Berg v. Traeger

WASTE, C. J.

This action, to recover the sum of $999 and interest as damages arising out of the alleged wrongful conversion of an automobile by the sheriff of Los Angeles County, was commenced and prosecuted to judgment for the plaintiff in the municipal court of the city of Los Angeles. Defendant appealed to the Superior Court of Los Angeles

[325]

County, and from the judgment of affirmance therein entered he perfected an appeal to the District Court of Appeal on \\ March 30, 1927. That court, of its own motion, has dismissed the appeal (285 Pac. 332, 286 Pac. 469) on the ground that an amendment to the Municipal Court Act, effective August 14, 1929, deprived the court of jurisdiction. (Stats. 1929, p. 837.) The cause of action arose outside the city, but within Los Angeles County. Prior to the 1929 amendment,

supra,

a distinction was made between cases arising within a city, and those arising outside the city, in which a municipal court is established, but within the county. In the former class of cases no appeal lay from the superior court to the District Court of Appeal, while, in the latter class of cases such appeal did lie.

(Johnston

v.

Wolf,

208 Cal. 286 [280 Pac. 980].) The amendment had the effect of depriving the District Courts of Appeal of jurisdiction over appeals from the superior courts in any action within the jurisdiction of the municipal courts; but at the time the amendment became effective there were pending and undetermined before the several divisions of the District Courts of Appeal many appeals from judgments of the municipal courts, and it therefore became necessary to determine what effect, if any, the change of jurisdiction resulting from said amendment had upon appeals duly perfected prior thereto. Upon this jurisdictional question the several divisions of the District Courts of Appeal were unable to agree, ■ with the result that this cause, among others, was transferred to this court.

While it is the general rule that a cause of action or remedy dependent on statute falls with a repeal of the statute,' even after the action thereon is pending, in the absence of a saving clause in the repealing statute