Styring v. City of Santa Ana

MARKS, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment directing the issuance of a writ of mandate requiring defendants to grant plaintiffs and other regular members of the regularly organized paid Fire Department of the City of Santa Ana leaves “of absence from active duty of four working shifts in every month of such service” as required by an act of the Legislature. (Stats. 1895, p. 76, as amended; Deering’s Gen. Laws, 1937, Act 2598.)

The city of Santa Ana is a municipal corporation of the fifth class organized under the Municipal Corporation Act. (Stats. 1883, p. 93, as variously amended; Deering’s Gen. Laws, 1937, Act 5233.) This act serves as the charter of those municipalities incorporated under it.

(Frisbee

v.

O’Connor,

119 Cal.App. 601 [7 P.2d 316] ;

People

v.

Bagley,

85 Cal. 343 [24 P. 716];

Ex parte Jackson,

143 Cal. 564 [77 P. 457] ;

City of Mountain View

v.

Southern Pacific Ry. Co.,

1 Cal.App.2d 317 [36 P.2d 650] ; Const., art. XI, § 6.) Section 1 of this act provides that cities “shall have the powers conferred, or that may be hereafter conferred, by law, upon municipal corporations of the class to which the same may belong.” Thus the Legislature has much more power to regulate the affairs of unchartered cities than it has over those organized under a charter which have authority “. . .to

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make and enforce all laws and regulations in respect to municipal affairs, subject only to the restrictions and limitations provided in their several charters, ...” (Const., art. XI, § 6.) It follows that cases dealing with the rights of officers and employees of chartered cities are unimportant here and need not be noticed.