Court Opinion

ID: 9590321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:53:43.054609+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:40.079380
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent.
Plaintiff in the respondent court brought an action to restrain the county board of supervisors from submitting a county charter to the Legislature for approval. His basis for that relief was that the board had not complied with the constitutional requirement that the charter be published (Cal. *560Const., art. XI, §7%), in that the publication was fatally' defective. It must be conceded that such defect was fatal to the proper adoption of the charter. The trial court granted a temporary restraining order in accordance with plaintiff’s request. The board in this proceeding seeks by prohibition to restrain the trial court from enforcing the temporary restraining order.
The majority opinion is contradictory, inconsistent and unsupportable. It consumes several pages discussing the power of the court to interfere with the “legislative process,” but does not base its conclusion that the restraining order should not have been granted, on that ground. It then shifts to the proposition that a court will interfere with the “legislative process” where otherwise irreparable injury will result and there is no other adequate remedy. On that basis, and that basis alone, it finally concludes that the temporary restraining order here should not have been granted. An erroneous act of the trial court in granting the order, insofar as those factors are concerned, is nothing more than an error at law. Therefore, there is no jurisdictional question that may be tested by prohibition. But to get around that obvious barrier, the majority shift back to the proposition discussed in the first part of the opinion—that a court cannot interfere with the “legislative process” and, therefore, when it purports to do so it acts in excess of its jurisdiction and prohibition will lie—a proposition which the majority concede is not a ground for refusal of an injunction in a proper case. All the trial court is deciding, is whether it is one of those proper cases involving interference with the “legislative process,” a question which it has jurisdiction to decide rightly or wrongly, hence prohibition is not available.
Turning to the merits of the controversy, the authorities are in hopeless contradiction. The main case, after the old case of People v. Gunn, 85 Cal. 238 [24 P. 718], dealing with the nature and scope of the authority of the Legislature to approve or reject a charter, was Taylor v. Cole, 201 Cal. 327 [257 P. 40]. In that case the attack on the ordinance was made after the Legislature had approved the charter. The charter had not been published as required by the Constitution, yet the court held, overruling People v. Gunn, supra, that the approval by the Legislature constituted a final and conclusive determination that there were no unconstitutional irregularities in the adoption of the charter, and therefore the court lacked authority to examine the proceedings. In *561other words the court held that the Legislature could override a constitutional requirement and it was beyond the power of the courts to interfere—a doctrine manifestly at odds with established law. The court said at page 338: “In the case before us, the constitution placed upon the legislature the plain duty of seeing that the proceedings by which the charter amendments were proposed were regular in all respects. If jurisdictional defects existed, it was the duty of the legislature to reject the documents tendered as a whole and withhold ratification. The legislature saw fit to accept the certificate of the defendant board and such other evidence as it may have taken and its conclusion that the election was regular is not open to question in court proceedings, at least in the absence of fraud.” (Emphasis added.) If that is the law, that is the end of the case at bar, for the Legislature, not the courts, has exclusive jurisdiction over whether there has been a compliance with the constitutional requirements. Therefore, the writ of prohibition would lie. Although eases subsequent to the Taylor ease are wholly inconsistent with it, yet the majority see fit to perpetuate the confusion by quoting with approval from the Taylor ease, and also the later cases. In People v. City of San Buenaventura, 213 Cal. 637 [3 P.2d 3], it was held that a charter could be voided by the courts for constitutional defects in the proceedings even though the Legislature approved it. The only difference between that case and the Taylor case was that in the San Buenaventura case the legislative resolution of adoption showed the defects, but as pointed out by Mr. Justice Langdon, in his dissenting opinion, that should make no difference. Thus under the San Buenaventura case the legislative approval is not conclusive and final. Yet the majority cite both of these decisions with approval. Later, in Butters v. Board of Supervisors, 217 Cal. 515 [19 P.2d 983], and Ault v. Council of City of San Rafael, 17 Cal.2d 415 [110 P.2d 379], this court entertained proceedings before the charter was submitted to the Legislature and cited the San Buenaventura case with approval.
