Hamilton v. County of San Diego

Britt, C. Coronado Beach, formerly known as the peninsula of San Diego, was for several years the subject of dispute as to whether it was within or without the territorial limits of the city of San Diego. A decision of the former district court, rendered in the year 1877, held it to be no part of such city; from the judgment in that case—not entered until eleven years later «—an appeal was taken to this court, where the judgment was' reversed, and it was determined that said peninsula is “ within the limits of the city of San Diego, and land situated on said peninsula is subject to assessment and taxation for city purposes.” (San Diego v. Granniss, 77 Cal. 511.) This was in December, 1888. The question arose in other forms (People v. San Diego, 85 Cal. 369; Fisher v. Police Court, 86 Cal. 158); but the case of San Diego v. Granniss, supra, remained authoritative as to the legal questions decided—not to say the points of local geography involved—and established that the peninsula was, and had been since the passage of the act to reincorporate the city of San Diego, April 1, 1876, an integral part of the city.

. The present case grew out of that controversy. In January, 1887, the peninsula being then regarded as without the limits of the city, the board of supervisors of San Diego county took the proper formal steps for the organization of a school district comprising that portion of the peninsula called Coronado Beach, South Island, under the name of “ Coronado school district of San Diego county.” And the case shows that from and after January 10,1887, during a period of some four years, the said so-styled Coronado school district (although Coronado Beach, South Island, was wholly within the boundaries of the city of San Diego, in said county, and was part of the territory of the San Diego school district, constituted by said city), assumed to exercise and did exercise all the powers and franchises and dis[278]charge the duties of a school district organized under the laws of the state of California, .... exclusive of any other school district, and had an acting board of three persons, who assumed to be its board of trustees. That, among other things, up to December 12, 1888, it received and expended apportionments of state and county school moneys on the same basis with other school districts established within said county, employed teachers, maintained public schools out of said moneys within and for such district; and on November 14,1887» at an election, in which were followed the forms of law, the qualified electors therein assumed to authorize the issue of bonds of said district, to the amount of $40,000, for the purpose of purchasing a site for a school-building, and building a schoolhouse thereon; that pursuant to the result of said election the board of supervisors of said county issued the bonds of said district to the amount of $38,000, and caused the same to be sold at par; that the proceeds wrnre applied to the purchase of land and the erection of a schoolhouse thereon, within • said assumed district, and such land was conveyed by deed to the district. And thereafter, in each of the years 1888, 1889, and 1890, the said board of supervisors, at the time of making the levy of taxes for county purposes, levied a tax upon the property within said so-styled Coronado school district, sufficient to pay the interest on the said bonds, and such portion of the principal of said bonds as was to become due during the year in which such levy was made.. Of the taxes so levied the sum of $5,412.66 was collected and paid into the county treasury; and of this amount the sum of $700 was paid out for interest on said bonds, and $4,712.66 is yet in the hands of the county treasurer—defendant Long. Plaintiff'owned property within said Coronado school district, and paid the taxes for the years 1888 and 1889, levied as above shown. He prosecutes this action to recover the sums paid by him, and also the sums paid for the same purposes and under the same circumstances prior to December 31, 1890, by numer