County of Calaveras v. Poe

MELVIN, J.

Defendants appeal from the judgment. This case was decided upon an agreed statement of facts. Adam W. Poe was duly elected to the consolidated offices of county clerk, county auditor, and county recorder of Calaveras County, a county of the thirty-third class, for the term beginning January 7,1907. At that time his salary as recorder was fixed by statute at one thousand five hundred dollars per a.Tinnm (Stats. 1903, p. 241), and the “County Government Act” also contained the following provision: “The salaries and fees provided for in this act shall be in full compensation for all services of every kind and description rendered by the officers herein named either as officers or ex-officio officers, their deputies and assistants, unless in this act otherwise pro

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vided, and all deputies employed shall be paid by their principals out of the salaries hereinbefore provided, unless in this act otherwise provided.” (Stats. 1905, p. 582.) Subsequently section 4262 of the Political Code was amended with reference to counties of the thirty-third class to read as follows: “The county officers shall receive as compensation for the services required of them by law or by virtue of their office, the following salaries, to wit: . . . The recorder, one thousand five hundred dollars per annum. In counties of this class the recorder may appoint a copyist for service in his office, which office of copyist for the county recorder is hereby created, and said copyist shall receive as compensation for his services the sum of nine hundred dollars per annum, to be paid out of the county treasury in equal monthly installments in the same manner and at the same time as other county officers are paid.” (Stats. 1907, p. 507.)

Thereafter, on April 1, 1907, Adam W. Poe appointed J. A. Smith copyist under the provisions qf said section 4262 of the Political Code as amended in 1907 and the said Poe continued, as auditor from May-6, 1907, to March 7, 1910, to draw warrants for the monthly salary of said Smith as copyist. These warrants were duly paid by the county treasurer. This action was one by the county for the repayment of the moneys thus expended upon the theory that the auditor was without authority to order the payment of Smith’s salary. The amount demanded was $2,625.00, but the court found that the payments made in May and June, 1907, were barred by the provisions of subdivision 1 of section 338 of-the Code of Civil Procedure. Judgment was given against Poe for $2,475.00 and against the other defendants, who were the sureties on his official bond, but as they had become such sureties on April 24, 1909, their joint and several liability upon such judgment was found by the court to be eight hundred and twenty-five dollars.