The construction placed by a state court upon one statute
implies no obligation on its part to put the same construction upon
a different statute, though the language of the two may be
similar.
The question whether an action to foreclose a lien for unpaid
assessments for street improvements in San Francisco is
in
rem or
in personam is one upon which the decision of
the Supreme Court of California is binding, and its ruling that a
plaintiff who was no party to defendants' suits to foreclose has a
right to show by evidence
aliunde the invalidity of the
judgments obtained by them is not a subject for review here.
Motion to dismiss or affirm. This action was originally begun by
Brady in the Superior Court of San Francisco against a number of
defendants, including Wood and Diggins, the plaintiffs in error, to
quiet his title to two lots of land in which it was averred that
defendants claimed an interest adverse to the plaintiff. Both
parties claimed title under certain assessments for street
improvements, and sales under proceedings to foreclose liens for
such assessments. The assessments under which plaintiff claimed
were prior in point of time to those under which defendants
claimed, but the deeds issued to defendants antedated those under
which the plaintiff claimed.
The assessments upon which plaintiff relied were recorded
November 14, 1870. Actions were begun against the owners of the two
lots early in 1871 to foreclose the liens created by these
assessments, and judgments and orders of sale were entered in both
cases in January, 1882. Appeals were taken to the supreme court in
both cases, and the judgments of the
Page 150 U. S. 19
court below affirmed December 15, 1884, and remittiturs filed
January 19, 1885. Both lots were sold by the sheriff to the
plaintiff March 31, 1885, and, no redemption having been made,
sheriff's deeds were delivered October 3, 1885.
On July 10, 1875, other assessments were recorded upon these
lots in favor of Diggins; actions were begun to foreclose them
December 28, 1875; judgments rendered July 25, 1878, and sale made
of lot 5, January 12, 1880, to Diggins, and of lot 6, November 15,
1878, to defendant Wood, and deeds were delivered on May 5, 1881,
and November 12, 1879, respectively. By the contracts between
Diggins and the superintendent of public streets, which were
executed April 19, 1875, it was agreed that the work should be
commenced within seven days and completed within fifty days days
from April 27, 1875. It further appeared that said fifty days
expired on the 16th day of June, 1875; that said Diggins commenced
the work under his contract, and completed the same, after the 1st
day of July, 1875; that on the 1st day of July, 1875, and not
before, Diggins obtained from the board of supervisors an extension
of time within which to complete the contracts, and no other
extension of time was obtained by him, within which to complete the
work under said contracts.
Other similar assessments were made and recorded, upon which
foreclosure proceedings were also instituted, and carried to
judgment and sale. These, however, it is not necessary to specify
particularly.
In this connection, the Supreme Court of California, to which
the case was carried by appeal, held:
1. That the judgments under which Brady held were conclusive as
against the owners of the lots in controversy, who had been made
defendants in the foreclosure proceedings, and that the sales had
transferred the legal title of such owners to the plaintiff, and
although the sheriff's deeds made to defendants Wood and Diggins
antedated those of the plaintiff, and were based upon judgments
prior to those under which plaintiff claimed, yet, as the liens
under which plaintiff's judgment were rendered were older than
those of the defendants, plaintiff had the superior legal
title.
Page 150 U. S. 20
2. That the most the defendants could claim was that, as they
had no notice of plaintiff's foreclosure suits, plaintiff took his
title encumbered with all valid liens thereon held by them at the
date of the judgment, and that, assuming that defendants did not
have this notice, the court did not err in allowing plaintiff to
show that the liens under which defendants claimed were not
valid.
3. That, as to two of the deeds relied upon by defendants, it
was found that the work for which the assessment underlying such
deeds was made was not completed within the time fixed by the
contract, and that the order of the board of supervisors, granting
the extension, was not made until after the expiration of the time
allowed by the contract for its completion, and, this being so, the
contractor never acquired any valid lien upon the property.
4. That as to another deed to defendant Wood, the court found
that the board of supervisors failed to publish for the length of
time required by law the resolution of intention to do the street
work which resulted in the subsequent assessment, foreclosure, and
sale.
Its conclusion was that the liens upon which defendants' deeds
depended for their validity were void, and defendants acquired no
interest in the lot as against the plaintiff.
Defendants thereupon sued out this writ of error, which
plaintiff moved to dismiss upon the ground that no federal question
was involved.
MR. JUSTICE BROWN, after stating the facts in the foregoing
language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, the Chief Justice of California had certified that
the defendants insisted that the judgments under which they claimed
title were valid when the assessments were made, and judgments
thereon rendered, and that the extensions of time
Page 150 U. S. 21
granted to do the work mentioned in said contracts were valid
and binding, under the decisions of the supreme court, when said
judgments were rendered, and that said judgments and assessments
could not be impaired by a subsequent judicial construction of the
law, holding such extensions to have been invalid.
