Crockett v. Mathews

ANGELLOTTI, J.

This is an application to this court for a writ of mandate requiring the defendant to draw a warrant upon the treasurer of the county of Mendocino, a county of the fourteenth class, in favor of plaintiff for the sum of forty dollars, alleged to be the amount of salary due plaintiff as justice of the peace of Ukiah township in said county for the month of June, 1909. The matter was submitted on a general demurrer to the petition.

Plaintiff is entitled to the relief demanded if his rights in regard to compensation are determined by the provisions of an act entitled “An act to amend section 4243 of the Political Code of the State of California, relating to the compensation and expenses of officers in counties of the fourteenth class,” approved March 13, 1909. (Stats. 1909, p. 322.)

His present term as justice of the peace commenced in January, 1907, and at the time of the approval of the act of March 13, 1909, the law fixing his compensation was section 171 of the County Government Act of 1897, as amended by an act.approved March 21, 1905 (Stats. 1905, p. 670), under which both justices and constables of counties of the fourteenth class were compensated solely by specified fees for services performed, it being established by the decision in

Smith

v.

Mathews,

155 Cal. 752, [103 Pac. 199], filed June 25, 1909, that the provisions of the act of March 18, 1907 (Stats. 1907, p. 354), by which the County Government Act, amended

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in many particulars and revised, was incorporated as a part of the Political Code, was not to be construed as showing a legislative intent that the changes in salaries and compensation thereby made as to many officers should affect incumbents.

The act of March 13, 1909, deals exclusively with the matter of the compensation of the county and township officers of counties of the fourteenth class, no other subject being in the slightest degree referred to therein. The act consists of two sections. Section 1 of the act declares that “in counties of the fourteenth class the county and township officers shall receive as compensation for the services required of them by law or by virtue of their offices the following salaries and fees, to wit”: and this is followed by fifteen subdivisions by which the compensation of each officer is fixed. No change was made thereby in the compensation of the recorder, tax-collector, assessor, district attorney, and supervisors, who had theretofore received fixed salaries, nor in that of the coroner, public administrator, or surveyor who, under both old and new law, were to receive “such fees as are now or may hereafter be allowed by law.” The theretofore fixed salaries of the county clerk, auditor, treasurer, and superintendent of schools were increased, and the sheriff was given certain additional allowances. Subdivision 13 deals exclusively with justices of the peace, giving them for all services rendered in criminal cases, in lieu of the fees theretofore allowed, a monthly salary to be paid each month as salaries of county officers are paid, the salary to be forty dollars per month in townships where the population is two thousand or more, thirty dollars per month in townships where the population is one thousand and less than two thousand, and twenty dollars per month in townships where the population is less than one thousand, the population to be determined “by multiplying the vote for governor cast in each township at the next preceding general state election by five.” No change was made in the matter of compensation in civil cases. Subdivision 15 deals exclusively with constables, providing in lieu of certain fees in criminal cases, a fixed monthly salary, graded, as in the case of justices, according to the populations of the townships. Section 2 of the act is as follows: “Except as to subdivisions 13 and 15, this act shall not take effect until the expiration of the present term of officers hereinabove enumerated.”