This case was a mandamus proceeding brought by patrolman C. L. Jones to compel the San Francisco Civil Service Commission to restore his higher rank on the eligible list for promotion to corporal and to prevent the certification of veteran James Casey ahead of him. The Commission had added a three-percent veterans' preference credit to Casey's score under a 1921 city charter amendment, moving him above Jones on the list created in 1920. The court held that the Commission possessed authority to apply the credit to existing promotional eligible lists and that the action complied with the charter. Its reasoning was that the amendment expressly required the preference for veterans already in city service before July 1920, that the Commission was presumed to have followed required procedures such as adopting a rule, and that placement on an eligible list created no vested right that the charter amendment could not affect. The court sustained the demurrer and denied the petition.
This case concerned an order by the California Railroad Commission requiring multiple railroad companies to construct and operate a new joint terminal depot in a location without existing tracks or facilities, which would necessitate acquiring land and building extensive new infrastructure. The court held that the Commission lacked authority to issue such an order. The reasoning rested on the principle that railroads constitute private property devoted to public use, and the state has no power to compel a railroad company to establish new lines or dedicate additional property to public use without its consent. The opinion noted that the same limitation would apply to any similar order by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
The case concerned a dispute over whether the Laguna Beach Company had dedicated certain oceanfront blocks and lots in its Laguna Cliffs subdivision to public park use, based on a 1906 board resolution, advertisements, minor improvements, and subsequent public camping and recreation on the land. Lot owners sought an injunction barring the company and its successors from selling or encumbering the property. The court held that the resolution amounted to a valid offer of dedication and that public use constituted acceptance for most of the described land, but excluded lot 37 of block 2, a 100-foot strip of block 1, and lot 1 of block 3 because they fell outside the resolution's boundaries. The judgment was affirmed against the company except as to the excluded parcels; it was reversed as to Pomona College and the Orange County Trust and Savings Bank because the dedication was unrecorded and those parties lacked actual or constructive notice when they took a deed of trust in 1916.
This case involved a plaintiff seller suing a buyer for the unpaid balance on three contracts for goods sold and delivered, with the complaint alleging specific contract amounts and partial payments leaving a net due. The trial court granted judgment on the pleadings in the plaintiff's favor after finding the defendant's answer insufficient. The appellate court affirmed, reasoning that the denials were evasive because they used conjunctive phrasing that failed to negate all material allegations (such as execution and delivery of the contracts or nonpayment), admitted key facts by implication, and did not properly contest the plaintiff's claims even after accounting for stipulated payments reducing the judgment amount.
This case concerned the probate of a will executed by the testator on June 3, 1921, the day before his marriage to the contestant, who survived him and challenged the will's validity under Civil Code section 1299 on grounds that the subsequent marriage revoked it absent any provision or mention of her. The trial court denied probate, but the Supreme Court reversed and directed that the will be admitted, concluding that the will's fourth clause—which disinherited any potential heirs at law claiming against it and limited them to one dollar—sufficiently mentioned the wife by describing a class of persons who would inherit if he died intestate. The court reasoned that this class description applied to the wife (and potentially an unborn child) regardless of her marital status at the time of execution, as the testator was addressing future events at death, and extrinsic evidence of the couple's engagement should have been allowed to clarify the intended scope of the clause.
This case, Mar Shee v. Maryland Assurance Corp., involves a dispute over an insurance claim where the fact of murder is at issue. The opinion is a concurrence agreeing with the result but rejecting a strict evidentiary requirement that murder be established only through uncontradicted testimony free from any suggestion of mistake or inadvertence. The core reasoning is that any such circumstances surrounding the testimony should instead be evaluated by the court or jury, without mandating that the evidence be uncontradicted.
