Rose v. Estudillo

Citations

• 39 Cal. 270

Syllabus

<p>Funding Act—Construction of.—An Act of the Legislature, creating a Board of Commissioners for the purpose of examining into the legality or illegality of all claims or demands outstanding against a county, and for the funding of such as they shall consider legal and just; and which further provides that no such, demand or claim shall he a legal claim against the'county, unless it is presented to and allowed Try such Commissioners, is, in this last respect, unconstitutional.</p> <p>Wabbant Issued Before the Passage of the Act.—A warrant issued by the Auditor of a county, and which had been duly presented by the holder to the Treasurer, for payment, and indorsed by him “not paid for the want of funds,” prior to the passage of the Act, and the holder having elected not to present his warrant to said Commissioners, and it was therefore never funded, is, nevertheless, a valid claim against the county, and was the duty of the Treasurer of the county to pay the same from the first moneys in the treasury, applicable to such payment. ,</p> <p>Idem.—Powers of Legislature. — Impairing a Contract.—It is not competent for the Legislature to declare such a claim invalid, nor could it authorize a commission to do so. The creditor could not be compelled to accept another and an essentially different mode of payment from that provided by his contract; that is to say, by the laws existing at the time he became a creditor of the county.</p> <p>Idem.—Bemedv.—The Act having provided what taxes may be imposed by the county, for county purposes, and designated the purpose to which each fund shall be devoted, no provision being made for that class of indebtedness to which the claim of the holder of the warrant belongs, except the funding provisions contained in the Act, and there being no funds in the treasury of the county applicable to that purpose, at the time he made his demand on the Treasurer, he has no remedy, except to apply to the Legislature, to provide the means of paying his