Court Opinion

ID: 9626324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:08:37.332593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:25.818093
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent.
The premise on which the majority opinion is based is, that where bonds have been issued by a reclamation district which are secured by a special assessment levied upon the lands in the district according to the benefits received, there is a *250contract between the bondholders and the landowners arising out of the law existing at the time the bonds are issued which cannot be changed, insofar as the landowner is concerned, by subsequent legislation; that such a change occurred here by reason of the amendment to Political Code, section 3480 (now Wat. Code, § 51420) enacted in 1949, which required the treasurer to exclude from the bond fund any monies therein which were obtained from the sale and rental of lands, acquired by the district as the result of sales for delinquent assessments, when he made his estimate of the amount of the annual installment required to meet the unpaid assessment. It is held that such exclusion impaired the contract between the bondholders and landowners in that it changes the time and method of payment of the assessment and gives the bondholders additional security because the landowner was entitled to have the land sale and rental money used to pay the bonds before he could be required to pay any installment of the assessment.
It is conceded, as it necessarily must be, that the Legislature has plenary power with regard to reclamation districts and that the Legislature may change the law with respect to them at will. “. . . [T]he Legislature shall have power to provide for the supervision, regulation and conduct, in such manner as it may determine, of the affairs of irrigation districts, reclamation districts or drainage districts, organized or existing under any law of this State.” (Cal. Const., art. XI, § 13.) It necessarily follows that, as far as the landowners are concerned, there is no contract between the district and the landowners arising out of the statutes which existed when the bonds were issued, because, if it were otherwise the Legislature would not have the plenary power it does have over the affairs of reclamation districts. The majority opinion states, however, that there is such a contract between the landowners and the bondholders which cannot be impaired by a change in the law, which is merely an indirect way of saying there is a contract between the landowner and the district. Such a holding is contrary to the overwhelming weight of authority (100 A.L.R. 164), and the cases to the contrary in this state holding that there is such a contract between the bondholders and landowners should be overruled. In some of those cases it has been so stated when the issue was whether the bondholders’ contract with the district had been impaired— whether their rights could be lessened by subsequent legislation, not whether the landowners’ “rights” could be changed. (Islais Co. v. *251Matheson, 3 Cal.2d 657 [45 P.2d 326]; Copeland v. Raub, 36 Cal.App.2d 441 [97 P.2d 859]; River Farms Co. v. Gibson, 4 Cal.App.2d 731 [42 P.2d 95].) The other cases (County of Los Angeles v. Rockhold, 3 Cal.2d 192 [44 P.2d 340, 100 A.L.R. 149] ; County of San Diego v. Childs, 217 Cal. 109 [17 P.2d 734] ; Hershey v. Cole, 130 Cal.App. 683 [20 P.2d 972]) that do hold that the landowner also has a contract right with the bondholder to the continuance of the existing law are clearly wrong. In the instant case the bondholders are not asserting that the money received from the rental and sale of delinquent lands must be considered in computing the annual assessment installment. The landowner is asserting that claim against the district and the legislative amendment to section 3680. He may not do so because of the plenary power of the Legislature over the taxes or assessments that the landowner may be required to pay.
While it is true that before the 1949 amendment to section 3680, the treasurer, in computing the annual assessment installment considered moneys already in the bond fund from any proper source as being available to pay the installment. That may be said to have been merely a method of arriving at the amount of the installment in which the landowner has no contract right because the basic assessment was made against his land in a lump sum and that is his fundamental liability.
Assuming there is a contract between the bondholders and landowners which the latter may insist cannot be impaired as against the district by any subsequent legislation, there has been no impairment here, and even if there has been to some extent, it may be justified under the police power.
The majority opinion states that the contract under section 3480 of the Political Code is that the bond fund was to consist of all assessments and amounts collected from the sale of delinquent lands, and such fund was to be used exclusively for the payment of bonds; that the treasurer shall annually estimate the amount of the installment on the assessment to be paid, and in making his computation, shall give consideration to the amount then in that fund from any proper source. It is the latter provision which was changed by the 1949 amendment to that section which provided that the amount in the fund from the sale of lands should be excluded in computing the annual assessment call. Such a change does not constitute an impairment of the contract. The basic contract on the part of the landowner was an agreement to pay *252the entire assessment which was levied against his land, and it has always been payable in installments of such amounts and at such times as the board of directors of the district may direct. (Pol. Code, § 3466; Wat. Code, § 51517.) The computation provision was merely a method of arriving at the amount of an annual installment and did not purport to lessen the amount of the assessment payable. It did not give the landowners an absolute right to have the assessment installments computed in that way. It may, have given them the right to insist that the money in the fund be used to pay bonds, but the time or method of the payment of the assessment was left to the discretion of the board of directors of the district and the Legislature. Indeed it may be that the method of computation of the installments was for the sole benefit of the bondholders rather than the landowners. It fixes a procedure which will assure the former of funds to pay their bonds and interest coupons as they fall due rather than a limitation on the amount of the installment that may be demanded.
It is also suggested that the bondholders are given greater security by the 1949 amendment than they had before, that is, an assessment call large enough in itself to pay principle and interest without crediting the amount already in the bond fund. The bondholders at all times had that security, because, by the terms of the bonds as set forth in the form of bond contained in section 3480, the bonds were “based upon and secured by the assessment levied on the lands.”
The Legislature could have reasonably concluded that if there is some impairment of the contract it was justified under its police power. It could reasonably determine that there should be equity and fairness as between the landowners in the district and that it would be inequitable for the landowner here involved to obtain a windfall by reason of the money in the bond fund which was obtained from the sale of delinquent lands—that is, by excluding such money, he will not be excused from paying his assessment when the others have paid theirs. The Legislature may have reasonably decided that the most equitable method to meet the condition brought about by changing economic conditions was to require the assessments to be paid in full, leaving the district with surplus funds which will ultimately inure to the benefit of all landowners in the district, rather than giving one landowner a windfall. It is not a case of taking delinquent land sales money from the landowners to their detriment. Those funds still are held for the benefit of all of them. It is true that *253other owners have paid their assessments with bonds at their face value, which they purchased at a price below that amount during the depression, and hence benefited, but whether that matches the windfall the instant landowner will receive or whether it is better for the district to have the funds for the benefit of all under the 1949 amendment, was properly a matter of legislative determination. It should be noted that the Legislature could also consider that any assessment installment now paid is with inflated money, but the amount of the bond has not increased since the depression because the amount payable on the bonds is fixed.
The essence of the majority opinion’s position seems to be that the landowners are entitled to have the bond fund exhausted and that source alone must first be used to pay the bonds and hence the regular annual assessment cannot be collected. That is substantially the same as County of San Diego v. Hammond, 6 Cal.2d 709 [59 P.2d 478, 105 A.L.R. 1155], where legislation was passed after an assessment and bond issue which was payable solely out of assessments against the lands benefited, which authorized the county to pay the assessments out of a general tax levy. Some of the landowners, who had paid all their assessments, urged that it would impair their contract, under which the assessment was all they would have to pay; that by their being subject to the general tax to reduce assessments on landowners who had not paid their assessments, their contract that the bonds would be paid only by the assessments, was impaired. The court held it was not. To the same effect see City of Dunsmuir v. Porter, 7 Cal.2d 269 [60 P.2d 836]. Likewise, in the instant ease, petitioner’s contract has not been impaired because it was always liable for the assessment and cannot insist that the bonds be payable solely from funds derived from the sale and rental of delinquent lands. Petitioner is not being injured because, to give it what it claims, would be a windfall, not something to which it is entitled.
It is my view that the petition should be denied.
Respondents’ petition for a rehearing was denied March 16, 1953. Gibson, C. J., and Carter, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.