6 Cal. 2d 197 | Cal. | 1936
These actions were instituted by the plaintiff Sacramento Municipal Utility District to validate bonds issued by the district for the purpose of constructing works to supply the territory within the district with electric power. Judgment validating the issue was entered in each case in the court below, and these appeals followed.
A fundamental objection to the bonds, stressed in briefs and oral argument, is that a portion—in fact, the larger portion—of the territory to be served by the works to be constructed under the bond issue is not within the district at all. The district, as organized in 1923, consisted only of the city of Sacramento and the immediately adjoining territory, and comprised in all about, eighty square miles. The act to provide for the organization of municipal utility districts in section 6a provides that any municipality or county water district not included within the boundaries of a utility district at the time of its creation may be subsequently annexed thereto. In 1934, proceedings were taken by the district to annex two large additional areas. One of these, known as the 11 South Territory,” with an area of four hundred and ten square miles, was assumed to have been annexed by the proceedings and to have been thenceforth included within the district. The territory thus assumed to have become a part of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District included within its bounds a county water district known as the Galt County Water District. The result, appellants argue, is that the annexation proceedings were utterly void as to the territory of the Galt County Water District, and that territory was not annexed, is no part of the plaintiff district, and therefore the bonds approved by the voters of the entire district are invalid and void.
Section 6a of the Municipal Utility District Act (Stats. 1921, p. 245, and acts amendatory thereof; Deering’s Gen. Laws 1931, vol. 2, Act 6393) provides that “annexation or inclusion of any . . . county water district” to a utility district shall not “operate to dissolve or terminate the legal existence of the . . . county water district so annexed, ’ ’ but such water district shall “retain its corporate existence until otherwise dissolved pursuant to provisions of law . . .
Section 6e provides in substance that the validity of any proceedings for the annexation of. any county water district to a municipal utility district shall not be contested in any action not brought within three months of such proceedings. Such limitation as to the time for commencing an action to test the validity ’of the annexation proceedings is not subject to attack on the ground that it is unconstitutional. (Miller & Lux v. Secara, 193 Cal. 755 [227 Pac. 171]; People
For the foregoing reasons, we are of the view that the inclusion of the territory within the boundaries of the Galt County Water District in the territorial boundaries of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District was not illegal, and, as to the points raised by appellants, does not affect the validity of the issue of bonds voted for the purpose of constructing the works for furnishing electric power within the district.
Appellants’ next attack is directed against the provisions of the proposition calling for the bond issue as submitted to the electors. It submitted, argue appellants, an alternative and uncertain purpose. The resolution adopted, the ordinance calling the election, and the ballots used by the voters each set out the purpose as being “the acquisition and construction by the said District of a certain revenue-producing municipal utility improvement, towit: works, or parts of works, within or without, or partly within and partly without, said District for supplyng the inhabitants of said District and any municipality therein with light, power and heat, including lands, structures, rights, ma
Appellant Pacific Gas and Electric Company pleaded in its answer, as a special defense, that if district taxes should be levied on its plant to pay the bonds such taxes would be confiscatory, and would deprive it of its property without due process of law, and deny to it the equal protection of the laws, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The trial court
“XVIII.
“The issue sought to be tendered by appellant Pacific Gas and Electric Company, that the issuance of the bonds herein validated, or the construction of the improvements contemplated under the bond issue, will deprive the defendants of their property without due process of law, and will deprive defendants of the equal protection of the law contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, is premature. No evidence was received in response to said issue, and the court makes no finding thereon. ’ ’
Appellant Lester H. Hough, owner of property within the district, presents a separate appeal from the judgment. On the day the action to validate the bonds was filed, the trial court made an order directing that summons be published for at least once a week for three successive weeks. It was published for four weeks. It notified all defendants to appear and answer within ten days “after the full publication of such summons”, specifying that the period of ten days would expire on the fourth day of February, 1935. The publication was on January 3, 10, 17 and 24, one more publication than was legally required. From these facts appellant Hough contends that the summons fixed an erroneous appearance day, and the court never obtained jurisdiction over him, for which reason, he argues, the judgment against him is void and should be set aside. In short, Mr.
The judgment validating the bond issue is affirmed.
Curtis, J., Shenk, J., Seawell, J., Conrey, J., and Thompson, J., concurred.
Rehearing denied.