Legal Question in Administrative Law in California

Re: Suing the County Recorder

Government Code section 27203 is probably the statute you're looking for; subsection (b) makes the recorder liable for negligence in recording documents.

Government Code section 27201(a) requires the recorder to accept for recording instruments, etc. that contain sufficient information to be indexed, meets recording requirements generally, and is reproducible (i.e., legible). Subsection (b)(1) requires each instrument, etc. to have "an original signature, or signatures."

Also, Government Code section 27289 requires certain notices to be signed.

Section 27201 also provides that the recorder shall not refuse to record on the basis of the "legal sufficiency" or lack thereof of a document presented.

Whether the lack of signature and incompleteness of which you speak is the kind that affects the requirement that a document be signed or the kind that only affects the legal sufficiency is a question that might have to be decided in court, but if I knew the nature of the document and whether it was signed by anyone, and why the recorder ought to have spotted the alleged incompleteness, I could make an educated guess whether there was actionable negligence or whether inquiry into the missing signature would have been inappropriate inquiry into the legal sufficiency of the document, and hence not negligent.

There are several possibly relevant opinions by attorneys general on this subject; see for instance 67 Ops. Atty. Gen. 93 signed by John Van de Camp discussing what the Legislature meant by "legal sufficiency."

Also keep in mind that proposed suits against government entities must be preceded by notice under the Tort Claims Act, a vestige of soverign immunity (the king can do no wrong).