Case ID: cal_49/html/0522-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court, Wallace, C. J. :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 3,832.]
    BERNARD DUBORDIEU v. GEORGE R. BUTLER, Treasurer of the City of Los Angeles.
    Mandamus to Compel Teeasubeb to Pay Wabbant.—If there is an ordinance of a city prohibiting its Treasurer from paying any warrant drawn on him, unless the claim upon which the warrant is based has been audited and allowed by the Common Council, mandamus will not lie to compel the Treasurer to pay a warrant based on a claim which has not been thus audited and allowed.
    Mandamus to compel defendant to pay the following warrant:
    
      “$155 03. Los Angeles, March, 25, 1871.
    “George R. Butler: Pay to the order of Feliz Gallardo ’ one hundred and fifty-five dollars and three cents, value received, and charge the same to the account of Los Angeles City Water Fund.
    “Luis B. Martinez, Chairman.
    “[No. 31.1 “J. J. Warner, Secretary.”
    The warrant was for a demand similar to that upon which the warrants were issued in Dubordieu v. Butler, ante p. 512, and the facts in the two cases are the same. The Court below denied the writ, and the plaintiff appealed.
    The other facts are stated in the opinion.
    
      McConnell & King, for the Appellant.
    
      A. W. Sutton, for Respondent.
   By the Court, Wallace, C. J. :

The application for a writ of mandamus against the defendant, City Treasurer of the City of Los Angeles, to compel him to pay a certain warrant, was denied by the Court below. In his answer the defendant relies upon an ordinance of the City Government, by which he is forbidden to pay any warrant drawn upon him, unless the claim upon which such warrant is based shall have been audited and allowed by the Common Council of the city. So far as this point is involved the cause seems to have been disposed of below, and is brought up here upon the pleadings alone. The ordinance, as pleaded, presents a plain defense to the application, necessitating the affirmance in this Court of the judgment rendered below.

Judgment affirmed. Remittitur forthwith.

Mr. Justice Niles did not express an opinion.