Irwin v. County of Yuba

CHIPMAN, C. The complaint sets forth that certain counties of the state, to wit, Yuba, Sutter, Sacramento, Colusa, Glenn, Tehama, Yolo, and Solano, “banded together for self-protection against” certain alleged “danger and damage” arising from the deposit through hydraulic mining operations of “masses of debris, gravel, sand,'and other heavy material into the Feather, Yuba, and Bear rivers, filling up the channels of said rivers, thereby causing the same to overflow their hanks,” thus causing “many thousands of acres of valuable land therein to he entirely destroyed and rendered valueless”; and that said counties formed. [687]an organization prior to the year 1892, which has ever since existed, and still exists, under the name of the “State Anti-Debris Association” for protection against such damage; that said association has, by its efforts, and by legal measures taken to that end, saved to each of said counties large amounts of property from ruin; that during the years 1894, 1895, and 1896 defendant county “contributed as its pro rata of the necessary cost and expense for such protection to the said association the sum of two hundred dollars per month for each and every and all of the said months in said years down to the commencement of this action”; that said association during said time held monthly meetings at the city of Sacramento, and that said association consisted “of a combination of committees sent thereto for that purpose from and by the several boards of supervisors of the said several counties”; that the board of supervisors of said Yuba county during all of said time organized itself into several committees for carrying on its business, and, among others, formed an anti-debris committee of said board, of which plaintiff was a member and chairman, and as such met with said association at Sacramento. The complaint then sets out that plaintiff expended, as necessary personal expense in attendance upon said association, the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, and that he is entitled to the further sum of “fifty dollars as his per diem for said attendance.” It is alleged that his claim for said amounts was duly filed with the board of supervisors of defendant, and was duly received and audited and found correct by said board, but was rejected, “for the sole reason that the district attorney of said county declared the said claim illegal.” The complaint prays judgment against defendant for the amount. A general demurrer to the complaint was sustained, and, plaintiff declining to amend, defendant had judgment, from which plaintiff appeals.

Appellant contends that the expenditure of the moneys for the purposes stated constitutes a county charge, and that plaintiff was the proper person to perform the service and expend the money.