Cosner v. Board of Supervisors of Colusa County
Synopsis
Swamp Land — Reclamation—Approval of Warrant by Board op Supervisors.—Under the provisions of the Political Code for the reclamation of swamp lands, where the district is situated in different counties, the assessment or charge upon each tract of land is to be paid into the treasury of the county in which the particular tract is situated; and is to be paid out, for the work of reclamation, upon the warrants of the trustees, approved by the Board of Supervisors of that county.
Id.—Id.—Id.—The provision requiring the approval of the warrants of the trustees by the Board of Supervisors involves the idea of discretion and adjudication, and each Board of Supervisors (where the district extends beyond a single county) has the same discretion, with respect to warrants drawn upon their county, as has the Board where the whole district is included within one county.
Id.—Id.—Id.—.Approval — Deítxition—Presumptively, where the approval of a distinct officer is made necessary to validate or consummate the act of another, it is the intention of the Legislature that he should be invested with the option to sanction officially or to disapprove the act submitted to him. Yet such presumed intention is not conclusive; and if it clearly appears from the nature of the act, or the express language of the context, that the word “ approved” is used in a more limited sense, and imposes a mere ministerial or clerical duty, the Court will so hold.
The Court : This is an application for a writ of mandate commanding the defendant to “ approve” warrants drawn by the Trustees of Reclamation District Ho. 108, in favor of certain persons, whose claims have been allowed by the trustees, in sums respectively equal to the alleged indebtedness of the district to each of such persons.
District Ho. 108 is situated partly in Yolo and partly in Colusa County. Section 3446 of the Political Code provides for the presentation of a petition by the owners of one half or more of any body of swamped and overflowed lands, susceptible of one mode of reclamation, to the Board of Supervisors “ of the county in which the lands, or the greater part thereof, are situated,” for the formation of a district.
Section 3448, that when a district is situated partly in different counties the trustees must, after the petition has been [276]granted (by the Supervisors of the county in which the greater part of the lands are situated), forward a copy of the petition to the clerk of the Board of Supervisors of each of the other counties in which any part of the district may lie.
Section 3455 requires that the trustees of the district shall report to the Board of Supervisors of each county, “ the plans of the work and estimates of the cost, together with estimates of the incidental expenses of superintendence, repairs, etc.”
By section 3456, “ The board by which the district was formed” (that is, the Board of Supervisors of the county in which the greater part of the lands are situated), are commanded to appoint three “ commissioners” to assess all the lands within the district.
Section 3458 provides that the assessment or charge upon each tract of land shall be paid into the treasury of the county in which the particular tract is situated.
And section 3465, that a person against whose lands an assessment has been levied must pay to the treasurer the amount of the charge, in coin, “ or in warrants of the district drawn by the trustees thereof, and approved by the Board of Supervisors of the county.”
This can only mean the county into the treasury of which the charge is paid.
Section 3456 requires that the money collected upon an assessment shall be paid into the county treasury as hereinafter provided (as in § 3458), “ and paid out for the work of reclamation upon the warrants of the trustees, approved by the Board of Supervisors of the county ”
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