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 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 30 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 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 execluded 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.