Wine v. Boyar

• Decision Date: 18 September 1963
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Edward A. WINE and Warren Zschernig, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. Louis H. BOYAR, Dalecrest Co., Alger, Inc., Mark Boyar, Samuel Dobkin, Valleywood Building Company, Valleywood Construction Corp., County of Los Angeles, and R. S. Diller, Defendants and Respondents. Civ. 26514.

Page 787

33 Cal.Rptr. 787

220 Cal.App.2d 375

Edward A. WINE and Warren Zschernig, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. Louis H. BOYAR, Dalecrest Co., Alger, Inc., Mark Boyar, Samuel Dobkin, Valleywood Building Company, Valleywood Construction Corp., County of Los Angeles, and R. S. Diller, Defendants and Respondents.

Civ. 26514.

District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, California.

Sept. 18, 1963.

Phill Silver, Hollywood, for plaintiffs and appellants.

Harold W. Kennedy, County Counsel, Ronald L. Schneider, Deputy County Counsel, and James J. Arditto, Los Angeles, for defendants and respondents.

FILES, Justice.

This action was brought by two residents and taxpayers of Los Angeles County who sought to recover for the benefit of the county the sum of $413,953.08, which had been appropriated and expended for the construction of three bridges and the paving of certain streets in that portion of the San Fernando Valley known as the Platt Ranch. The parties defendant include the county, the owners of the Platt Ranch, and some others who were alleged to have participated in promoting the subdivision of the Platt Ranch. Since it serves no purpose in this opinion to distinguish between the various nongovernmental defendants, the term 'defendants' will be understood to refer to some or all of them, except the county, collectively.

The action was tried before a court sitting without a jury. At the close of the plaintiffs' evidence the court, acting under Code of Civil Procedure, section 631.8, made findings of fact adverse to plaintiffs and dismissed the action. This appeal is from the judgment.

The expenditures in question were paid out to county employees and contractors who planned and built the bridges and paved the roads. We note and pass by defendants' contention that they cannot be held liable because they are neither the persons who authorized the expenditures nor the persons who received the money. Since we have concluded that the expenditures were not unlawful, the question of who might be liable is better left for determination in a case which actually involves illegal expenditures.

A brief chronology is helpful in understanding plaintiffs' contentions:

April 22, 1955, defendants filed with the county regional planning commission a tentative subdivision map for the Platt Ranch. The map showed 2,706 residential lots, 3 school sites, and 2 commercial zones.

June 21, 1956, defendants wrote to the board of supervisors referring to the proposed subdivision and requesting that the county construct four bridges and pave portions of Victory Boulevard, Vanowen Street, Platt Avenue and Valley Circle Drive within the area to be subdivided.

April 23, 1957, the board of supervisors approved the tentative subdivision map.

May 21 and June 25, 1957, the board of supervisors appropriated funds for the fiscal year 1957-58 to make the improvements requested.

June 25, 1957, defendants applied to the City of Los Angeles for annexation of the subject property.

September 10 and 11, 1957, and March 12, 1958, defendants deeded to the county the roads on which the improvements were to be made.

May 8, 1958, proceedings for a county subdivision terminated under Business and Professions Code, section 11555, for failure to file a final map.

June 24, 1958, additional appropriations were made by the board of supervisors for the fiscal year 1958-59.

October 22, 1958, the last of the expenditures complained of in this action were made.

October 23, 1958, this action filed.

November 6, 1958, the land was annexed to the City of Los Angeles.

The expenditures in question were made from the County Motor Vehicle Fund. During the years in question more than 75 per cent of the money in this county fund was derived from the State Highway Users Tax Fund. All parties in this action have assumed that the laws governing the use of State Highway Users Tax Fund money should control the moneys which are here involved.

Article XXVI of the California Constitution provides in section 1 and section 2 that moneys collected from state taxes on motor vehicle fuel, vehicle registration fees and other vehicle taxes shall be used exclusively for certain administrative purposes and for highway purposes, including the construction of public streets, whether in incorporated or unincorporated territory. Section 3 of article XXVI gives to the Legislature power to appropriate such moneys and to provide the manner of their expenditures by the state, counties or cities.

