Bank of Sonoma Cty. v. Hiram T. FairBanks

The act was constitutional. (Upham v. Supervisors Sutter County, 8 Cal. 379 ; Hobart v. Supervisors Butte County, 17 Cal. 23 ; Blanding v. Burr, 13 Cal. 343 ; Robinson v. Bidwell, 22 Cal. 379 ; People v. Hally, 49 Cal. 478 .)

E. S. Lippitt and George Pearce, for the Respondents.

The plaintiff has not legal capacity to sue. (Art. 4, sec. 34, Constitution of the State; Hittell’s Digest, sec. 748; Hittell’s Digest, sec. 933.)

By the terms of the Act of March 23rd, 1874, the inhabitants of Petaluma, a municipal corporation, were to be taxed to purchase an agricultural park to be kept and used for annual exhi *198 bitions of the agricultural and mechanical productions. This the Legislature cannot authorize: (Low v. Marysville, 5 Cal. 214 ; San Francisco v. S. V. W. W. 48 Cal. 493 ; Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655 ; Lowell v. City of Boston, 111 Mass. 454 ; 15 Am. Reports, 45 .)

The Act of March 23rd, 1874, authorized the Trustees of the City of Petaluma to purchase an agricultural park, etc.

Such an act could not, perhapé, have been made mandatory. (People v. Lynch,, 51 Cal. 15 .) But the objection does not apply to the law under consideration, which, in effect, is an…