Opinion
[Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] Department One
Rehearing (Denied, Granted) 56 Cal. 143 at 150.
Appeal from a judgment for the defendant in the Twentieth District Court, County of Santa Cruz. Belden, J.
COUNSEL:
The Justices' Court in the City and County of Santa Cruz, in addition to its general powers under § 114 of the Code of Civil Procedure, was clothed with Police Court powers by virtue of the act incorporating the plaintiff (Stats. 1875-76 p. 206); and Police Courts have jurisdiction of civil actions of this kind. ( Code Civ. Proc. §§ 929- 933, 121; Pol. Code, § 4,427, subd. 6.) District Courts have jurisdiction in such actions. ( Code Civ. Proc. § 57.) The ordinance and the defendants' liability under it are sufficiently set forth. (Pol. Code, § 4432, and Code Civ. Proc. § 929.) The city had authority under its charter and other laws to require the payment of a license by defendants. (Stats. 1875-76, p. 192; Civ. Code, §§ 470, 471, 497, 508.) It has been decided by the Supreme Court of this State, under a chartersubstantially the same as that of the plaintiff, that a license tax can be collected by an ordinary suit in a Justices' Court. (City and Co. of Sacramento v. Crocker , 16 Cal. 120.)
W. D. Storey, for Appellant.
Charles B. Younger, for Respondents.
Neither this Court nor the District Court have jurisdiction herein. (Brown v. Rice , 52 Cal. 489; Cornett v. Bishop , 39 id. 319.)
JUDGES: McKinstry, J. McKee, J., and Ross, J., concurred.
OPINION
McKINSTRY, Judge
In Bank (on petition for rehearing).
By the Court:
In the petition that this case be heard in Bank, plaintiff relies upon City and County of Sacramento v. Charles Crocker , 16 Cal. 120. An examination of the report of that case, however, shows that the judgment turned upon the power given the corporation by its charter " to levy taxes and to cause the same to be collected," and an ordinance passed under and by virtue of that power. (See opinion and brief of counsel for appellant.) The language of the " act to reincorporate the city of Santa Cruz" is more restricted than that employed in the charter of Sacramento. The thirteenth section of that act reads: " The common council has power, and it is hereby made their duty to provide by ordinance, for the levying and collecting of all city taxes, and in so doing shall be governed by the State laws in reference to the levying and collection of State and county taxes, so far as applicable," etc. Assuming, but in view of other sections of the act not deciding, that the common council might, by ordinance, provide for the collection of licenses in an ordinary action brought before a justice of the peace, the complaint does not recite nor refer to any such ordinance.
There is nothing in the opinion filed in Department No. 1 which can be construed as indicating a doubt as to the power of the legislature to authorize a city council to provide the mode by which licenses may be collected, or as to the power of a city council, when thus authorized, to provide by ordinance for the collection of license taxes by civil actions brought by the city in a municipal court, or even in another court. Whatever the true rule with reference to those matters, no such question is involved in the present case.
Petition denied.