This is a proceeding in certiorari, whereby petitioner seeks to annul that portion of a judgment of the superior court which provides for the recovery, by plaintiff, of an attorney fee in the amount of $15, on an appeal in an action originating in the Small Claims Court of Alturas Township.

Respondent seeks to justify the action of the superior court by the provisions of section 117j of the Code of Civil Procedure, which- relates to appeals from small claims courts, and reads as follows:

Petitioner contends that that portion of the quoted section which provides for an attorney fee of $15 is unconstitutional and void, and that therefore the court had no jurisdiction to include such item in its judgment.

Petitioner relies upon the case of Builders’ Supply Depot v. O’Connor, 150 Cal. 265 [ 88 Pac. 982 , 119 Am. St. Rep. 193 , 11 Ann. Cas. 712, 17 L. R. A. (N. S.) 909]. It was there held that a provision in the Mechanics’ Lien Law (sec. 1195 Code Civ. Proc.) which authorizes a recovery of an attorney fee upon the part of plaintiff, was unconstitutional. Referring to the statute mentioned above, the court says:

Since the pronouncement in the last-named case, the Supreme Court of the United States has definitely decided that the allowance of such an attorney fee to the plaintiff in the action does not violate the provision of the federal Constitution (14th Amend.), which guarantees to every person “the equal protection of the law”. In the case of Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Cade, 233 U. S. 642 [34 Sup. Ct. 678, 58 L. Ed. 1135 ], the following statute of the state of Texas was under consideration:

An action was brought under the foregoing statute to recover the sum of $10.75 for wages due from defendant railroad, and the plaintiff in the action was allowed an attorney fee of $9. After referring to the theory that the recovery of the attorney fee could be classified as a “penalty”, and thus be lawful, the court says:

The court further points out that the case which forms the basis for the O’Connor decision (supra)—Gulf etc. Ry. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150 [17 Sup. Ct. 255, 41 L. Ed. 666 ]—is clearly distinguishable, as it allowed such recovery only in cases where a railroad company was defendant. Such a statute, it is pointed out, is an arbitrary classification, and therefore repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution, while the statute in the Cade case is general in its application, and it does not appear that the claims which it covers have been “grouped together for the purpose of bearing against any class or classes of citizens or corporations’’.

The decision in the California case (Builders’ Supply Co. v. O' Connor, supra), and the one by the Supreme Court of the United States (Missouri etc. R. Co. v. Cade, supra), can be readily reconciled and distinguished. In the former, the statute allows recovery of an attorney fee in those cases coming under the Mechanics’ Lien Law. In other words, only where one class of litigants is involved. On the other hand, the latter permits such a recovery where the statute covers numerous classes of cases. The instant case is even stronger, as it permits recovery in all cases before the small claims court. This distinction is recognized in the California ease, where the court points out that the distinction made by the law in that ease “is not founded upon constitutional or natural differences ’ ’. In the ease before us the statute makes no distinction whatever. All classes of litigants are permitted to recover.

The purpose of the enactment here is salutary in character. Jurisdiction in the small claims court is limited to the amount of $50. The people who resort to it, we may reasonably assume, are of limited means and resources. The attorney fee is only allowed in the event of an appeal, and it was evidently the desire of the legislature to promote the prompt payment of small claims and discourage unnecessary litigation in respect to them.

We are of the opinion that the law is not vulnerable to the attack here made, and that the superior court therefore had jurisdiction to make the award of an attorney fee.

The judgment is affirmed.

Thompson, J., and Pullen, P. J., concurred.