City of Beverly Hills v. City of Los Angeles

California Supreme Court Jun 6, 1917 No. L. A. No. 4012.Published

Before: Shaw

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Holding. The court held that the City of Los Angeles acquired a vested contractual right to use the highways of Beverly Hills for its water pipeline by accepting a state legislative grant prior to Beverly Hills' incorporation, which the newly incorporated city could not subsequently impair.

Issues

Whether the City of Los Angeles accepted the state's legislative grant to use public highways for a water pipeline prior to the incorporation of the City of Beverly Hills.
Whether the City of Beverly Hills, upon incorporation, could revoke or impose new restrictions on the City of Los Angeles' previously acquired right to use its streets for the pipeline.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“That the offered grant so made by the state was accepted by said defendant prior to the incorporation of the city of Beverly Hills, in our opinion, admits of no doubt.”

“The grant resulting from defendant’s acceptance of the state’s offer constituted a contract, the property right in which is protected by the federal Constitution”

Synopsis

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, from an order dissolving a restraining order, and from an order denying an injunction pendente lite. Lewis R. Works, Judge.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

VICTOR E. SHAW, J.,

pro tem.

In this action plaintiff sought a decree perpetually enjoining the city of Los Angeles from laying, constructing, and maintaining a pipe-line over, through, across, and under certain streets of the city of Beverly Hills for the purpose of conveying water from the source of supply thereof to the city of Los Angeles.

The result of the trial was a judgment in favor of defendants and denying plaintiff’s right to an injunction, from which, and an order dissolving a restraining order made upon filing the complaint, and an order denying an injunction

pendente lite,

plaintiff has appealed.

The facts, as to which there seem to be no just ground for dispute, are that for some six or seven years prior to the filing of the complaint the city of Los Angeles had been engaged in the construction of the Los Angeles aqueduct, extending from a point in the Owens River, in Inyo County, to a point in San Fernando Valley, in Los Angeles County, about twenty-one miles northwesterly from the city of Los Angeles, where defendants had, for the purpose of receiving and impounding water so conducted from Owens River through said aqueduct, constructed reservoirs.

Beverly Hills, located in Los Angeles County, was under and by virtue of the general laws incorporated as a city of the sixth class on January 26, 1914, prior to which time it was unincorporated territory. By an act of the legislature, approved April 10, 1911 (Stats. 1911, p. 852) it was provided:

‘ ‘ That there is granted to every municipal corporation of the state of California, the right to construct, operate and maintain water and gas pipes, mains or conduits, electric light and electric power lines, and telephone and telegraph lines, along or upon any road, street, alley, avenue or highway, or across any railway, canal, ditch or flume which the route of such works intersects, crosses or runs along, in such manner as to afford security for life and property; but the municipality shall restore the road, street, alley, avenue, highway, canal, ditch or flume thus intersected to its former state of usefulness, as near as may be;

provided, however,

that such mu

[313]

City of Beverly Hills v. City of Los Angeles

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Synopsis

VICTOR E. SHAW, J.,

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