The law is settled, therefore, I take it, that the Legislature does not have exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether the constitutional procedure has been followed in the adoption of a charter. The courts may declare the charter invalid for failure to comply with the constitutional requirements. This is tacitly admitted by the majority, for after it finally gets down to the meat of the case, that is, that equity may restrain the continuation of the procedure for the adoption of a *562charter for failure to follow the required steps, where, as the majority opinion puts it, there is “(1) threatened or actual irreparable injury to the taxpayer or general public by the substantial waste of public funds in undertaking further prescribed steps; and (2) the absence of any other adequate remedy to prevent such waste or loss,” it then proceeds to determine that there is no irreparable injury, and there is another adequate remedy, and for those reasons the trial court should not have issued the restraining order. In other words, the proper equitable considerations were lacking for giving injunctive relief. But how does that go to the jurisdiction of the court and hence justify prohibition.? Those are the very things decided in every injunction case—that the court has jurisdiction to decide correctly or incorrectly. Any error is merely one of law—not jurisdictional. And in that connection I desire to point out that there is a sound ground for prohibition and that is that a constitutional question is involved. (See Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 28 Cal.2d 460 [171 P.2d 8].)
The court below based its issuance of the temporary restraining order on the verified complaint wherein it was alleged: “. . . that before such election it was the duty of said Board of Supervisors to cause said proposed charter to be published for at least ten times in such a newspaper, and accordingly said Board ordered such a newspaper to publish said proposed charter for such a number of .times; that said newspaper failed to publish said proposed charter any greater number than five times before such election; and no such publishing for ten times was made in any such newspaper. ...” The trial court accepted that allegation as true and we cannot do otherwise. We must accept as a fact that the constitutional publication requirements were not met. Hence the application for a writ of prohibition must be denied. It is not important whether the case was a proper one for equity action—that is a matter for the trial court to decide, erroneously or rightly. It does not go to its jurisdiction. The only jurisdictional question is whether the Constitution was complied with. The plaintiff in the superior court action alleged, and that court decided, that the board of supervisors had not so complied, and, therefore, the trial court has jurisdiction, and the writ should be denied.
Conceding, for the sake of argument only, that the courts have no jurisdiction to interfere with a proceeding for the legislative approval of a charter after the same has been *563approved by the electorate, even though there are jurisdictional defects in the proceedings, a practical problem is presented which should appeal to the reason and common sense of those who are seeking to have the charter approved. Should the Legislature, as it did in the San Buenaventura ease, supra, see fit to expose the jurisdictional defect in adopting the resolution approving the charter, then even under the reasoning of the majority in this ease, the charter could then be successfully attacked by a quo warranto proceeding. In other words, under the theory of the majority, even though jurisdictional defects exist in the proceedings for the adoption of the charter, these defects can not be treated in the courts after the election at which the charter is approved and before the final approval of the charter by the Legislature, but may be tested in the courts after the Legislature has finally given its approval. If any sound reason exists for such an absurd doctrine, it has not been made apparent in the majority decision in this case. It would seem more in harmony with considerations of public policy that jurisdictional defects in such a proceeding be tested at the earliest possible moment, to the end that when the charter is finally approved and ready to be put into operation, its validity can no longer be the subject of successful attack in the courts. The problem, as I see it, is whether the Legislature or the courts should be the ultimate arbiter of any issue relative to compliance with constitutional requirements throughout the entire proceedings for the adoption of a county or municipal charter. If the power to pass upon this issue is exclusively legislative, then, of course, the courts have no power in that field. On the other hand, if the interpretation of the Constitution and its application to such proceedings is for the Judicial Department of the state, then, it seems to me, that this power should be exercised when, at any stage of the proceedings, it is plain that a jurisdictional defect has occurred because of failure to comply with the constitutional requirements. The majority in this case purport to seize both horns of the dilemma. They say that it is both legislative and judicial. In so holding, they become immeshed in a mass of conflicting rules of both procedural and substantive law which results in confusion worse confounded.
In my opinion, the determination of whether or not the constitutional requirements have been met in a proceeding of this character is clearly judicial, and such an issue may be tested in the courts at any stage of the proceedings. It *564must necessarily follow that the trial court had jurisdiction in this case to grant the temporary restraining order, and the application to this court for a writ of prohibition should therefore be denied.