Spaulding v. North San Francisco Homestead & Railroad

25 P. 249, 87 Cal. 40, 1890 Cal. LEXIS 1093
California Supreme Court·Decided December 12, 1890·No. No. 12685·Published·Cited by 11 cases

Opinion

McFarland, J.

This is an appeal by defendant from a judgment enforcing a street assessment against a lot on Lombard Street.

The case was heard in Department, and the judgment was affirmed, and the facts of the case are stated in the opinion then rendered by Commissioner Gibson (filed July 8, 1890.) A hearing in Bank was ordered, because it was strenuously urged that the decision was in conflict with Mulligan v. Smith, 59 Cal. 206, and Kahn v. Supervisors, 79 Cal. 388. But, after argument on rehearing, and mature consideration, we are satisfied with the conclusions reached in Department.

[42]*42Mulligan v. Smith and Kahn v. Supervisors arose upon a special statute which did not provide for an adjudication of the jurisdictional fact that a majority of the frontage of lots fronting on the work proposed to be done was represented by the owners thereof in a petition for the work, and did not provide for a hearing to any of the owners of such frontage on that issue. But we think that section 4 of the act in question, in the case at bar (Stats. 1871-72, p. 805), does provide for such adjudication by and such hearing before the board of supervisors, and that the decision of the board that a majority of such frontage was represented in the petition was a decision which the act says “ shall be final and conclusive." In Freeman on Judgments, section 523, it is stated as a rule (founded on numerous authorities there cited), that “ whenever the jurisdiction of a court not of record depends on a fact which the court is required to ascertain and settle by its decision, such decision, if the court has jurisdiction of the parties, is conclusive, and not subject to any collateral attack." The rule embraces “ a large number of persons and tribunals not ordinarily spoken of as ‘judges’ nor as 'courts’”; for “their authority in this respect is judicial” (Freeman on Judgments, sec. 539); and it was expressly applied by this court to boards of supervisors in People v. Hagar, 52 Cal. 182. The rule stated in the latter case governs, we think, the case at bar. In Turrill v. Grattan, 52 Cal. 97, the only question which seems to have been raised was as to the sufficiency of the petition itself, which wTas a question, not of fact, but of law. In the case at bar, we think that the petition was sufficient. A diagram, which was not as full in details as it might have been, was presented with the petition; but it was not inconsistent with the main body of the petition, which sufficiently stated the facts required by the statute. The point that the contract was invalid because there had been a previous contract is sufficiently answered in the said opinion of [43]*43the commissioner; and we may add that the remedy for any such objection to the contract is provided for in section 12 of the act.

(It may be remarked, also, that it is doubtful whether the points which appellant seeks to make against the petition and to the rulings of the court are properly presented in the record.)

The judgment and order denying a new trial are affirmed.

Paterson, J., Fox, J., Sharpstein, J., and Thornton, J., concurred.

The following is the opinion above referred to, which was rendered in Department Two July 8, 1890:—

Gibson, C.

Defendant appeals from a judgment rendered in an action brought by plaintiff as the assignee of one J. S. Dyer, a street contractor, to recover an assessment for $323.91 for grading Lombard Street from Broderick Street to the west line of Lyon Street, in San Francisco, which had been levied upon a lot designated as No. 10 on the diagram attached to and made part of the assessment, and also from an order denying a new trial.

By section 4 of the act of April 1, 1872 (Stats. 1871-72, p. 804), pursuant to which the street was graded, it is provided that no work of the character mentioned can be ordered by the board of supervisors, “unless the majority of the frontage of the lots and land fronting on the work proposed to be done and described in said resolution, or which is to be made liable for such grading, except public property-, shall have been represented by the owners thereof, or by their agents, in a petition to the said board of supervisors, stating that they are the owners and in possession, or agents, of the lots named in the petition, and also requesting that such improvement or street-work shall be done.”

[44]*44At the trial, after plaintiff had rested his case, defendant introduced the petition of F. Weisenborn, upon which the board of supervisors had ordered the grading, and upon which the contract therefor had been made with plaintiff’s assignor, and then called the petitioner as a witness, and offered to prove by him that he was not the owner nor in the possession of more than one half of the land fronting on Lombard Street at the time he signed the petition and presented it to the board of supervisors. This offer the court ruled out, and the appellant claims that the court.committed error in so doing.

The petition, on its face, show's that the petitioner is the owner of the entire frontage on each side of Lombard Street between Baker and Lyon streets, and 137-£ feet on the latter street south from its junction with Lombard Street, and the same distance north on the same street from the junction of the last-mentioned streets; that there are six 50-vara lots fronting on Lombard street between Baker and Broderick streets, and that the crossing formed by Baker and Lombard streets had been graded. The frontage of petitioner on Lombard Street is not shown in feet, nor is it shown that one of the 50-vara lots is public property (a school lot), that should for that reason be excluded from the computation of frontage.

Now, while the failure to show these two facts makes the petition uncertain, on its face, as to whether the petitioner is the owuier of a majority of the frontage- to be affected or not, it does not make it appear that the petitioner is not the owner of more than one half of the frontage to be affected by the proposed improvement; for if it did, the petition wmuld be fatall}' defective. The statement that he is the owner of two lots, being the entire frontage on both sides of one of the twro blocks he seeks to have graded, and 137½ feet north and the same distance south on I^yon Street, from its junction with [45]*45Lombard Street, is not inconsistent with the fact that he is the owner of a majority of the whole frontage, but, on the contrary, is consistent with it. Hence the petition was sufficient for the board of supervisors to act upon, and ascertain whether it should be granted or not.

In exercising the jurisdiction thus obtained, and in granting the petition, the board of supervisors must necessarily have found that the petitioner was the owner of a majority of the frontage to be affected by the proposed improvement. Even if, as seemingly suggested by counsel for appellant, the act referred to does not provide, in express terms, for any determination of the matter of a petition, clearly, where a board is empowered to receive a petition, and is invested with discretion in regard to the subject-matter, it has the implied power to determine whether it shall be granted or not.

The law makes it the duty of the board, upon receiving a proper petition for the grading of a street, to publish a resolution of its intention to perform the work, and thereafter make an order that it shall be done.

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Spaulding v. North San Francisco Homestead & Railroad, 25 P. 249, 87 Cal. 40, 1890 Cal. LEXIS 1093 (Cal. 1890).

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