Agudo v. County of Monterey

EDMONDS, J.

The appeal in this case presents for review a judgment in favor of the defendant county after its demurrer to the plaintiff’s complaint was sustained without leave to amend. The only point in controversy is whether a cause of action based upon section 4452 of the Political Code, which provides that “Every county and municipal corporation is responsible for injury to real or personal property situate within its corporate limits, done or caused by mobs or riots,” is assignable.

The plaintiff alleges in his complaint that in 1934 one Cañete was a labor contractor hiring men to work in the fields, and that he boarded and maintained them in certain bunkhouses on his ranch in Monterey County; that on September 21, 1934, a mob of seventy-five persons armed with loaded guns and rifles applied gasoline to the buildings in which fifty-three of these laborers were living and destroyed personal property of a stated value belonging to each of them, without any negligence on their part and against their consent. He also alleges that within one year thereafter, each of the persons whose property was destroyed filed with the board of supervisors of the county a verified claim for its value and, after it was rejected, assigned his claim to the plaintiff.

The county successfully contended in the superior court and asserts upon this appeal that a cause of action for the value of property destroyed by a mob is not assignable. The plaintiff concedes that if the statute allows the recovery of a statutory penalty, the county’s position is correct, but he claims that as the statute authorizes a property owner to re

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cover only actual damages it confers a compensatory or remedial right which is assignable. (See

Peterson

v.

Ball,

211 Cal. 461 [296 Pac. 291, 74 A. L. R 187];

Western Mortgage & Guar. Co.

v.

Gray,

215 Cal. 191 [8 Pac. (2d) 1016, 80 A. L. R 866].) The nature of the statute is, therefore, determinative of the question for decision.