Craddock v. O'Brien

Haynes, C. The defendant, in 1885, was the owner of certain judgments rendered by the superior court of Yuba county against “ Drainage District Number One, of the state of California” (which was organized under the act of April 23, 1880, entitled “An act to promote drainage ”), and made an agreement with the plaintiff, Craddock, whereby plaintiff undertook to collect them, and for which service, if successful, defendant agreed he should receive one thousand dollars. This agree[218]ment, however, included another judgment in which defendant was not interested.

Plaintiff also received for collection other claims of like character, all being judgments against said “ drainage district,” rendered in “ condemnation proceedings” instituted by said district under the code provisions entitled “ Of Eminent Domain but, in the case of People v. Parks, 58 Cal. 625, it had been held that the act under which the district was organized was unconstitutional, and that the district had no legal existence. The work, however, which the district was organized to accomplish appears to have been done, so far as it affected the property of O’Brien and the others in whose favor, judgments had been rendered, and the legislature, realizing that these parties should be compensated, in 1885, passed an act making an appropriation for the payment of claims which had arisen under the first act, and which, it was supposed, would authorize the payment of these judgments.

Plaintiff thereupon commenced a proceeding in mandamus against the state controller upon one- of the claims in his hands, to test the right of these claimants under the act of 1885, and that case (Callahan v. Dunn) was appealed to this court by the controller, and is reported in 78 Cal. 866, where it was held that the plaintiff was not within the third section of the act of 1885, as presented by his complaint, the cause having gone off in the court below upon demurrer to the complaint. Having failed in this proceeding, the plaintiff continued his efforts to secure the payment of these claims, principally by conferences with the attorney general with a view to Arriving at an understanding as to the mode or form of presenting them which would satisfy the law officer of the state.

The case of Callahan v. Dunn, 78 Cal. 366, was decided in this court March 12,1889. The attorney general was absent much of the time thereafter on business, and upon his return in November of that year a proposition to resubmit all the claims represented by plaintiff to the