Board of Osteopathic Examiners v. Riley

RICHARDS, J.,

pro tem.

This is an application for a writ of mandate directed to the respondent herein, as state controller, requiring him to do certain acts relating to the accounts and claims of the petitioners, acting as a Board of Osteopathic Examiners under and by virtue of the provisions of the so-called “Osteopathic Act,” an initiative measure adopted by the people at the general election held on November 7, 1922. The application herein is in two counts, in the first of which it is demanded that the respondent, as state controller, examine and settle the account of the said Board of Osteopathic Examiners for fees collected, reported, and accounted for during the month of July, 1923, under the provisions of the said act creating

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said board, and which the state controller is required to examine, settle, and certify to the state treasurer under the provisions of section 433 of the Political Code. By the second count in said application it is demanded that the state controller be required to issue his warrant on the state treasurer for the sum of $225 upon the claim of the petitioner for said sum for the salaries of secretary and stenographer of said board approved by the board of control and which the petitioners demand shall be made payable out of the “Board of Osteopathic Examiners Contingent Fund” in the state treasury. The answer of the respondent herein, while admitting the averments of fact in both counts of said application contained, denies that he, as to the first count therein, is in duty bound to certify the accounts of the petitioners as set forth in said first count of their petition to the state treasurer to be credited to the “Board of Osteopathic Examiners Contingent Fund”; and as to the second count therein denies that he is in duty bound to issue his warrant on'the state treasury as demanded by the petitioners, payable out of said special fund in the state treasury. The respondent bases his refusal to do both or either of said acts upon his assertion that the effect of the adoption by the electors of California of the constitutional amendment known as the “budget amendment,” and the effect of the submission by the Governor of California to the state legislature of his “Budget Recommendations and estimated Revenues”; and the effect of the adoption by the legislature of the budget bill of 1923 have been to repeal or modify any and all appropriations theretofore made by the legislature or by the people of the state of California in so far as there might have been created a special fund thereby for the payment of the petitioners’ said claim.