City of Los Angeles v. Owens River Canal Co.

BURROUGHS, J.,

pro tem.

This is an appeal by defendants from a judgment entered upon the pleadings in favor of the plaintiffs.

It is contended by the appellants that the trial court erred in overruling defendants’ general and special demurrers to the complaint, also in granting the said motion for judgment on the pleadings. Following the references to the parties made by counsel in their briefs, the plaintiff and respondent, City of Los Angeles; plaintiff and respondent, Board of Water and Power Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, and the defendant and appellant, The Owens River Canal Company, will hereinafter be referred to as the “City”, “Board” and “Canal Company”, respectively. Where it is unnecessary to specify any of the other plaintiffs and respondents by name or any other defendants and appellants by name they will be referred to as the “individual plaintiffs and respondents” and “individual defendants and appellants”.

So far as necessary to a disposition of the points involved in this appeal, the substance of the complaint is as follows: That the City is and at all the times mentioned in the complaint was a municipal corporation organized and acting as

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such by virtue of a freeholders’ charter adopted pursuant to the Constitution of the state California; that the Board exists under the charter provisions of said City with full power to “construct, operate, maintain, extend, manage and control works and property for the purpose of supplying the said City and its inhabitants with water and electric energy, or either, and to acquire and take, by purchase, lease, condemnation or otherwise, and to hold, in the name of said City, any and all property situated within or without the said City, and within or without the state of California, that may be necessary or convenient for such purpose”. It is further alleged that the plaintiff and respondent E. F. Leahey is a citizen of the United States and resident of Independence, Inyo County, state of California; “that on the 17th day of January, 1928, he was, and at all times thereafter continued to be, a stockholder in defendant, The Owens Biver Canal Company, a corporation, having stock in his own name on the stock books of said corporation, to-wit, two thousand eight hundred and fifty (2850) shares, but that said shares of stock were and are by him held in trust for plaintiffs, the City of Los Angeles, a municipal corporation, and Board of Water and Power Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles; that plaintiff Leahey brings this suit in his own right as record stockholder and as trustee in behalf of said city and said board, as aforesaid”. There are allegations by four other plaintiffs and respondents in which they alleged an ownership of a total of 88 shares of stock in the Canal Company under the exact conditions as above set forth concerning the ownership of the stock appearing on the books in the name of said E. F. Leahey. It is alleged that the Canal Company is a California corporation with a captial stock of 5,000 shares with a par value of $10 each and all of said shares are issued and outstanding. There is a further allegation that one K. P. Keough is a citizen of the United States and a resident of Bishop, Inyo County, California; “that on the 19th day of January, 1926, he was, and at all times thereafter has continued to be, a stockholder in defendant The Owens Biver Canal Company, a corporation, having stock in his own name on the stock books of said corporation, to-wit, at least three shares; that he pretends and purports to be a director in, and president of, said corporation, in pursuance of the combination, confederation