Kruger v. City of Oakland

KAUFMAN, J. This is an appeal by plaintiff Paul Kruger from a judgment in favor of defendants, the city of Oakland, and Charles A. Reed, Arthur Davis, Joseph J. Ward and James J. Sweeney, Jr., in an action for wrongful conversion of plaintiff’s personal property by the aforementioned officers and employees of said city. The judgment was also in favor of the city on its cross-complaint, against Paul Kruger and Helma Kruger, his wife, in the sum of $855.74, the cost of the city’s services in the abatement of a dangerous and unsanitary condition on plaintiff’s premises.

The complaint alleged that plaintiff had stored on his premises scrap metal of the fair market value of $5,169 ; plumbing fixtures, supplies and tools, $1,000; antiques and [271]certain, metallic objects, $1,000; certain tools and miscellaneous metallic items, $334, making a total sum of $7,503; that defendants’ agents acting under color of a resolution of the City Council of Oakland ordered the abatement of an alleged dangerous and unsanitary condition on plaintiff’s premises; that said acts were done with malice toward plaintiff, for which exemplary and punitive damages were demanded in the sum of $15,000. It was further alleged that a verified claim had been filed for the fair market value of said property with the exception of item four (miscellaneous articles) but that no action had been taken by the city.

Appellant herein, an elderly crusader against political subversion nationally and locally, has filed a unique document of two pages which presents no issues on this appeal. This document sets forth a somewhat incoherent account of plaintiff’s efforts to establish a publicity bureau which was thwarted by the raid on his premises, of Oakland’s invisible government, of the seizing by the city employees of the contents of plaintiff’s writing desk and other prized possessions by the crew who were told to “Take everything! It’s all junk!” What is designated as the attestative sections of the brief contains a magazine article on communist infiltration, letters to a state public official, attacks on Oakland public officials, and poems.

Respondent has set forth the issues as they were presented to the trial court by the complaint, answer, cross-complaint and answer to cross-complaint as follows:

1. Did defendant city of Oakland wrongfully convert certain scrap metal stored in and about the plaintiff’s premises ?

2. What is the reasonable value of the services of the city in abating the dangerous and unsanitary condition ?