California Water, Transit & Defense Project v. California Toll Bridge Authority

SCHAUER, J. This is a companion case to Faulkner v. California Toll Bridge Authority, ante, p. 317 [256 P.2d 659], our opinion in which has been this day filed. As in that case, plaintiff here appeals from a judgment entered on the sustaining without leave to amend of defendants’ general demurrer to plaintiff’s complaint. In this suit plaintiff seeks to have declared invalid the toll bridge revenue bonds more particularly described in our opinion in the Faulkner case, together with various resolutions of the defendant California Toll Bridge Authority, hereinafter termed the authority, and to enjoin the defendants1 from proceeding with the construction of the proposed toll bridge between Richmond and San Rafael. We have concluded that the demurrer was properly sustained and that the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.

In material substance the complaint alleges: Plaintiff is a nonprofit corporation, incorporated in this state; defendant authority adopted the various resolutions of September 26, 1952, and of November 7,1952, which are more fully described in the Faulkner ease (such portion of the resolutions as is particularly concerned in this case is hereinafter set forth), and on December 17, 1952, the authority “readopted” the four resolutions of November 7; bids for construction of the substructure and superstructure of the bridge were received and opened on December 19, 1952, by officials of the Department of Public Works, and that department intends to accept such bids prior to delivery of the Series A Bonds which were authorized by one of the November 7 resolutions; on December 29, 1952, the authority sold the Series A Bonds to four companies, including defendant Blyth & Co., Inc.; the bid of the four companies was the only offer to purchase the bonds which the authority received; the authority intends to deliver the bonds as soon as practicable to the four companies and thereafter construction of the bridge will begin.

The provisions of section 7.09 of one of the November 7 resolutions “authorizing the creation of Richmond-San Rafael Toll Bridge Revenue Bonds and providing for the issuance of” the Series A Bonds are the provisions upon which plaintiff [337]particularly relies. Those provisions are alleged in its complaint and are shown herein in footnote 2.2

Plaintiff further alleges that it intends to form a bridge and highway district pursuant to the provisions of the Bridge and Highway District Act (Sts. & Hy. Code, §§ 27000 to 27325), in order to construct an earth fill crossing across north San Francisco Bay (between the county of Marin and the county of Contra Costa) which will be within eight miles of the proposed toll bridge, will accommodate automobile and railroad traffic, and will “be financed by the issuance of bonds secured by tolls”; that defendant authority, in accordance with its agreement expressed in section 7.09 of its resolution (quoted hereinabove in footnote 2) that “it will not engage in, or so far as lies in its power permit” the construction of another crossing within eight miles of the new bridge, “will try to prevent Plaintiff from organizing” the bridge and highway district and “will try to prevent the construction of” the earth fill crossing by such district; that organization of the district will take “a great deal of Plaintiff’s money and effort”; that in “order to develop the plans for said earth-fill crossing, Plaintiff has spent” over $10,000 and “has expended a great deal of effort over a period of time in excess of two years”; that if section 7.09 is valid and if it restricts the power of such a district “to construct a toll crossing in any location it desires, the money and effort expended in creating and developing the said plan for an earth-fill crossing . . . will be completely and absolutely