Skelly v. Westminster School District

Citations

• 103 Cal. 652
• 37 P. 643
• 1894 Cal. LEXIS 840

Syllabus

<p>Statutory Construction—State, Excepted From General Words.— The state is not bound by general words in a statute which would operate to trench upon its sovereign rights, or injuriously affect its capacity to perform its functions or establish a right against it.</p> <p>Id.—Attachment—Garnishment—School District.—The state cannot be subjected to garnishment upon a claim against it; and a school district is but an instrumentality of the state, the trustees of which are special agents without general power to represent the district, and cannot be garnished in an attachment suit by a third party against its creditor.</p> <p>Id.—Payment of Debt of School District Under Execution Against Creditor—Assumption of Risk.—A school district may voluntarily pay the amount of a debt due to its creditor to the sheriff, while the sheriff has in his hands an execution issued upon a valid judgment against the creditor of the district; but the officers of the district in such case assume the risk of showing that the debt existed against the school district.</p> <p>Id.—Pleading—Judgment by Default.—Where the answer of the school district pleads that the judgment upon which the payment was made under execution was one upon which a default was entered by the clerk, and that judgment was thereupon entered by him, the answer is not defective because it also avers that the judgment by default was duly given and made by the clerk.”</p> <p>Id.—Retention of Execution by Attorney—Payment to Sheriff.—The fact that the execution upon the judgment was retained by the attorney of the plaintiff until after an order was procured from the school trustees, and a requisition from the school superintendent for a payment of the debt due from the school district to the execution defendant, is not material, if before the money was paid the sheriff took the execution and received the money from the treasurer.</p>