Mack v. Jastro

[132]

HENSHAW, J.

—Plaintiff, as a resident and taxpayer of Kern county, brought this action to enjoin the defendants, the board of supervisors of the county, from carrying out a contract entered into between them and the intervener, relative to the sale of refunding bonds of the county. The court decreed a perpetual injunction, and from the judgment the defendants and the intervenor prosecute separate appeals, which, however, may be considered together.

Before the proposition to issue the refunding bonds in question had been submitted to and acted upon by the electors of the county, the supervisors had entered into this contract with Trowbridge & Co., under which the sale and purchase of these bonds was agreed upon. The right and power of the supervisors to dispose of the bonds at all is the principal question here presented. By appellants it is contended that this power is found in the County Government Act of 1897 (Stats. 1897, sec. 25, subd. 13), and by the respondents that it is denied to-the supervisors and is vested in the treasurer under the provisions of the County Government Act of 1893. (Stats. 1893, sec. 25, subd. 14.) By appellants it is argued that the County-Government Act of 1897 supersedes and repeals the County Government Act of 1893 in these particulars, while by respondents it is insisted that the provisions of the two acts are not inharmonious; that no express repeal is declared, and that in these particulars, therefore, the two acts should be so construed that all the consistent provisions of both may stand.

We think, however, that a reading of the two sections at once-discloses that the legislature in the County Government Act of 1897 designed and devised a new and complete scheme for the issuance of, county bonds, and, while it is true that repeals by implication are not favored, whenever it becomes apparent that a later statute is revisory of the entire matter of an earlier statute, and is designed as a substitute for it, the later statute will prevail, and the earlier statute will be held to have been superseded, even though there be found no inconsistencies or repugnancies between the two. Frequently, these cases arise where the later statute covering the whole subject matter omits of fails to, mention certain terms or requirements found in an earlier, and it .is insisted, as here, that those particular pro