City of Long Beach v. Morse

188 P.2d 17, 31 Cal. 2d 254, 1947 Cal. LEXIS 238
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 30, 1947
DocketL. A. 19873
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 188 P.2d 17 (City of Long Beach v. Morse) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Long Beach v. Morse, 188 P.2d 17, 31 Cal. 2d 254, 1947 Cal. LEXIS 238 (Cal. 1947).

Opinions

TRAYNOR, J.

The city of Long Beach seeks a peremptory writ of mandamus to compel its treasurer to transfer certain revenue from the city’s ‘‘Harbor Revenue Fund” to its “Public Improvement Fund.” The revenue in question was derived from the production of oil and gas from the tidelands and submerged lands within the corporate limits of the city of Long Beach, claimed by the city under legislative grants from the State of California.

Before 1946, under the terms of the charter of the city of Long Beach, the revenue from the production of oil and gas from these lands was devoted to the improvement and maintenance of the harbor of the city of Long Beach and to the payment of principal and interest on bonds issued by the city for harbor purposes. (Long Beach City Charter, § 229x, Stats. 1937, p. 2939, as amended by Stats. 1943, p. 3097.) The city charter was amended in 1946 to provide for the transfer of 25 per cent of the fund in question to the “Public Improvement Fund.” This amendment provides, however, that the “transfer shall be made only in the event that such moneys may be used and expended for the purposes hereinafter stated without violating the provisions of grants by which the City acquired title to all tide and submerged lands from the State of California, to wit, 1911 Statutes, page 1304, 1925 Statutes, page 235, and 1935 Statutes, page 794 . . . the moneys transferred to and placed in the ‘Public Improvement Fund’ shall be used exclusively for the payment of costs and expenses for construction, reconstruction, repair and maintenance of public improvements, ... as shall have been provided for in the official budget of the City adopted by the City Council. ’ ’ (City Charter of Long Beach, § 229x, Stats. 2d Ex. Sess. 1946, Resolutions, ch. 6, pp. 366, 367.)

Respondent refused to make the transfer on the ground that it would be a violation of the charter provision for him to do so, because the revenue transferred to the “Public Improvement Fund” would be used for general municipal improvements unconnected with the purposes and uses provided [256]*256in the grants of the tidelands and submerged lands to the city. The city of Long Beach concedes that if the transfer is made, the money would be used for general municipal improvements not limited to the purposes specified in the legislative grants under which the city claims title to the lands. It is contended, however, that these grants restrict, not the use of any revenue derived from the lands, but only the physical uses to which the lands may be put. The issue in this case, therefore, is whether the use of money derived from the development of oil and gas on these lands for general municipal improvements would violate the terms of the grants under which the city of Long Beach claims title.

In 1911, the State of California transferred whatever title it may have had to the tidelands and submerged lands within the boundaries of the city of Long Beach

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City of Long Beach v. Morse
188 P.2d 17 (California Supreme Court, 1947)

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Bluebook (online)
188 P.2d 17, 31 Cal. 2d 254, 1947 Cal. LEXIS 238, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-long-beach-v-morse-cal-1947.