P.-P. Int. Exp. Co. v. P.-P. Int. Exp. Com.

This is an agreed case submitted to the superior court for the purpose of obtaining a determination of the proportion to which the state is entitled of the surplus *Page 748 of assets remaining for distribution on the final settlement of the affairs of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The length of the names of the parties and their similarity tends to verbosity and confusion. For the sake of brevity and clearness we will hereafter call the plaintiff the Company and the defendant the Commission. The Company claims that the state's share of such surplus assets is only five-sixteenths thereof. The Commission insists that the state is entitled to five-elevenths thereof. The court below decided that the state's share was only five-sixteenths and gave judgment accordingly. From this judgment the defendant appeals.

For the purpose of aiding in carrying on said exposition the Company, through the subscribers for its stock, contributed, or agreed to contribute, the sum of $6,122,450, of which the sum of $5,594,317.59 has been actually paid in; the state of California contributed out of the state Panama-Pacific International Exposition fund the sum of $4,941,556.26, and the city and county of San Francisco contributed five million dollars. For the purposes of the decision as to the proportion the agreement of submission states that the contributions of said parties may be deemed to be six millions by the company, five millions by the state and five millions by San Francisco, making sixteen millions in all. The solution of the case depends on the meaning of the constitution relating to the state contribution, the statute passed in pursuance thereof, and the contract between the plaintiff and the defendant under which the contribution was made.

Section 22 of article IV of the constitution provides that: "No money shall ever be appropriated or drawn from the state treasury for the purpose or benefit of any corporation, association, asylum, hospital, or any other institution not under the exclusive management and control of the state as a state institution, nor shall any grant or donation of property ever be made thereto by the state."

The authority for the contribution of the state to the Exposition is found in a proviso added to this section, by an amendment adopted in the year 1910. This proviso declares that a state tax should be levied to raise a fund of five million dollars to be used in establishing, maintaining, and supporting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, to be given over for that purpose to a commission consisting *Page 749 of the Governor and four other persons to be appointed by him, who should have the exclusive charge and control of the fund. It further declared that the legislature should pass all laws necessary to carry out its provisions, including the times, manner, terms, and conditions at and upon which such moneys could be drawn and the disposition to be made of any of the fund, or property obtained therewith, remaining at the close of the Exposition. The proviso concluded as follows: