Opinion ID: 2610626
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: All or part of the taxpayers' action arose in Los Angeles County.

Text: We can entertain no serious doubt that all or part of plaintiffs' cause of action arose in Los Angeles County. The suit is a taxpayers' action challenging the expenditure of public funds to enforce certain resolutions adopted by the Regents. Petitioner's resolution of September 19, 1969, directed the president of the university to take steps to terminate Miss Davis' University appointment in accordance with regular procedures as prescribed in the Standing Orders of The Regents. Acting pursuant to petitioner's directive, the president notified Miss Davis that her employment would be terminated, but that the termination of the appointment of a member of the faculty before the expiration of his contract shall be only for good cause after the opportunity for a hearing before the properly constituted advisory committee of the Academic Senate. In [Miss Davis'] case, the appropriate committee would be the Privilege and Tenure Committee of the Los Angeles Division of the Academic Senate. The Privilege and Tenure Committee of the Los Angeles Division of the Academic Senate did convene and Miss Davis appeared before it; moreover, employees of petitioner at the Los Angeles campus arranged for, and executed, the administrative steps necessarily involved in these proceedings. We conclude, therefore, that public funds were expended in Los Angeles County where Miss Davis is employed by the university. (11a) The county where the resolutions were adopted does not control the issue of venue but the county in which the alleged injury occurs. It is where the shaft strikes, not where it is drawn, that counts. ( Cecil v. Superior Court, supra, 59 Cal. App.2d 793, 799.) Accordingly, since public monies were spent in Los Angeles County, it is in that county where the taxpayers suffered the alleged injury. Petitioner's argument that our construction of section 393 will expose it to taxpayers' suits in any county in this state misinterprets the underlying nature of a taxpayers' action. (12) Such an action rests not upon the payment of taxes by the taxpayer, but upon the alleged illegal expenditure of such monies by the defending public entity. (See Hallinan v. Mellon (1963) 218 Cal. App.2d 342, 346 [32 Cal. Rptr. 446]; Ahlgren v. Carr (1962) 209 Cal. App.2d 248, 254 [25 Cal. Rptr. 887]; Code Civ. Proc., § 526a.) (11b) Accordingly, for the purposes of venue, the action arises in the county where the agency spends the tax money that causes the alleged injury; that is, the county where such injury occurs. In the present case we have determined that the taxpayers' action challenges the expenditure of public tax monies in Los Angeles County; thus the venue for the action lies in that county. Since the corporation known as the Regents of the University of California is a public officer within the meaning of Code of Civil Procedure section 393, and since all or part of plaintiffs' action arose in Los Angeles County, the venue for the action properly lies in that county. In summary of the central issue of the case, we believe that the avenue to the courthouse should be straight and open, not blocked by restrictive statutory interpretation that compels filings in remote places. The call for the rational solution of disputes was never more pressing. The place for the presentation of constitutional argument is not the barricade in the streets but the bar in the courtroom. Access to the judicial forum should be as expeditious, inexpensive, and direct as possible. The alternative writ of mandate heretofore issued is discharged and the petition for a peremptory writ of mandate is denied.