Copeland v. Raub

A. B. Copeland has appealed from a judgment which was rendered against him pursuant to an order sustaining separate demurrers to his petition for a writ of mandamus to compel the sale of land in a reclamation dis

The chief contention of the appellant is that the demurrers were erroneously sustained for the reason that the petition states a good cause of action on the theory that the treasurer’s call number 39 to pay assessments for interest due upon bonds of the district which were issued prior to the amendment in 1933 of section 3480 of the Political Code would be paid in cash only and not with unmatured bonds or coupons; that since the treasurer received from Sutter Basin Corporation, a landowner of the district, only bonds and interest-bearing coupons, a portion of which were unmatured, in payment of the call for assessments against it, such assessments became delinquent and it is, therefore, the duty of the treasurer to impose the penalties provided by law and sell the land in the manner required by said section of the code. This appeal is dependent upon the construction of the last paragraph of section 3480 of the Political Code as amended in 1923 (Stats. 1923, at p. 608), since all of the bonds involved in this proceeding were issued during the time the 1923 amendment was in force. That amendment, as it then existed, read:

“Any land owner of the district who shall desire at any time to lessen or remove the lien upon his land of any assessment on which bonds have been or hereafter may be issued may deliver to the county treasurer for cancellation any bonds payable out of said assessment, and the treasurer shall credit against the assessment on his land the principal and accrued interest of said bonds.”

It is further asserted that in no event may refunding bonds or their interest coupons be credited on the payment of such assessments.

The petition alleges that Reclamation District Number 1500 was duly organized in 1913, pursuant to law, and that, by an election held November 12, 1919, the trustees were authorized to and did issue bonds pursuant to the provisions of section 3480 of the Political Code in the aggregate sum of $4,952,986.78, which were sold March 12, 1930; that the petitioner, A. B. Copeland, purchased and now owns sixteen bonds of the denomination of $1,000 each, and fifteen other

We are of the opinion the petitioner fails to state a cause justifying the issuance of the mandate prayed for, and that the demurrers were therefore properly sustained without leave to amend the pleading. The chief issue depends

“A statute is not to be read as if open to construction as a matter of course. It is only in the case of ambiguous statutes of uncertain meaning that the rules of construction can have any application. Where the language of a statute is plain and unambiguous and its meaning clear and unmistakable, there is no room for construction, and the courts are not permitted to search for its meaning beyond the statute itself. When the meaning of a law is evident, to go elsewhere in search of conjecture in order to restrict or extend the act would be an attempt to elude it, a method which, if once admitted, would be exceedingly dangerous, for there would be no law, however definite and precise in its language, which might not by interpretation be rendered useless. In such a case arguments from the reason, spirit, or purpose of the legislation, from the mischief it was intended to remedy, from history or analogy for the purpose of searching out and justifying the interpolation into the statute of new terms, and for the accomplishment of purposes which the lawmaking power did not express, are worse than futile. They serve only to raise doubt and uncertainty where none exist, to confuse and mislead the judgment, and to pervert the statute.”

“Said installment may be paid either in cash or in bonds of said district, or their interest coupons, issued upon said assessment, then matured or to mature within ninety days from the date of the calling of such installment, taken at their face value, or part in cash and part in such bonds and/or coupons. Any bond or coupon so received in payment shall be by the treasurer forthwith canceled and filed in his office.”

Prior to the amendment of 1933 the act contained no such limitation of the right to apply only matured bonds or coupons to the decreasing or satisfaction of unpaid assessments. If we may resort to the rules of construction to ascertain the intention of the legislature, we must presume the preceding amendment of 1933 was enacted to limit the application of bonds and coupons on delinquent assessments to matured bonds or such as would become matured within ninety days from the date of the call. The last paragraph of section 3480 of the Political Code, as it existed prior to 1933, contained no such limitation. It authorized the delivery to the treasurer of “any bonds payable out of said assessment”, to

The right of the land owner to have his bonds and coupons credited at their face value on the call in satisfaction of the unpaid assessments against his lands is governed by the statute in effect at the time the bonds were issued. (Hershey v. Cole, 130 Cal. App. 683 [ 20 Pac. (2d) 972 ]; Shouse v. Quinley, 3 Cal. (2d) 357 [ 45 Pac. (2d) 701 ] ; Islais Co., Ltd., v. Matheson, 3 Cal. (2d) 657 [ 45 Pac. (2d) 326 ]; County of San Diego v. Childs, 217 Cal. 109 [ 17 Pac. (2d) 734 ].) It is uniformly held that the statute in force when the bonds are issued becomes an inseparable part of the contract created by the terms thereof. The statute, including the provisions of the last paragraph of section 3480 of the Political Code, according to the amendment of 1923, was in effect when the respondents’ bonds, which are involved in this proceeding, were issued. That amendment of 1923 is therefore determinative of the issues of this case. The language of that paragraph did not then limit the right to “lessen or remove the lien upon his land” to the application of matured bonds only. It applied to “any bonds payable out of said assessment”.

Nor did the statute, as it then existed, limit the application of such bonds and coupons to the payment of assessments on original bonds to the exclusion of refunding bonds. The act as it then existed contemplated an identical procedure for estimating the amount of principal and interest due for the purpose of a call to both original and refunding bonds. It provided in that regard: “At least ninety days before any interest date of the bonds, including refunding bonds, the county treasurer of the main county shall estimate the amount of money necessary to pay interest and principal maturing”, etc., and after notice of delinquency thereof shall proceed to sell the land to satisfy the lien created thereby.

There is no merit in the contention that the treasurer may erroneously credit on the assessment due, interest on the coupons presented which had not accrued at the time they were tendered for payment. The treasurer is not charged with threat to do so. The respondents do not contend they are entitled to credit for any interest which had not actually accrued when the bonds and their coupons were presented to the treasurer.

An amendment to the petition was previously filed, joining as parties to the action, pursuant to section 382 of the Code of Civil Procedure, all other bondholders and interested parties, without naming them, on the theory that they were too numerous to personally bring before the court. In view of what we have previously said regarding the merits of this proceeding it "is not necessary for us to determine whether there is still a fatal nonjoinder of parties, and we therefore refrain from doing so.

The judgment is affirmed.

Tuttle, J., and Pullen, P. J., concurred.

A petition for a rehearing of this cause was denied by the District Court of Appeal on February 2, 1940, and an application by appellant to have the cause heard in the Supreme Court, after judgment in the District Court of Appeal, was denied by the Supreme Court on February 29, 1940.