The Legislature has provided in Streets and Highways Code, section 2100 et seq. for the creation of the Highway Users Tax Fund in the State Treasury, from which certain of the moneys collected from vehicle and fuel taxes are distributed to the counties. Section 2150 provides that all amounts paid to a county out of the Highway Users Tax Fund shall be paid into the county's special road improvement fund. The section further provided (as it read before the 1959 amendment): 'All money received by a county from the Highway Users Tax Fund shall be expended by the county exclusively for county roads and highways and for other public street and highway purposes as provided by law.' Streets and Highways Code, section 940, gives the board of supervisors general supervision, management and control of county highways. Section 941 authorizes the board of supervisors to cause those highways which are necessary to public convenience to be established, recorded, constructed and maintained.

There is nothing in the record here to indicate that in authorizing the improvement of the roads in question the board of supervisors failed to follow the proper procedure. The parties stipulated that before any money was expended the road deeds had been executed to and accepted by the county. All expenditures were made before the area was annexed to the City of Los Angeles.

Plaintiffs' principal argument is that the improvement of these four roads constituted a gift of public moneys to the defendants, as the owners of the contiguous land.

If the challenged expenditures constituted a 'gift' of public funds, they would of course have been unlawful. (Cal.Const. art. IV, § 31.) On the other hand, if the expenditures were made to serve a proper public purpose, they were not a 'gift' despite the fact that some private persons may have received special benefits. (County of San Diego v. Hammond, 6 Cal.2d 709, 724, 59 P.2d 478, 105 A.L.R. 1155; County of Los Angeles v. La Fuente, 20 Cal.2d 870, 877, 129 P.2d 378.)

Plaintiffs argue that these roads were not 'county-wide' roads, that they would serve only 'local' traffic, and that their construction would be of little benefit to anyone except the defendants. Plaintiffs, point to a number of geographical factors to support their theory. At the time the money was spent the Platt Ranch was uninhabited. It is located at the westerly end of the San Fernando Valley. The land to the west and north is hilly. Even after the county had made the improvements in the Platt Ranch there were no roads through the hills to the west, and there was no paved outlet to the north.

Preliminarily, we observe that plaintiffs have cited no provision of the Constitution or the statutes forbidding the board of supervisors to improve 'local traffic' roads, as distinguished from 'county-wide' roads. Plaintiffs' argument appears to be in effect that where there is no reason to expect more than purely local traffic within a subdivision, the subdivider should pay for the streets, and it would be an abuse of discretion for the board to appropriate public funds.

The trial court found 'That the construction of said roads and bridges was not solely for the benefit of the owners of property contiguous to said roads and bridges, but was for general county benefit.' There is substantial evidence to support that finding. The record shows that these roads were on the master plan of highways which had been adopted by the board of supervisors in 1940 and amended from time to time, the last pertinent change occurring on March 26, 1957.

The 1940 master plan showed Victory Boulevard as a major (100-foot) east-west highway through the San Fernando Valley, extending across the Platt Ranch and running into Valley Circle Drive on the west. The 1940 plan showed Vanowen Street as a secondary (80-foot) east-west highway through the valley, across the Platt Ranch, and connecting with Valley Circle Drive on the west. Platt Avenue, which runs north and south through the tract, was shown on the 1940 plan as a major highway between Burbank Boulevard (a secondary highway) on the south and Victory Boulevard. The March 1957 amendment of the master plan projected Platt Avenue to continue north beyond Victory to connect with another major highway. Sherman Way. Valley Circle Drive appeared on the 1940 master plan as a major highway from Chatsworth on the north, following the edge of the hills southwesterly, passing along the edge of the Platt Ranch, and connecting with the Ventura Freeway far to the South.

The dedication and improvement of the portions of these highways which pass through the Platt Ranch may be regarded as a step toward the completion of a county-wide highway system which had been planned many years earlier. Though the Platt Ranch is at a remote corner of the county, the highways which the county improved were those which would feed into the county-wide system.

It is only necessary to mention the rapid growth of the population and the constant advance of suburban home building in this county to refute any suggestion that there is no public purpose in building highways before the people occupy the land.

Underlying all of plaintiffs' arguments is their assumption that the real motive of the board of supervisors was not to serve the public but to enrich defendants by the improvement of these roads. Plaintiffs did not offer evidence as to the state of mind of the board of supervisors, but they base...