State v. County of Sonoma

VAN DYKE, J.

Defendant demurred to the plaintiff’s complaint on the ground, among others, that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The court below sustained the demurrer, and plaintiff failing to amend, judgment was entered thereon, from which plaintiff appeals. The action was brought to recover from Sonoma County the expenses of maintaining upwards of thirty inmates of the California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-Minded

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Children for the period of some twenty-two months. These children had been recommitted to the home by the judge of the superior court of Sonoma County on the twelfth day of July, 1897, under and in pursuance of the provisions of the act of March 31, 1897. (Stats. 1897, p. 251.) The complaint, in the first count, states that prior to the twelfth day of July, 1897, one Letitia J. Wilson had been for some time past, down to said date, an inmate of the California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-Minded Children, duly and regularly committed to said home as provided by law; that on the date named the said Letitia J. Wilson was, and ever since has been, and is now, a feeble-minded person, and that such proceedings were then had that the said Letitia J. Wilson was, by Albert Gr. Burnett, judge of the superior court of the state of California, in and for the county of Sonoma, duly and regularly recommitted to the said California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-Minded Children; that said Letitia J. Wilson is an indigent person, and there is not, and has not been, at any of the times mentioned in this count of plaintiff’s complaint, any person who is legally liable to support said inmate, and that on the date last above named, the said judge of said superior court did inquire into the financial condition of the said inmate, and of said inmate’s parents, and of all other persons liable for the support of said inmate, and at said time said judge found that said inmate was not able to pay the expense, or any part or portion of the expense, of said inmate at said home, and that there was no person legally liable for the support of the said inmate; that on or about the fifteenth day of June, 1899, the plaintiff caused to be filed with the county clerk of Sonoma County a claim and account against said county of Sonoma for the sum of two hundred and twenty dollars for the expense of Letitia J. Wilson at said home from the date last above named to and including the thirtieth day of April, 1899, at the rate of ten dollars for and during each and every month and part of a month the said child remained as an inmate of said institution,—to wit, for the period of twenty-two months; that the said claim and bill was fully itemized, giving the names, dates, and particulars of the services rendered and materials furnished; and that thereafter—to wit, on July 12, 1899—the board of super