Weill v. Kenfield

Citations

• 54 Cal. 111

Syllabus

<p>Construction of Statute—Technical Words. — Where a word, having a technical as well as a popular meaning, is used in the Constitution or a statute, the courts will accord to it its popular signification, unless the very nature of the subject indicates, or the context suggests, that it is used in its technical sense.</p> <p>Constitutional Law—Reading of Bills. — Accordingly, § 15, art. 4, of the Constitution, is to be construed as requiring every bill, before itshall become a law, to be read at length on three separate days in each House, unless, in case of urgency, two-thirds of the House where such bill is pending shall, by a vote of yeas and nays, dispense with this provision, either as to the manner of reading, or as to the reading on separate days.</p> <p>Id.—Unconstitutional Statute.—Upon an application for a writ of mandamus to compel the defendant, as Controller of the State, to transfer a certain sum from the General to the School Fund-, in obedience to the statute of Jan. 23rd, 1880, requiring him to do so, it appearing from the Journal of the Assembly that the bill had not been read in that House three times at length, and that the constitutional provision requiring it to be so read had not been dispensed with: Held, that the act was void; and the application denied.</p>