Case Name: JOHN LE CONTE, President of the University of California, v. THE TRUSTEES AND MARSHAL OF THE TOWN OF BERKELEY
Court: Supreme Court of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 1881
Citations: 57 Cal. 269
Docket Number: No. 6,830
Parties: JOHN LE CONTE, President of the University of California, v. THE TRUSTEES AND MARSHAL OF THE TOWN OF BERKELEY.
Judges: 
Reporter: California Reports
Volume: 57
Pages: 269–269

Head Matter:
[No. 6,830.
Department One.]
JOHN LE CONTE, President of the University of California, v. THE TRUSTEES AND MARSHAL OF THE TOWN OF BERKELEY.
Prohibition.—The writ of prohibition does not run to a ministerial officer; the collection of a tax by a town marshal is a ministerial act.
Appeal from a judgment for the plaintiffs, in the Fifteenth District Court for the City and County of San Francisco. Dwinelle, J.
This was a proceeding to obtain a writ of prohibition to restrain the defendant from collecting a street assessment, the plaintiff claiming that its lands sought to be assessed were State lands, and not liable to be assessed.
Yorlc <6 'Whitworth, for Appellants.
John B. Mhoon, for Respondent.
[The briefs of counsel were confined to the question of the legality of the assessment, and expressly refrained from raising the point of the propriety of the remedy. They are for that reason omitted.]

Opinion:
The Court :
A writ of prohibition does not run to a ministerial officer. The acts sought to be prohibited were not judicial acts; therefore the writ of prohibition, which was issued in this case on the 26th day of August, 1879, was improperly issued.
Judgment reversed, and cause remanded.