Board of Osteopathic Examiners v. Riley
Board of Osteopathic Examiners v. Riley
Opinion of the Court
This is an application for a writ of mandate directed to the respondent herein, as state controller, requiring him to do certain acts relating to the accounts and claims of the petitioners, acting as a Board of Osteopathic Examiners under and by virtue of the provisions of the so-called “Osteopathic Act,” an initiative measure adopted by the people at the general election held on November 7, 1922. The application herein is in two counts, in the first of which it is demanded that the respondent, as state controller, examine and settle the account of the said Board of Osteopathic Examiners for fees collected, reported, and accounted for during the month of July, 1923, under the provisions of the said act creating *160 said board, and which the state controller is required to examine, settle, and certify to the state treasurer under the provisions of section 433 of the Political Code. By the second count in said application it is demanded that the state controller be required to issue his warrant on the state treasurer for the sum of $225 upon the claim of the petitioner for said sum for the salaries of secretary and stenographer of said board approved by the board of control and which the petitioners demand shall be made payable out of the “Board of Osteopathic Examiners Contingent Fund” in the state treasury. The answer of the respondent herein, while admitting the averments of fact in both counts of said application contained, denies that he, as to the first count therein, is in duty bound to certify the accounts of the petitioners as set forth in said first count of their petition to the state treasurer to be credited to the “Board of Osteopathic Examiners Contingent Fund”; and as to the second count therein denies that he is in duty bound to issue his warrant on'the state treasury as demanded by the petitioners, payable out of said special fund in the state treasury. The respondent bases his refusal to do both or either of said acts upon his assertion that the effect of the adoption by the electors of California of the constitutional amendment known as the “budget amendment,” and the effect of the submission by the Governor of California to the state legislature of his “Budget Recommendations and estimated Revenues”; and the effect of the adoption by the legislature of the budget bill of 1923 have been to repeal or modify any and all appropriations theretofore made by the legislature or by the people of the state of California in so far as there might have been created a special fund thereby for the payment of the petitioners’ said claim.
The respondent herein does not in his answer filed herein make any other specific assault upon the so-called “Osteopathic Initiative Law” than that above referred to, but it is contended in the briefs of his counsel filed herein that said law is invalid for the reason as stated therein that the making of appropriations is not legislative, but administrative in character, and hence does not come within the constitutional provision providing for direct action of the people in the adoption of initiative laws. We discover no merit in this contention. The provision in the initiative law empowering the Board of Osteopathic Examiners created thereby to
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collect fees in the exercise of the powers of said board and to deposit the moneys so collected in the state treasury in a special fund which shall in turn be drawn upon for the cost of maintenance of said self-sustaining board, is merely an incidental provision to the main objects of its creation. The passage of laws providing for the organization and functioning of boards and commissions of this character performing subordinate administrative functions of the state government have from the earliest period of our state history down to its latest acts of legislation been always regarded as legislative in character and have in certain instances been committed to the legislature by the express terms of the constitution ; as, for example, the state board of health. The provision in many of these statutes by which boards and commissions of various kinds are required or permitted to collect fees and charges in the exercise of their functions, while incidental to the main purpose of their creation, are none the less in many instances essential to the proper exercise of their powers, particularly where these are regulatory in character.
Wilbur, C. J., Lawlor, J., Myers, J., Waste, J., Kerrigan, J., and Seawell, J., concurred.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- BOARD OF OSTEOPATHIC EXAMINERS OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA Et Al., Petitioners, v. RAY L. RILEY, Controller of the State of California, Respondent
- Cited By
- 9 cases
- Status
- Published