Honeycutt

Plaintiff is the auditor of Madera county, and defendant is controller of the state. The action is to compel defendant to settle with plaintiff, by allowing the latter the several amounts claimed, aggregating $8,547.26. These several amounts making this aggregate are set out in seventeen separate counts, in an amended complaint, representing sums accruing at the semi-annual settlements from May, 1895, to the December settlement in 1903. It is alleged that these amounts were “part of the punitive penalties collected upon the redemption of real estate in Madera county during the six months immediately preceding their settlement; that no part of said penalties were required by law to be paid into the state treasury, that the whole thereof belongs to the county of Madera, ’ ’ and that said sums were “paid into the state treasury illegally and by error and mistake of the state controller in requiring” the same to be so paid. It is alleged that the mistake consisted in this: “that the state controller ever since the month of May, 1895, has required, and still does require that all punitive penalties lawfully collected upon the redemption of real estate sold to the state for delinquent…