The gist of the error charged by the plaintiff lies in the
alleged overruling of a prior decision of the Supreme Court of
California in
Taylor v. Palmer, 31 Cal. 240, which was
also an action to recover a street assessment, and to enforce a
lien for the same against certain real estate in San Francisco. The
contract in this case was let and the work done under an act passed
in 1862, and amended in 1863. The contract required the work to be
performed within thirty days. The work was not completed at the
expiration of that time, and two days thereafter the time was
extended by resolution of the board of supervisors. It was claimed
that this extension was illegal, but the court held that the power
to extend the time was expressly conferred by the act of 1863,
which provided that the street
"superintendent shall fix the time for the commencement and
completion of the work, under all contracts entered into by him,
and may extend the time so fixed from time to time under the
direction of the board of supervisors."
It was held that this power of extension might be exercised
after the expiration of the time previously fixed, the act
providing that
"in all cases where the superintendent, under the direction of
said board, has extended the time for the performance of contracts,
the same shall be held to have been legally extended."
The law remained in this condition until the session of 1871-72,
when another act was passed which applied to the City and County of
San Francisco only, but it contained in section 6 the following
provision:
"Should said contractor, or the property owners, fail to
prosecute the same [the work] diligently or continuously in the
judgment of said superintendent of public streets, highways and
squares, or complete it within the time prescribed in the contract,
or within such extended time, then it
Page 150 U. S. 22
shall be the duty of the said superintendent of public streets,
highways and squares to report the same to the board of
supervisors, who shall without further petition on behalf of the
property owners, order the clerk of the board of supervisors to
advertise for bids, as in the first instance, and relet the
contract, in the manner hereinbefore provided."
It was under this statute that the contracts were let to Wood
and Diggins.
The construction of this statute was discussed in 1879 in
Beveridge v. Livingstone, 54 Cal. 54, and the court held
that the requirements of the sixth section were mandatory, and
excluded the exercise by the board or superintendent of any power
to extend the time for completing the work after the expiration of
the contract time, or of an extension ordered during the running of
the contract time, and that such extension was therefore void. The
case was distinguished from that of
Taylor v. Palmer, and
the court remarked that it was not inclined to be controlled by the
authority of that case, further than as it construed the exact
language of the act of 1863, under which it was decided.
Both contracts between Diggins and the superintendent had been
extended after the time originally limited for the performance of
the work, and plaintiff, Brady, was permitted to show this to
impeach defendants' judgments and validate their liens. Plaintiffs
in error now contend that the construction given by the supreme
court in
Taylor v. Palmer in favor of the validity of such
extensions was one upon which Diggins was entitled to rely, and
constituted a part of his contract, the obligation of which could
not be impaired by a different construction subsequently given. But
assuming, for the purposes of this case, that there may be a vested
right under an erroneous decision, it is carrying the doctrine to
an unwarrantable extent to say that the construction placed by the
court upon one statute implies an obligation on its part to put the
same construction upon a different statute, though the language of
the two may be similar.
The argument that, the language being similar, a like
construction should be put upon both acts is one properly
addressed
Page 150 U. S. 23
to the state court; but when that court has assumed to
distinguish between the two acts, it is not within our province to
say that the distinction is not well taken. The acts in this case,
though similar, are not identical, and there is certainly some
ground for saying that the construction of the two should not be
the same. The point made by the plaintiffs in error that the
decision in
Beveridge v. Livingstone was made retroactive
is answered by the fact that courts are bound in their very nature
to declare what the law is and has been, and not what it shall be
in the future, and that if they were absolutely bound by their
prior decisions, they would be without the power to correct their
own errors.
But even if it were conceded that defendants had a right to rely
upon the supreme court's giving to the act of 1872 the same
construction it had placed upon the act of 1863, that construction
was nothing more than that the board of supervisors had a
discretion to extend the time for the performance of the contract
after the time originally limited had expired. It is evident this
was no part of defendants' contract. Their contracts were to do
certain work within a certain time, and the fact that there was a
discretion on the part of the board of supervisors to extend such
time did not enter into or form a part of the contract. It was a
discretion which the board of supervisors might or might not
exercise. If the contractor had violated his contract, he had no
legal right to such extension, and took his chances of obtaining
it. In other words, there was no possible contract the obligation
of which could be impaired by a ruling that the board of
supervisors had no power to grant such extension.
The question whether an action to foreclose a lien of this kind
is
in rem or
in personam under the practice in
California is one upon which the decision of the supreme court is
binding, and its ruling that plaintiff, being no party to
defendants' suits to foreclose, had a right to show by evidence
aliunde the invalidity of the judgments obtained by them
is not a proper subject for review by this Court.
In no aspect does the case present a federal question, and the
writ is therefore
Dismissed.
