Pimental v. City of San Francisco

Citations

• 21 Cal. 351

Syllabus

<p>The several cases which have been before this Court in relation to the liability of the city of San Francisco to the parties who bid off the city slip property at the attempted sale by the city authorities in December, 1853, under an alleged ordinance, designated as Ordinance No. 481, commented upon, and held to have decided and settled the following points :</p> <p>First—That the ordinance, so called, was never passed, and was, therefore, a nullity.</p> <p>Second—That the sale made in pursuance of it was, therefore, invalid and passed no title to the bidders.</p> <p>Third—That the bidders were entitled to recover back from the city the purchase money paid by them, and received and appropriated by the city authorities.</p> <p>Fourth—That they were not precluded from a recovery either: 1st, by reason of any want of privity between themselves and the city; or 2d, by the alleged subsequent adoption by the city authorities of the ordinance directing the sale ; or 3d, by reason of a subsequent alleged ratification of the sale by an appropriation of the proceeds; or 4th, by the clause in the city charter restraining the corporation frdm contracting liabilities beyond the sum of $50,000; or 5th, by the Act of the Legislature of 1858, authorizing the City Treasurer to execute deeds to the purchasers on certain conditions.</p> <p>Claims against the city of San Francisco by the bidders at the attempted sale in December, 1853, for the purchase money paid on such sale, are within the fourth subdivision of the seventeenth section of the Limitation Act, and are barred by a failure to sue within two years from the date of the receipt of the money by the city.</p> <p>The filing of a complaint in the proper Court, without the issuance of a summons thereon, is the commencement of an action within the terms and meaning of the Limitation Act, and stops the running of the statute.</p> <p>The complaint, in an action to recover back from the city of San Francisco purchase money paid up