stipulation agreeing upon some other judge of the superior court or justice of the peace to sit or act in place of the judge or justice disqualified under the provisions of this subdivision, the judge or justice agreed upon shall be designated by the governor to sit in the action;provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed as preventing the judge of the superior court of such county from issuing a temporary injunction or restraining order, which shall, if granted, remain in force until vacated or modified by the judge designated by the governor as herein provided. *388
"Nothing in this section contained shall affect a party's right to a change of the place of trial in the cases provided for in title IV, part 2 of this code."
Respondent attacks the statute upon a number of grounds, the first and most important of which is that it is a special law as to venue and relating to practice in courts of justice and in violation (say counsel for respondent) of subdivisions 3 and 4 of section 25 of article IV of the constitution of California.
The assertion that it relates to venue is based upon the provision of section
Considering the section as one "regulating the practice in courts of justice," and hence as one coming under the constitutional mandate that the legislature "shall not pass local or special laws" on that subject, we are met by respondent's objection that the classification of causes which may not be heard by judges of counties in which the subject matter of the litigation exists is not founded upon any natural, intrinsic, or constitutional distinction. And in the development of this objection it is specified by respondent that the act applies only to part of a class, in that judges are not disqualified from hearing causes involving properties in their respective counties belonging to irrigation districts, sanitary districts, protection districts, water districts, lighting districts, storm-water districts, and other public agencies. The rule undoubtedly is that any classification of the sort attempted in this statute must be founded upon some good reason and may not rest in the arbitrary will of the legislature, but it is also true that if good ground for the classification exists such classification is not void because it does not embrace within it every other class which might be included. (Ex parte Martin,
Let us then examine it with a view to determining whether or not it imposes peculiar restrictions and disabilities upon a class arbitrarily selected. Reclamation, levee, swamp-land, and drainage districts have a similarity of purpose which is most obvious — each has for one of its principal objects the keeping of surplus water from some definite area. Actions involving real property subject to assessment in such districts may be treated by the legislature as a distinctive sort of actions and regulated accordingly. The district which is here by its proper officers the petitioner, has been declared by the legislature to be of peculiar importance because the state and the people "have a primary and supreme interest in having erected, maintained and protected on the banks of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries . . . good and sufficient levees . . . adequately protecting the lands overflowed or subject to overflow by said streams." (Stats. 1915, p. 1340.) Recognizing the distinctive characteristics of reclamation districts this court, before the repeal of section 3493 1/2 of the Political Code, upheld as constitutional the provisions of that statute designed to test the legal perfection of an assessment before action was brought to enforce it. This peculiar proceeding was admittedly invented to obviate certain difficulties and delays. (Lower Kings RiverReclamation Dist. No. 531 v. McCullah,
The legislature in enacting this amendment to section
As actions relating to real property, easements, rights of way and the like will always be by far the most important in the litigation of reclamation and other similar districts, there is no valid objection to the reasonableness of this statute based *391 upon the fact that it does not apply to the trial of actions involving personal property and personal obligations.
Nor is there any force to the objection that this statute is invalid because it permits the parties to an action to waive the disqualification of the judge of the court of the county wherein the subject matter of the suit lies. Any statutory disqualification of this sort may be waived by the parties in whose favor it would ordinarily be invoked, and, indeed, subdivision 2 of section
We find no ambiguity in the section. The expression, "provided for or approved by the reclamation board of the state of California," does not qualify all of the words including and following the words "real property." It limits only the word "work." It is argued that since the reclamation board only has authority to approve work of other districts which are overflowed from the Sacramento or San Joaquin Rivers (Stats. 1913, p. 252; Stats. 1915, p. 1338) it must follow that the act, in large part at least, applies only to the district which is here the petitioner. If that were so, and conceding it to be so for the purposes of this proceeding, the act would not be invalid because but one district measures up to its terms. (Matter of Burke,
No other matters discussed in the briefs require analysis.
Let the writ be made peremptory.
Shaw, J., Henshaw, J., Sloss, J., Lawlor, J., Lorigan, J., and Angellotti, C. J., concurred.