Kahrs v. County of Los Angeles

DORAN, J.

This is an action wherein plaintiffs sought to recover damages from the County of Los Angeles, alleged to have resulted from floods following a heavy rain. A verified claim for damages in the following words and figures was duly filed on April 2, 1,935: "The undersigned hereby makes claim and demand for the payment of the sum of $1475.00 being the amount of damage due said claimant for damages to real and/or personal property owned by claim

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ant and located in Drainage Improvement District Number One, County of Los Angeles, State of California; that said damage occurred on and after October 17, 1934.”

It will be noted at once that the claim was filed five months and fifteen days after October 17, 1934. To the amended complaint, which was based on the above claim, a demurrer was sustained without leave to amend on the ground that the claim was not filed within ninety days. The period within which the claim could be amended to conform to the law had long since elapsed at the time of the ruling on the demurrer. It was alleged in the complaint that damage also resulted from a storm occurring on the 6th day of February, 1935, but the trial court in effect held that the phraseology in the claim above noted, to wit, “and after”, was of no significance, and, to the extent of including February 6, 1935, could not be construed as the equivalent of the “date and place of the accident and the extent of the injuries or damages received” within the meaning of chapter 1167, Statutes of 1931, page 2475. This act, which the trial court held to be controlling, provides that said claim must be filed within ninety days after such accident has accrued, and shall specify the name and address of the claimant, the date and place of the accident and the extent of the injuries or damages received.

It is appellants’ contention that “the language of the above claim is specific enough and broad enough to include the damage occurring on the 6th day of February, 1,935, and that the Board of Supervisors of the County of Los Angeles, having rejected said claim in its entirety, are presumed to have rejected the claim upon its merits, and not by reason of any uncertainty or ambiguity in said claims, and haying so rejected said claims, said defendants could not thereafter object thereto upon the grounds that it did not include the words and figures ‘7th day of February, 1935’, or that it did not in truth and in fact include any day subsequent to the 17th day of October, 1934, and prior to the 2nd day of April, 1935, said last date being the date the claims were filed.” In support thereof it is argued that plaintiffs were entitled to one year within which to file the above claim by virtue of the provisions of section 4075 of the Political Code. It is also argued that chapter 1167 of the Statutes of 1931, is not applicable. Act 5149 of Deering’s General Laws of California is relied upon by appellants in support of this