State Board of Equalization v. Superior Court

SHENK, J.

This is an application for a writ of prohibition to restrain the respondent Superior Court from taking further action in a proceeding before it in which an order of the State Board of Equalization revoking certain liquor licenses in the city of Redding was reviewed and annulled.

• The order of the board was made on March 23, 1537. On the following day, A. C. Bell, the licensee, filed in the respondent court- a petition for a writ of review on the ground that the board had exceeded its jurisdiction in revoking said li

[254]

censes. The writ was issued. The board filed a demurrer to the petition challenging the jurisdiction of the court to entertain a proceeding in

certiorari

against the board. No other return to the writ was made. The court overruled the demurrer and on March 31st entered judgment annulling the order of the board and reinstating the licenses. To the present petition in prohibition, filed on April 6th, the respondents have interposed a demurrer on the ground that said petition shows that the judgment entered on March 31st was a final judgment; that no judicial or other act is to be performed by the respondent court, and that the petitioners herein have a plain, speedy and adequate remedy by an appeal from said judgment.

It is the law of this state that the writ of prohibition will lie only when the inferior tribunal is about to perform some judicial act unauthorized by law. “It is a preventive] rather than a corrective, remedy, and issues only to restrain the commission of a future act and not to undo an act already performed.”

(Traffic Truck Sales Co.

v.

Justice’s Court,

192 Cal. 377 [220 Pac. 306, 308], and eases there cited.)

The foregoing rule is applicable to this proceeding for the reason that it appears beyond dispute that the respondent court had acted in the matter complained of before the filing of the petition herein, and that no further action of the court with reference thereto is contemplated.