Christophel v. Riley

WASTE, C. J.

Petition for writ of mandate to compel the respondents as controller and treasurer, respectively, of the state of California, to credit petitioner, as treasurer of Sacramento County, with the amount of a certain warrant tendered by a land owner to, and accepted by, petitioner in part payment of Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6, levied upon land owners in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District.

The Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District is a state agency, legally created, and the management and control thereof is vested in the reclamation board of the state of California. On November 6, 1917, the board adopted and determined upon a project known and designated as “Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project Number Six.”

[244]

By resolution, said board authorized and approved the imposition of an assessment, totaling $8,144,327.33', upon such lands of the drainage district as would be benefited by the contemplated project, and separate assessment lists were duly forwarded to the county treasurer of each county where any of the lands so assessed were situate. This assessment was validated in a proceeding instituted in the superior court of Sutter County, three judges sitting, and the judgment was affirmed by this court.

(In re SutterButte By-Pass Assessment No. 6, etc.,

191 Cal. 650 [218 Pac. 27].)

A bond issue, with the proceeds of which the reclamation board proposed to defray the expenses of the project for which the assessment had been levied, proving unsuccessful, the legislature authorized the board, in its discretion, to order the cancellation of the issue, and to call for the payment of the assessment whenever it appeared that the bonds had not been sold within a year from their issuance. (Stats. 1919, chap. 520, sec. 54, p. 1111.) In 1927, the legislature passed an emergency measure known as the “Sacramento and San Joaquin drainage district refunding act,” in which, among other provisions, it was made the duty of the reclamation board to cancel all proceedings taken in connection with the bond issue relating to project No. 6, and to take certain steps looking to the levying of a supplementary assessment No. 6 upon all the lands within the drainage district. (Stats. 1927, chap. 774, sec. 3, p. 1505.) It was further provided in the act (sec. 13, p. 1509) that any owner or holder of lands within the boundaries of the district whose lands were subject to assessment No. 6 or the supplemental assessment should have the right to present to any officer authorized by law to collect such assessment warrants of the district issued in connection with project No. 6 prior to the effective date of the act, May 26, 1927, and it was made the duty of such officers to accept such warrants in payment, at their face value, plus accrued interest, on account of such assessment.