Yonker v. City of San Gabriel

73 P.2d 623, 23 Cal. App. 2d 556, 1937 Cal. App. LEXIS 699
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 22, 1937
DocketCiv. 5925
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 73 P.2d 623 (Yonker v. City of San Gabriel) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Yonker v. City of San Gabriel, 73 P.2d 623, 23 Cal. App. 2d 556, 1937 Cal. App. LEXIS 699 (Cal. Ct. App. 1937).

Opinion

*557 PLUMMER, J.

The plaintiff in this action had judgment against the defendants in the sum of $4,000 for damages alleged to have been caused to his property by reason of the negligent act of the defendants and also had judgment for an injunction as prayed for in the complaint. From this judgment and the decree granting an injunction the defendants appeal.

It appears from the complaint that the plaintiff during all the times mentioned in this action was the owner of a tract of land lying in the outskirts of the City of San Gabriel, county of Los Angeles, comprising about eight acres. In this land it appears that there is a certain wash known as and called San Pasqual wash. The wash is alleged to have contained valuable gravel from which the plaintiff each year extracted material to be used in building operations. This building material was sold to contractors in southern California and produced a valuable income to the plaintiff.

Alongside of this wash the City of San Gabriel maintained a public highway known as and called Ramona Street. This street extends over the wash just referred to and the highway is connected on both sides of the wash by what is known as the Ramona Street bridge. For the purpose of strengthening and improving the abutments to the bridge just referred to, it is alleged that the defendants dumped a large quantity of material containing particles of asphalt, oil and grease impregnated therein to a great extent. It is then alleged that during the rainy season great quantities of water are carried down through said wash alongside of the abutments referred to and onto and over the lands belonging to the plaintiff. That after the dumping of the asphalt-impregnated gravel and other refuse materials on the abutments of the bridge just referred to torrential rains caused the rise of the waters in the wash and carried large quantities of the oil-impregnated gravel and sand and other refuse matter out, over and upon the lands belonging to the plaintiff and so impregnated the sands on plaintiff’s property as to cause the same to become valueless and useless for building purposes. It is alleged in the complaint that the dumping of said oil-impregnated gravel and refuse material was done carelessly and negligently by the servants and employees of the City of San Gabriel. It is further alleged that the plaintiff gave notice to the defendants of the matters complained of herein, but that said defendants *558 took no measures to prevent the injury to plaintiff’s premises by reason of the manner in which the oil-impregnated gravel and refuse matter had been dumped upon the abutments aforesaid and took no measures whatever to prevent the waters of said wash from carrying the same down to, over and upon the lands belonging to the plaintiff. That said acts of defendants resulted in damage to the plaintiff’s property in the sum of $5,000. Upon this complaint the court awarded judgment, as we have stated, in the sum of $4,000 and granted the injunction prayed for.

Attached to the complaint marked exhibit A is a writing entitled “Notice for Payment of Claim”. This claim, however, is not verified and does not in any particular conform to the requirements of the acts of the legislature to which we will hereinafter refer.

Upon this appeal the main argument of the defendants is to the effect that the plaintiff did not file a claim with the proper authorities of the City of San Gabriel and that the claim which was filed or rather served upon some of the officers of the defendant does not conform to the requirements of the acts of the legislature relating thereto. Responding to the objection that no verified claim was filed as required by law it is the contention of the plaintiff that under section 14 of article I of the Constitution the filing of a verified claim against the City of San Gabriel was unnecessary. The section of the Constitution referred to provides that private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation being made therefor. At the time of the dumping of the material herein referred to by the agents of the City of San Gabriel upon the abutments of the Ramona Street bridge no property of the plaintiff was either taken or damaged. The damage, if any, was as the authorities claim, consequential, but whether it correctly be denominated consequential or direct, immediate, the record shows no damage resulted from the mere fact of dumping the refuse material upon the abutments referred to, but that subsequently torrential rains occurred, causing an excessive flow in the wash referred to, the waters thereof carrying down the refuse matter upon the property belonging to the plaintiff.

We think it unquestionable that the work performed by the city was essentially a governmental procedure or rather a governmental act. The management, control, construction *559 and maintenance of public highways is by all of the authorities which we have examined and to which our attention has been called designated as a governmental function as distinct from any proprietary undertaking or business carried on by a city.

Under the common law, damages such as are referred to in the plaintiff’s complaint could not constitute a basis of action against the city. Our statutes, however, have changed the common law in this particular and have likewise adopted a procedure which must be followed by anyone claiming to have been damaged by the acts of a city or its agents. A number of acts have been passed to which we will now refer and which we think must all be read together and so construed, the liability of a city or its agents must be determined and the procedure therein set forth must be followed.

The first act to which we refer is the one approved May 18, 1919. (Stats. 1919, p. 756; Deering’s Gen. Laws of California, Act No. 5618.) Section 1 of that act reads: “No officer of any district, town, city, city and county, county, or of the State of California, shall be liable for any damage or injury to any person or property hereafter resulting from the defective or dangerous condition of any public street, highway, bridge, building, work or property, unless it shall first appear” that the injury was the direct result of the dangerous or defective condition, that the officer in charge had notice of the dangerous condition, that he had authority and it was his duty to remedy such condition, that there were funds available for remedying the condition and that reasonable steps were not taken to remedy the same.

The second act to which we refer is the one approved June 13, 1923. (Stats. 1923, p. 675; Deering’s Gen. Laws, Act No. 5619.) This act, after limiting the liability of boards with regard to negligence of employees and also requiring notice and knowledge contains in section 2 thereof the provisions making cities, counties, etc., liable under certain conditions, to wit: “Counties, municipalities and school districts shall ’be liable for injuries to persons and property resulting from the dangerous or defective condition of public streets, highways, buildings, grounds, works and property in all cases where the governing or managing board of such county, municipality, school district, or other board, officer or person having authority to remedy such condition, had knowl *560

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Bluebook (online)
73 P.2d 623, 23 Cal. App. 2d 556, 1937 Cal. App. LEXIS 699, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/yonker-v-city-of-san-gabriel-calctapp-1937.