Gray v. Cardiff Irrigation District

THE COURT.

This action was brought by plaintiff to have it determined that proceedings for the enlargement of defendant irrigation district were void, and that an assessment levied by the defendant district upon plaintiff’s property, in consequence, was invalid. Plaintiff purported to sue on his own behalf and also on behalf of approximately one thousand land owners situated similarly to himself and having property within the Cardiff District, upon which an assessment had been levied. The grounds alleged, generally stated, were that fraud had been committed by the promoters of the plan by which the boundaries of the original Cardiff Irrigation District had been extended to include the land of the plaintiff and of others. We need not here enter into a more particular statement of the grounds of the petition. A demurrer was interposed to the complaint, and the point was urged, among others, that plaintiff had not the capacity to sue for the relief demanded, for the reason that an action such as this could only be maintained at the suit of the people of the state. The court sustained the demurrer, and the plaintiff appealed from the judgment of dismissal which followed.

[1]

We think that the court did not err in sustaining the demurrer. From the allegations of the complaint it appears that the proceedings for the annexation of territory to the Cardiff Irrigation District were regular in form and that the district had assumed to exercise authority over the annexed land. The district had at least a

de facto

existence, and that was enough to make it immune from an attack by an individual property owner or any number of such owners. The cause of action does not relate to matters' of irregularity in the proceedings of the district, for which cause the property owners within the district might have a right of action under sections 68 and 69 of the Irrigation Act. (Deering’s Gen. Laws 1915, p. 696.) It calls into question the existence of the district itself and denies the right of the district to exercise its corporate authority over the annexed territory. Such a cause of

[306]

action may only be maintained at the instance of the people of the state.