Reddy v. Tinkum

Myrick, J.: This is a proceeding for a writ of mandate directing the respondent, County Treasurer of Mono County, to pay to petitioner the amounts of certain warrants set forth in the petition. The warrants bear date respectively various days from February 8, 1862, to December 14, 1863, and are signed “R. M. Wilson, County Auditor,” and indorsed, “Presented and not paid for want of funds. Wm. Feast, County Treasurer.” The Court below found that said Wilson was not County Auditor of Mono County; that said Feast was not County Treasurer; that the alleged warrants were not drawn by any officer authorized to draw the same, nor presented to any officer authorized to register the same; that the claims for which the warrants were drawn were never examined, settled, allowed, and ordered paid by the Board of Supervisors of Mono County; that the acts of said Wilson, purporting and [465]pretending to be County Auditor, and of said Feast, purporting and pretending to be County Treasurer, relative to said warrants were done and performed at Aurora, in the County of Esmeralda, in the then Territory, now State of Nevada; that the acts of the persons purporting and pretending to compose the Board of Supervisors, relative to the examination and allowance of the claims on which the warrants were drawn, were done and performed at said Aurora; that said Wilson and Feast, and a majority of the pretended Board of Supervisors, were non-residents of the State of California and were residents of said Territory of Nevada: and thereupon the Court rendered judgment for respondent, Tinkum. The petitioner appealed from such judgment and from the order denying his motion for a new trial.

In 1861 the Legislature of this State passed an Act for the " creation and organization of the County of Mono. (Stats. 1861, 235.) In the Act the boundaries are defined, and the eastern line of the State is made the eastern line of the proposed county. The second section reads: “The seat of justice of Mono County shall be at Aurora.” An election of county officers was provided for, and seven persons were named to constitute a Board of Commissioners, to designate the election precincts in the county, canvass the returns and issue certificates of election. The meetings of the Board were to be held at Aurora. We may presume that the Legislature, in passing this Act, supposed that Aurora was within the State of California and within the boundaries of the proposed county; such, however, was not the fact. In 1863 the eastern boundary line of the State was definitely run and established, under legislative authority, and it was then ascertained that Aurora was within the then Territory of Nevada. At the first session of the Legislature thereafter, to wit, in 1864, an Act was passed establishing the county seat at Bridgeport, a point west of the State line. From and after the passage of the Act of 1861, and during the years 1861 1862, and 1863, a form of county government was entered upon and kept up; elections were held, and persons assumed to perform official functions. The persons named in the Act of 1861 as a Board of Election Commissioners resided in said