People ex rel. Chapman v. Sacramento Drainage Dist.

This is a proceeding in quo warranto, brought under section 803 of the Code of Civil Procedure. That section authorizes the attorney-general in the name of the people of the state, upon his own initiative, or upon that of a private person, to prosecute an action against any person "who usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises any public office, civil or military, or any franchise within this state.”

In 1905 the legislature passed an act entitled: “An act to create a drainage district to be called ‘Sacramento Drainage District,’ to promote drainage therein; to provide for the election and appointment of officers of said drainage district; defining the powers, duties and compensations of such officers and providing for the creation, division and management of reclamation, swamp land, levee, drainage and protection districts within said Sacramento Drainage District, and providing for levying and collecting assessments upon the lands within said drainage district.” The provisions of this act, so far as

A board known as the “Board of Riyer Control” is also created. This board consists of two members, appointed by the governor of the state, one of whom is to be the president of the board of drainage commissioners, and the other some competent civil engineer. The duties of the board of river control are, for the most part, advisory. This board has supervision of all levees and canals intended to do duty in disposing of flood waters. It is empowered to acquire from private owners or from reclamation, swamp land, or other districts, such rights of way, easements, and property as may be necessary for its purposes. It is the duty of the board to advise and consult with such board or officers as may be appointed by the government of the United States, to devise and construct works for the improvement and rectification of the channels of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their

Within six months after the organization of the board of drainage commissioners, this board is to appoint a committee of three persons to act in conjunction with a similar committee appointed by the governor of the state of California to determine the proportion to be borne by said district and state respectively, of the cost of constructing and completing either the work recommended in the report of certain named engineers or the work called for by such other plan as shall be-approved by the state board of examiners. When this cost has been apportioned, and the apportionment approved by the board of drainage commissioners, the latter shall appoint three assessors—disinterested persons—who, in the manner above outlined, shall proceed to assess upon the lands within the drainage district the sum apportioned against said district as its proportion of the cost of the work. All the proceedings for the levying, equalizing, and collecting of such assessment are prescribed as above set forth. It is provided, however, that no part of this, assessment shall be called in or collected “until the state of California and the government of the United States, or one of them, shall have made an appropriation, or other legal provision, for the payment of the balance of the sum to be expended jointly with said district in performing the work according to the plans recommended. ... In case the payment of said sum by the state of California, or the government of the United States, shall not be provided for within five years from the time said assessment shall have been levied, said assessments upon said lands shall become void, and the lien thereof upon the said lands shall expire.” Provisions then follow for the formation of new reclamation districts within the area of the drainage district, under the supervision and control of the drainage commissioners, and for the consolidation of existing districts, under like supervision and control.

The purpose and scope of the act are clearly discernible from a reading of it. The causes which led to its enactment form a part of the history of the state. Riparian, or in proximity, to the great San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers are vast tracts of low-lying lands, some strictly swamp lands, others subject to overflow at the usual stages of high water, others liable to inundation in times of extraordinary freshet, but all requiring the expenditure of money in the construction of levees, drainage ditches, and pumping plants for their reclamation and subjection to economic use. Some of these lands, and indeed some embraced within the drainage district thus created, were acquired by the state of California from the United States under the Arkansas Act, and in turn were sold into private ownership by the state. Others came into the hands of private owners by mesne conveyances, the original source of such titles being the government of Spain or Mexico, whose grants were confirmed by the United States. Aside from any duty which it may be conceived that the state of California owed to the United States because of the trust upon which it took the lands under the Arkansas Act, it was clearly desirable and beneficial to the state that all of these lands should be reclaimed for purposes of husbandry. This improvement would add great wealth to the state, and this improvement therefore would result in a public benefit. Upon the other hand, the specific lands thus reclaimed would be especially benefited by their enhanced and assured productiveness, and it was proper that such lands should bear the cost of the work of reclamation proportioned to the benefits

1. The question of the power of the legislature, in a proper case, to impose a burden in the nature of a tax upon specific lands, in proportion to the estimated special benefits which those lands will receive from the work done, may not be doubted. The limitation upon its power,—it is well settled,-— is this, that to sustain such a law it must appear that the character of the work is such that its performance confers some general benefit on the public as well as a private benefit on the landowner. And that the improvements here contemplated are of such character, has long been definitely settled. So complete is the control of the state over swamp and overflowed lands, that its power to provide for reclamation of them is not limited to those lands the title to which was acquired under the Arkansas Act, but it exists as to all swamp and overflowed lands in the state, even if the title was derived from a Spanish or Mexican grant, (Hagar v. Yolo Co., 47 Cal. 222 ; Hagar v. Reclamation Dist., 111 U. S. 701 , [ 4 Sup. Ct. 663 ]; Fallbrook Irr. Dist. v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112 , 163, [ 17 Sup. Ct. 56 ].)

