By this proceeding in prohibition the city of Los Angeles seeks to restrain the superior court from enforcing a preliminary injunction or taking further action in a taxpayer’s suit to enjoin certification of the result of a referendum election.
The city council adopted an ordinance authorizing execution of a contract between the city and the Brooklyn National League Baseball Club, Inc., which provided, among other things, for the exchange of certain properties and for the ball club to erect a stadium and procure the transfer from Brooklyn to Los Angeles of the franchise of the major league baseball club known as the ‘Dodgers.’ Following the filing of a referendary petition, the city council voted to place the ordinance on the ballot for approval or disapproval by the voters, and at the ensuing election a majority of the voters favored adoption of the ordinance. Thereafter respondent superior court granted a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction restraining the city council from declaring the result of the election.
Two prior actions were filed by some of the real parties in interest. One was brought to secure a declaration that the ordinance and contract were invalid and to enjoin any proceedings thereunder; in the other similar relief was sought together with mandamus and prohibition. Judgments were rendered enjoining the execution of the contract, and appeals therefrom are now pending in this court. In a third action filed by Kirshbaum against the city, a preliminary injunction was issued enjoining certification of the result of the referendum election. This proceeding was then brought by the city to prohibit the superior court from enforcing the preliminary injunction or from taking further steps in the third action.
The writ of prohibition is an appropriate remedy to arrest the proceedings of a court when there is not a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law and when the proceedings of the court are without or in excess of its jurisdiction. The absence of another adequate remedy was determined by this court when we granted an alternative writ. To permit the issuance of prohibition it is not necessary that there be a lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter or parties in the fundamental sense but only that there be a want or excess of the power of the court as defined by statute or by rules developed and followed under the doctrine of stare decisis.
