Welch v. County of Santa Cruz

KERRIGAN, J.

This is an action instituted for the recovery of the sum of five hundred dollars, which the plaintiff alleges he expended and paid out in the discharge of his official duties as fish and game warden of the defendant, the county of Santa Cruz, for the twenty months from and including June, 1909, to December, 1910, and for the month of April, 1912. The action is based upon a claim for the aggregate of the items covering the whole of the period filed with the board of supervisors of the county by plaintiff on the twenty-seventh day of April, 1912.

The board allowed the claim in a sum of $25 only. The items constituting the claim were set forth in detail in an exhibit attached to and made a part of the complaint.

Defendant interposed a general and special demurrer to the complaint. One of the grounds of the demurrer is “that the claim or claims set forth in the complaint and the cause of action based thereupon as set forth in the said complaint are barred by the provisions of secs. 4075 and 4076 of the Political Code of California.”

The demurrer was overruled by the court, whereupon the defendant answered, and after trial judgment went for the plaintiff in the amount of his demand. The appeal is before us on the judgment-roll alone.

Section 4075 of the Political Code reads as follows:

“The Board of supervisors must not hear or consider any claim in favor of any . . . person, . . . against the county, nor shall the board credit or allow any claim or bill against the county" or district fund, unless the same be itemized, . . . and is presented and filed with the clerk of the board within a year after the last item of the account or claim accrued.” The first point made by the appellant in support of his appeal is that the demurrer to the complaint should have been sustained for the reason, as contended, that all but $25 of the sum demanded in the complaint was barred by the provisions of section 4075 of the Political Code above quoted, and consequently the complaint states a cause of action for the sum of $25 only.

[125]

But it is the amount of the demand that determines the jurisdiction of the superior court in actions at law seeking a money judgment; and the fact that the demand is made up in part of items which may prove not to be recoverable will not make the complaint subject to demurrer upon that ground. As was stated in the case of