Arthur

This is an application for a writ of mandate to compel the council of the city of Petaluma to include in the tax levy for the fiscal year 1915-16 a sum sufficient to pay a final judgment in favor of said petitioner against said city of Petaluma.

Petitioner claims that the duty so to proceed grows out of the provisions of "An act to provide for the payment of judgments against counties, cities, cities and counties and towns, ’ ’ found in the statutes of 1901, page 794. Said law provides as follows:

It is thus made plain that an essential condition upon which the legal duty of the city council to include the amount of the judgment in the tax levy is dependent is the fact that the county clerk ’furnished said city council with a report of said judgment at least fifteen days before the day on which the law required the tax levy to be made. It is conceded that September 7th was such date for said levy and that the report of said judgment was made by said clerk to said council on the fourth day of September and was received by them on September 7th, the day of the levy. It cannot be said, therefore, without disregarding the unequivocal provisions of the statute that it was the legal…