Burge v. Municipal Court

HOUSER, J.

Prohibition. Petitioners seek to prevent the respondent Municipal Court of the City of Los Angeles from proceeding further in an action pending in said court, in which action respondent Dietterich is the plaintiff and petitioners herein are the defendants.

Other than that the action was brought in the Municipal Court of the City of Los Angeles, in the county of Los Angeles, the facts material to this decision are that each of the defendants is a resident of the city of South Pasadena, in the county of Los Angeles, and that the amount involved in the action is the sum of eight hundred dollars.

As related to the constitution of the state of California, petitioners attack generally the constitutionality of the statute under which the action was brought (Stats. 1925, p. 648), and cite many authorities in support of their contention. In view of the fact, however, that since each of the cases to which the attention of this court is directed was decided, by appropriate amendments to the constitution of this state, the constitution was specifically amended for the very purpose of providing for the creation of municipal courts, and that the statute in question was enacted by the legislature pursuant, to such, constitutional authority, it becomes apparent that the authorities to which petitioners refer are inapplicable to the present situation and that the contention of petitioners in regard to the constitutionality of the statute cannot be sustained.

It is further urged by petitioners that no territorial jurisdiction exists in the Municipal Court of the City of Los Angeles outside the boundaries of said city of Los Angeles.

[427]

Section 11a of article VI of the constitution, among other things, provides that: “In any city and county and in any city which is governed under a charter framed and adopted under the authority of this Constitution containing a population of more than forty thousand inhabitants, . . . a municipal court may be established as in this article provided, anything in this Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding, . . . Municipal courts shall have original jurisdiction, ... in all cases at law in which the demand, exclusive of interest, . . . amounts to one thousand dollars or less, . . . and in all criminal cases amounting to misdemeanor. ...”