Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

6 Cal. 94

Downer v. Lent

California Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1856

California Supreme Court · decided 1856-07-01

The complaint sets forth that the plaintiff was duly appointed and qualified as a Pilot for the Port of San Francisco, on June 17th, 1854.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1856-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 29 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2012 · most notably 55 Cal. 2d 211 - Muskopf v. Corning Hospital District (1961), 17 Cal. 3d 465 - Westlake Community Hospital v. Superior Court (1976)

1 federal appellate · 26 state decisions — followed in 10 states

5018561860187018801890190019101920193019401950196019701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

The opinion of the Court was delivered by Mr. Justice Heydenfeldt.

¶1Mr. Chief Justice Murray and Mr. Justice Terry concurred.

¶2It is beyond controversy, that the power of the Board of Pilot Commissioners is quasi judicial, and they are not civilly answerable. They are public officers to whom the law has entrusted certain duties, the performance of which requires the exercise of judgment. They are unlike a ministerial officer, whose duties are well defined, and who must fail to execute them properly at his own peril.

¶3Whenever, from the necessity of the case, the law is obliged to trust to the sound judgment and discretion of an officer, public policy demands that he should be protected from any consequences of an erroneous judgment.

¶4*96The Court erred in refusing to sustain the demurrer to the declaration; and the judgement is reversed.

/6/cal/94 · .json · Public domain