Riley v. Johnson

WASTE, C. J.

The State Controller and William F. Peters pray for a writ of mandate directing the respondent, as State Treasurer, to register a warrant drawn by the Controller in favor of Peters, for an amount, stated therein, due and unpaid by the state to the payee named therein. The respondent demurs to the petition, and makes further return by way of answer presenting issues of law. He admits the due and legal execution, issuance and presentation of the warrant, and that the petitioner Peters is entitled to be paid by the state the amount of the warrant, but disputes the right of petitioners to have the warrant registered. Succinctly stated, the allegations, admissions and denials made by the parties establish the fact that the finances of the state of California have reached a point where warrants which are now being drawn by the State Controller upon the State Treasurer against the general fund, and

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which are being registered by the Treasurer because there are no funds presently available for their payment, probably cannot and will not be paid during the present biennium which will end on June 30, 1937, because there will not be sufficient unappropriated money in the general fund to meet them until some time after that date, and when another biennium will have begun.

The State Treasurer therefore refuses to register the warrant on the ground that, since it cannot be paid during the present biennium, it does not constitute a legal obligation of the state of California, and consequently he has no authority under the law to register such an obligation. This contention cannot be approved. The answer is found in the decision of this court in

Riley

v. Johnson, 219 Cal. 513, [27 Pac. (2d) 760, 92 A. L. R. 1292]. In that case the court passed upon the validity of warrants issued and registered under the Act of 1933, chapter 605, although the warrants were not carried over until a succeeding biennium. Therefore, one of the questions now presented was not before the court in that case, but the considerations there had and the decision given on the other questions now raised were sufficiently in point to make the decision of persuasive force and conclusive here. AATe there held (p. 519) that the provisions of law requiring the warrants to be paid from the unapplied moneys in the general fund, as such moneys are received into such fund, constitute a legal appropriation of so much money as will be necessary to make payment of the amount of the warrants with interest. (Citing the earlier decisions of the court as authority.)