2. The act does no violence to section 11 of article I, nor to section 25 of article IY, nor to section 6 of article XI of the

Nor, while a special act, is the law obnoxious to the other sections of the constitution above cited. The considerations dictating the necessities of a special law are plain as above set forth. It would require a clear showing upon the face of the law itself that a special act was not required, before a

3. It is argued with much earnestness that no such law as this has (heretofore ever been found upon the statute books; that it should be condemned as unconstitutional, as being a covert attempt upon the part of the state, under the guise of assessment for special benefit, to force upon the unfortunate landowners the cost of the work for which alone the sovereign state should pay—the work of the improving of the channels of its navigable rivers. The fact that legislation is novel, demands of a court that it be scrutinized with exceptional care, but it does not dictate its condemnation. It is true that the protection and development of its harbors and waterways (subject always to the paramount right of the United States) are matters of state consideration and control. It is true also that usually, since the work is for the general benefit of all of the people, the expense is met by the state itself. But it does not herefrom follow that in every case it is the legal duty of the state so to bear the burden. Whenever the legislature has spoken, the question before the court is not the propriety of its legislation, but its power to legislate. The harbor of San Francisco is benefited for purposes of navigation and commerce by a sea-wall along the water front. At the same time it will not be questioned that the lands held in private ownership in close proximity to such sea-wall, and which without such sea-wall would be inundated “water lots,” are especially benefited by this harbor work. The state, if it elects, may pay all the cost. But it will not be denied that the state has the power to impose upon the adjacent lands specially benefited by the work an assessment in proportion to such benefits, to defray a part of the cost. Or, again, in the matter of governmental power and control, the water highways of the state do not differ from the land highways. The power of the state to exact payment for the improvement of its streets from the owners of land adjacent thereto, in proportion to the

4. It is urged the act does violence to section 24 of article IV of the constitution, in embracing more than one subject-matter and in not embracing in its title the principal subject-matter. The' penalty which the constitution imposes upon such legislation is to make void the matter which is not expressed in the title. This inquiry being in quo warranto, and the legitimate subject-matter of investigation being the usurpation by defendants into an office or franchise, it may be that the act contains' provisions not germane to nor fairly embraced within the subject-matter of the title. But only in the event that such an unexpressed provision or provisions may be essential to the existence of the law itself, does it become-material to this consideration. If not fatal to the life of the act, such provisions fall, without destruction of the act itself, and their consideration and discussion would have no proper place upon this appeal. The title of the act has been quoted above. It is contended that this title masks, conceals, indeed omits reference to the principal purpose of the act, which is the improvement of the river channels, and the throwing of the burden of the cost of such improvement upon the private landowner. It may be conceded that the title of the act contains no suggestion that in the promotion of drainage and reclamation of the lands within the district, the improvement of the river channels is contemplated. But the title is broad enough in its language to disclose that the general purpose of the act is to provide a scheme for the betterment of the lands lying within the described area. Such aspects of the rectification and improvement of the river channels as are set forth in the act, if falling within and germane to the general pur

The other considerations presented by appellant as showing that the body of the act contains a multiplicity of subjects foreign to its title, may be disposed of collectively. Prom what has been said, it appears that the creation of the board of river control is not only within the purpose, but within the very title of the act. The other objections go to the powers conferred upon the officers and it may be seen that these powers are in legitimate aid of the general purpose of the act. If it should hereafter be found, that as to some specific matter excessive power had been conferred, it would be so decreed, but the decision would not tend /to destroy the law as a whole. Upon the general subject-matter of the management and control over the existing districts, vested in the board of commissioners of the district here created, it may be suggested that it was within the unquestioned power of the legislature, with due regard to vested rights, to have put out of existence all of these districts, and, having done so, to have created a board of commissioners to manage future works of reclamation. That it has done less than this, by conferring upon such

5. It is argued that the act in question works a taking of the landowner’s property without due process of law. Herein it is insisted (a) that the landowner was denied a hearing to. which he was entitled upon the question of the inclusion or exclusion of his land; (b) that an illegal and unconstitutional tribunal was created to pass upon and determine the question of the benefits which his land, so improperly included, may receive, in violation of sections 1 and 5 of article VI of the constitution.

