# Peery v. City of Los Angeles

> California Supreme Court · January 13, 1922 · 187 Cal. 753

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/3309948

## Case

- **Full name:** HERBERT PEERY, Appellant, v. THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES (A Municipal Corporation), Et Al., Defendants and Respondents; HARRY W. ANDERSON, Intervener and Appellant; HARRY W. ANDERSON, Appellant, v. THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES (A Municipal Corporation), Et Al., Defendants and Respondents
- **Court:** California Supreme Court
- **Decided:** January 13, 1922
- **Citations:** 187 Cal. 753; 203 P. 992; 19 A.L.R. 1044; 1922 Cal. LEXIS 499
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Shaw
- **Judges:** Richards, Shaw
- **Cited by:** 48 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/3309948

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a city could not sell bonds below par value, effectively raising the interest rate, because that would change the terms of the bond measure that voters approved

## Opinion text

SHAW, C. J.,
Concurring.—I concur in the foregoing opinion.
I wish to add, however, that, in my opinion, the vote of the people, by which the city was authorized to sell the bonds at a price not less than par, constituted a part, and a material part, of the contract evidenced by the bonds, as stated in
Merchants Nat. Bank
v.
Escondido Irr. Dist.,
144 Cal. 329 , [ 77 Pac. 937 ]. The city is the nominal. obligor or promisor on the bonds. It has no authority to
*770
make the promise and issue the bonds, except such as it obtained by this vote, and that authority was conditioned that the buyer of the bonds, the promisee, should pay to the city at least the par value as the consideration thereof. The real payors of the bonds are the people who pay the taxes levied to raise the fund for that purpose. They are, under the constitutional scheme, in substance and effect the principals whose authority must be first given, in order to authorize their agent, the city, to make the contract. This authority, as evidenced by the records of the election at which the authority was given, must be considered as a part of the contract, at least to the extent that the conditions therein stated cannot be disregarded by the city in selling the bonds, nor by the purchaser at the sale, and this being so, it necessarily follows that an act of the legislature purporting to authorize a disregard thereof would, if valid, impair a material portion of the contractual obligation.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/3309948. Public record. Not legal advice.