79 P. 374 | Cal. | 1904
This is an action to recover money due the plaintiff on warrants drawn by order of the board of trustees of the defendant on the county treasurer, approved by the board of supervisors, presented for payment, and not paid for want of funds. The complaint consists of eighty-nine distinct counts upon a like number of warrants, amounting in the aggregate to $18,169.63. The defendant's demurrer to the complaint was sustained and judgment entered accordingly. The only ground of demurrer necessary to mention here is the general one, that neither the complaint as a whole nor any count thereof state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The reclamation district was organized in 1871, under the act of March 26, 1868. (Stats. 1868, p. 515, sec. 30 et seq.) The contention of the appellant is, that the defendant is not a corporation, but a "public agency," as it has been termed, charged with the local administration of some of the functions of state government, and that, as such, it was not subject to an action until the passage of the amendment of 1899 to section 3453 of the Political Code, declaring that "from and after the election and qualification of said trustees said district shall be deemed organized and shall have power to sue and be sued"; that, as it could not be sued, the statute of limitations could not run against the cause of action until an action was authorized, and that this action was begun within the time limited and after the amendment aforesaid.
There is considerable discussion in the briefs upon the question whether a reclamation district is or is not a corporation. We do not think it necessary to decide this question. If it is a corporation, it is necessarily a quasi-public corporation, similar to a county or school district, and therefore it could not be sued until such time as an action against it was authorized by law. (People v. ReclamationDistrict,
In the petitions for rehearing, and upon the reargument, a proposition was presented which was not urged upon the first hearing, and which we think is fatal to all the causes of action stated in the complaint. In Reclamation District v. Kennedy,
We are of the opinion that, under the facts stated in the *645
complaint, the defendant district does not come within the scope of this act. The act, by its terms, applies only to reclamation districts which at the time the act was passed were, and ever since they were formed had been, "prosecuting the objects for which they were created." The presence of this express limitation in the statute raises the necessary implication that there were, at the time the act was passed, some reclamation districts in existence formed prior to January 1, 1873, which were not then, or had not been since their formation, prosecuting the objects for which they were created, and that this qualification was inserted in the act to carry out the legislative intention to exclude these districts from the operation of the act. The effect of the clause is, that districts of that class are not subject to the provisions of the Political Code, and that the amendment of 1899 to section 3453 does not authorize the maintenance of an action against them. It is the general rule that actions cannot be maintained against such organizations. The right to maintain such an action is an exception, existing only when the right is expressly or by necessary implication authorized by law. Hence, the rule of pleading applies to this case, that a party who would bring himself within an exception to a general rule or condition must state the facts which take his case out of the general rule and place it within the exception. The rule is well stated inClough v. Shepherd,
There is another clause of the act which affects the first seventy-seven counts of the complaint, all of which relate to warrants drawn prior to its passage. The act provides that nothing therein contained shall affect "the indebtedness of the districts theretofore incurred." The effect of this provision is, that although the districts embraced in the act were thereafter subject, generally, and as to future proceedings, to the provisions of the Political Code relating to reclamation districts, the same as if originally organized thereunder, yet, with respect to the debts then existing, they were not subject to the code, or, in other words, that the provisions of the code should not in any respect apply to existing debts. We think this limitation upon the operation of the code upon these districts must be held to apply to future amendments of the code as well as to the provisions in force when the act of 1885 was passed. In effect, it is the same as if the law had declared that such districts, with relation to debts then existing, should remain subject to and be governed by the act of 1868, under which it was organized. Under the act of 1868 the only means available to a creditor of the district for the collection of his debt was bymandamus to compel the trustees to levy an assessment to raise the funds necessary for that purpose, or to compel the county treasurer to pay any warrants presented while there were funds applicable to its payment. A new law giving a new remedy to the creditor, a right to obtain payment by an ordinary action against the district on the debt, would clearly be a law affecting the debt. The act declares that although the district shall be subject to the code in general, yet that it shall not be subject to that code so as to affect any pre-existing debt. Consequently, when the code was amended so as to give a new *647 remedy for the collection of the debts due from districts subject to its provisions, the effect of this limitation in the act was, that this new remedy could not apply to debts of this district, incurred prior to March 10, 1885, the reason being that this district, so far as those debts were concerned, was not subject to the code. We do not mean to say that an amendment could not have been so framed as to affect such debts, but only that there is nothing in the one in question showing such intention. It follows that the amendment of 1899 to section 3453 does not authorize an action against this district to recover a debt incurred before March 10, 1885. The demurrer to the first seventy-seven counts of the complaint was therefore properly sustained on this ground.
A more comprehensive objection to the right of the plaintiff to maintain this action is, that the amendment of 1899 to section 3453 of the Political Code is not retroactive in operation so as to apply to the claims of the plaintiff.
The general rule is, that statutes should not be so construed as to give them a retroactive operation, unless it is clearly apparent that such was the intention; that if there is nothing in the terms of the act to indicate a different construction it should be given only a prospective operation. (Gates v. Salmon,
There is nothing in the language of the amendment, nor in the context, evincing an intention to make the amendment applicable so as to revive rights of action which had been barred by the statute of limitations at the time the amendment was enacted. The preceding part of the section provides for the election of trustees of the districts and prescribes some of their duties. The amendment consists simply of an addition, to the effect that after the election and qualification of the trustees the "district shall be deemed organized and shall have power to sue and be sued." Taken in connection with the context, this would seem to be intended to have a prospective operation only.
When considered in connection with the nature of the *648
transactions to which it is here sought to make it applicable, it will be seen that the amendment would be absolutely ineffectual, unless it is given an exceedingly unnatural and strained construction. There does not appear to have ever been any dispute between the holders of the claims in question and the officers of the district concerning the validity of the claims, and there was no necessity for legislation to establish them. They were all allowed without objection, and warrants therefor drawn upon the county treasurer. The difficulty has not been in obtaining an allowance or recognition of the claims, but it has arisen entirely from the failure of the trustees to provide funds with which to pay them. The claims accrued during the period from 1872 to 1887. They were all allowed, warrants drawn, payment refused for want of funds, and all existing remedies to compel payment barred by the statute of limitations many years prior to the enactment of the amendment. If the amendment is construed to give the right to maintain an ordinary action at law upon these allowed claims, it will still be of no benefit whatever to the plaintiff. Its right to a mandate, either against the county treasurer to compel payment, if there were in fact available funds, or against the trustees and supervisors to compel an assessment to raise funds, if in fact there were none, became complete and perfect upon the original refusal to pay the claims. The statute of limitations at once began to run against this right, and became barred within five years thereafter, if not sooner. (Barnes v. Glide,
The judgment is affirmed.
Angellotti, J., Van Dyke, J., McFarland, J., Lorigan, J., Beatty, C.J., and Henshaw, J., concurred.