Swamp Land District No. 307 v. Glide

Henshaw, J. Appeals from the judgment and from the order denying a new trial.

The commissioners of the plaintiff Swamp Land District in 1889 made their assessment under the reclamation act. The list was filed with the county treasurer April 5, 1889. The defendant refused to pay certain installments upon his assessment, and this action was brought charging upon the installments in separate counts and seeking to collect the same.

Section 3466 of the Political Code, as amended in 1880, was the law in force at the time of the assessment, and at the time when the charges therein became a lien upon the land. That section provided: 1. That the county treasurer, at the end of thirty days after an assessment list was filed with him, should return the same to the board of trustees; 2. That the board of trustees must thereupon commence action for the collection of such delinquent assessments, and for the enforcement of the lien.

This law was found to be inconvenient, as it required [88]the whole assessment to be paid at once, when the money could only be used from time to time.

To remedy this difficulty the legislature, by act passed March 31, 1891, amended section 3466 of the Political Code, retaining the provision that the county treasurer must return the list to the board of trustees, and providing: 1. That all unpaid assessments must be collected and paid in separate installments of such amounts, and at such times, respectively, as the board from time to time in its discretion may, by order entered on its minutes, direct; 2. That a cause of action for the collection of any such installment shall accrue at the expiration of twenty days from the date of the order directing its payment; 3. That if any such installment shall remain unpaid at the expiration of twenty days, then the whole of the assessment against the land owned by the person failing to pay such installment shall become due and payable at once, and may, in the discretion of the board, be collected immediately in one action.

It has been decided in People v. Hulbert, 71 Cal. 72, that the cause of action contemplated by section 3466 of the Political Code as amended in 1880 was one embraced within the provisions of subdivision 1 of section 338 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Appellant here contends that the last amendment to section 3466 of the Political Code operates to fix another and different limitation upon the cause of action, and that it is, consequently, inapplicable to this assessment and void: 1. As having a retroactive effect; 2. As an attempt to amend section 338 of the Code of Civil Procedure without reference to the amended act or a republication of it as amended; and 3. As interfering with the defendant’s vested rights in the bar of the statute.