Estate of Cirone

—The pivotal issue in this case is whether a restriction in the 1985 Budget Act line-item appropriation for payment of attorney fee awards made pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5, which limits expenditures to a maximum hourly rate of recovery, violates California Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine (Cal. Const., art. Ill, § 3). We conclude it does not and reverse.

I

Procedural History

“[Jessie] Cirone died at about 2 p.m. on June 8, 1982. The inheritance tax referee appointed by the probate court reported that Cirone’s estate owed a tax of $70,108. The executors of the estate objected on the ground that the passage of Proposition 6 on June 8, 1982, repealed the state inheritance tax from the beginning of that day. The court sustained the objection, and the state ... appealed.” (Estate of Cirone (1984) 153 Cal.App.3d 199, 201 [ 200 Cal.Rptr. 511 ].) In a 1984 decision, an appellate court held that “... an initiative measure repealing the state inheritance tax, stating it is ‘operative as of the date of passage’ and ‘shall apply to the estates of those persons dying on or after such date,’ precludes the imposition of inheritance taxes against the…