(a) Where the legislature has itself spoken in the creation of a district such as this, and where the legislative determination may be deemed to depend upon a question of fact, it is conclusively presumed that the legislature took evidence in its determination, and the decision which it has reached will not be subject to review by the courts. The latter will confine themselves exclusively to questions appearing upon the face of the statute itself. (Stevenson v. Colgan, 91 Cal. 649 , [ 25 Am. St. Rep. 230 , 27 Pac. 1089 ]; Rankin v. Colgan, 115 Cal. 529 , [ 47 Pac. 357 ]; Smith v. Mathews, post, p. 752, [ 103 Pac. 199 ].) Says Judge Cooley (Constitutional Limitations, p. 220): “If evidence was required, it must be supposed that it was before the legislature when the act was passed, and if any special finding was required to warrant the passage of the particular act, it would seem that the passage of the act itself might be held equivalent to such finding.” This court has said, commenting upon this language: “This view seems to be sustained by the decisions of the highest courts of other states and is in harmony with the central idea of the constitution in prescribing the independence and equality of the three great departments of the state.” (Stevenson v. Colgan, 91 Cal. 649 , [ 25 Am. St. Rep. 230 , 27 Pac. 1089 ].) Speaking directly upon this subject-matter, the supreme court of the United States has said (Fallbrook Irr. Dist. v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112 , 174, [ 17 Sup. Ct. 56 , 69]): “It has been held in this court that the legislature has power to fix such a district for itself without any hearing as to benefits, for the purpose of assessing upon the lands within the district the cost of a local, public improvement. The legislature, when it fixes the district itself, is sup

(b) Upon the amount of the tax which the landowner is to pay, the scheme by which that amount is to be apportioned and assessed has been outlined above. It will be remembered that after disinterested persons have made their assessment, a notice of the time and place of the sitting of the board of drainage commissioners for the purpose of equalizing the assessment is to be given; the board is to hear complaints and correct errors, and its determination is declared to be final. It is insisted that this either creates a court or confers judicial powers upon executive and administrative officers, in violation of the constitutional provision of sections 1 and 5 of article VI of the constitution. That the board sitting to equalize the assessments acts judicially, must be conceded. The very purpose for which it sits is to act judicially for the correction of errors and abuses in the original assessment. But to say that for this reason the legislature has attempted to create a court in violation of the constitution is a proposition to which assent must be denied. Many acts, judicial in their nature, must of necessity be performed by the executive and administrative officers of the government. The decisions of such officers upon any controverted question, upon any question even in which there is play for discretion, are in their nature judicial. But because this is so, and necessarily so, it does not follow that they are usurping the exclusive functions of the courts of the land, and if they are not doing so, the power which they exercise may not be questioned. City councils and boards of supervisors annually fix the rates which water consumers within their territories shall pay to quasi public corporations furnishing such water. Here, these boards are called upon to consider and decide controverted questions of fact of great moment and of much nicety. Their decrees fixing rates contain many of the elements of a judgment. They are binding determinations upon the water company upon the one hand, and upon the consumer upon the other; yet,

7. Nor is there a double tax upon the land. The special assessment for benefits is upon the theory that, to the amount of such assessment, the land is directly benefited. Such general tax as the land may pay to the state, stands upon an entirely different foundation. The owner of land fronting upon a street, who is assessed for special benefits for the street work, does not suffer double taxation because that land is again subjected to general tax by the city or state, even though a portion of the money so derived should go to the maintenance of the highway in front of his property.

8. The act.in terms does not attempt to impair the obligation of existing contracts. The state has the undoubted right to vary its plans for the reclamation of these lands, and in so doing to create new or different agents and mandatories. If in the operation of its new laws an attempt should be made to impair vested rights, the attempt, upon proper showing before a court, would unquestionably be held nugatory.

9. No violence is done by the act to the constitutional inhibition against requiring a property qualification for a voter. (Const., art I, sec. 24.) This objection is completely disposed of by People v. Reclamation District No. 551, 117 Cal. 114 , [ 48 Pac. 1016 ]. The assessments are for local improvements, not for general purposes of taxation, and the legislature permits the landowners to appoint their own agents. The method which it imposes upon the landowners in making the selection is wholly within its control; for, as has been said, it is not compelled to give the landowners any voice in that selection.

We have thus discussed all the points advanced upon appeal and pertinent to this consideration under quo warranto. The questions presented arise upon the rulings of the court in striking out portions of the petition and in sustaining a general demurrer thereto.

Melvin, J., Shaw, J., Angellotti, J., Sloss, J., and Lorigan, J., concurred.

The chief justice being a landowner within the boundaries of the Sacramento Drainage District, did not participate in the foregoing.