It is of course desirable that laws embodying so many novel features as this should be passed upon by the courts and their constitutionality determined. Necessarily there were those who thought themselves aggrieved by the new law, and they were not slow in putting the legal machinery into operation for the purpose of securing the relief to which they believed themselves entitled. Happily, however, the law had been most carefully drawn, no loopholes had been left, and in consequence in every one of the suits brought the upholders of the act proved victorious. In order that it may be known exactly what questions were raised and what decisions were reached in regard to each a full report of the litigation so far concluded is given. It will convince any one of the fact that the law is fully and entirely constitutional, and that it is folly to oppose its beneficial operation.

Supreme Court Decisions Construing Irrigation Law.

(No. 12456. In Bank, May 31, 1888.) TUBLOCK IRRIGATION DISTRICT, PETITIONER, YS. B. W. WILLIAMS, SECRETARY, ETC.,

RESPONDENT.

[76 Cal. 360-372.]

Irrigation Districts-Act of March 7, 1887-Constitutional Law. The act of March 7, 1887, providing for the organization and government of irrigation districts, and the provisions thereof relative to the condemnation of private property, lands, water, etc., for the uses prescribed therein, are constitutional. Idem-Irrigation Districts Public Corporations.The irrigation districts provided for in the act are quasi public corporations, in the sense that the purposes for which they are to organize is for the general public benefit. Idem-Method of Assessment--General System of Tax ation-I is not necessary to their validity that the methods adopted for the levy of assess ments and for their collection should be asşımflated to and follow exactly the mode provided in the Constitution for the assessment and collection of taxes for general State purposes. This is a proceeding to compel the respondent, the secretary of the Turlock irrigation district, to sign certain bonds ordered to be issued against said district by the board of directors thereof.

The act under which said district was organized, and the authority upon which it is asked that the respondent be compelled to sign said bonds, was approved March 7, 1887.

The first section of said statute provides for the organization of irrigation districts upon petitions filed with the Board of Supervisors by fifty or a majority of freeholders owning land susceptible of one mode of irrigation from a common source. It is also required that after a petition is filed the Board of Supervisors shall make an order fixing the boundaries of the district, and shall thereupon call an election, of

which notice is required to be given, at which the electors residing within the proposed district are permitted to vote for or against its organization.

It is also provided that, if two-thirds of the electors residing within said proposed district vote in favor of its organization into an irrigation district, the Board of Supervisors shall declare the district duly organized.

The act also provides for the election of an assessor, collector and treasurer, and a board of five directors for the district. To the board of directors is given the power to manage and conduct the business and affairs of the diserict, make and execute all necessary contracts, and employ and appoint such agents, officers and employes as may be required, prescribe their duties, establish equitable by-laws, rules and regulations for the distribution and use of the water among the owners of said land, and generally to perform all such acts as shall be necessary to fully carry out the purposes of the act. General powers are given to the board of directors to enter upon lands in the district and make surveys, to locate the lines of canals, to acquire by purchase or condemnation all lands and waters and other property necessary for the construction, use, supply, maintenance, repair and improvement of said canal or canals and works, to construct dams, reservoirs and works for the collection of water, and to do any and every lawful act necessary to be done in order that sufficient water may be furnished to each land owner in said district for irrigation purposes.

Powers are also conferred upon said board of directors to estimate and determine the amount of money necessary to be raised for the purposes of the act, and for the purpose of raising said money to call an election and submit to the electors residing within said district the question whether or not the bonds of said district shall be issued in the amount so determined to be necessary. Said board also has power under said act to to sell said bonds. It is provided by section 13 of said act that the legal title to all property acquired under the provisions thereof shall immediately and by operation of law rest in the irrigation dis trict, and shall be held by such district in trust for the uses and purposes set forth in the act.

In said section it is provided that the board may hold, use, acquire, manage, occupy and possess said property as provided in said act. It is also provided that the bonds issued by the order of the board of directors and the interest thyreon shall be paid by revenue derived from an annual assessment upon the real property of the district, and that all the real property in the district shall be and remain liable to be assessed for such payment, as provided in said act. Provision is also made for the assessment of said property by the assessor of the district, for the publication of the delinquent list, the collection of penalties on delinquent assessment, the sale of property for the purpose of paying said assessment, the redemption of the property, the execution of deeds by the collector of said district, transferring absolutely the property of landowners within the district refusing to submit to the tax and assessment provided for, the vesting of title in the purchaser, etc.

It is also provided by section 23 of said act that the assessment upon real property shall constitute a lien against the property assessed from and after the 1st of March of any year, and that such lien shall not be removed until such assessments are paid or the property sold for the payment thereof. Provision is also made for the apportionment of water among the residents of the district. The further facts are stated in the opinion.

P. J. Hazen, Hatton & Fulkerth and W. H. Beatty for petitioner.

The districts provided for in the act of March 7, 1887, are public or quasi public corporations, and the purposes for which they are intended are public. (Tide Water Co. vs. Coster, 18 N. J. Eq., 521; 90 Am. Dec., 634; Hartwell vs. Armstrong, 19 Barb., 166; Lux vs. Haggin, 69 Cal., 303; Gilmer vs. Lime Point, 18 Cal, 252; Cooley on Taxation, 2d ed., 103; Olmstead vs. Camp, 33 Conn., 532; 89 Am. Dec., 221; Talbot vs. Hudson, 82 Mass., 417; Coomes vs. Burt, 39 Mass., 427; Wurts vs. Hoagland,

W. T. Baggett, for respondent.

The act is special legislation. It relates to particular localities-districts susceptible of frrigation from a common source. Such legis lation is prohibited by subdivisions 10, 28 and 33 of section 25 of Article IV, section 1 of Article XII and section 6 of Article XI of the Constitution of the State. (Earle vs. Board of Education, 55 Cal. 489; Desmond vs. Dunn, 55 Cal. 242; Ex parte Westerfield, 55 Cal. 550; 36 Am. Rep. 47.)

By Foote, C.: This is an application for a writ of mandate to compel the defendant, as the secretary of an irrigation district (under An act to provide for the organization and government of irrigation districts," etc., approved March 7, 1887, Sess, Laws, p. 29), to sign certain bonds which the applicant proposes to issue under section 15 of that act.

The refusal of the defendant to sign those instruments is based upon the ground that the statute is unconstitutional and void.

One of the distinguished counsel for the defendant contends that the districts contem plated by the act are private corporations, formed for private purposes. To use his own language: "Such an organization has none of the elements of a public municipal body." While another able attorney on the same, side contends that all the constituents of the public corporation are present, and to that class of corporations a district of the statute must be assigned," and claims that the money sought to be raised under the act is a general tax, and that the system of organization of the corporations prescribed sn the act is in conflict with the general plan of constitutional political organization, and that the mode of taxation provided is different from that made neeessary by the Constitution for general governmental purposes, and therefore the act is void. We are inclined to agree with the last mentioned advocate of the defendant's cause, but to the extent only that the district, when or ganized as provided in the act under discussion, has all the elements of corporations formed to accomplish a public use and purpose, according to the rules of law laid down in Hager vs. Supervisors of Yolo county, 47 Cal. 223; Dean vs. Davis, 51 Cal. 406; People vs. Williams, 56 Cal. 647: People vs. La Rue, 67 Cai. 526; Reclamation District vs. Hager, 66 Cul. 54.

"If the use for which the property is taken be to satisfy a great public want or public exigency, it is a public use within the meaning of the Constitution, and the State is not limited to any given mode of applying that property to satisfy the want or meet the exigency." (Gilmer vs. Lime Point, 18 Cal. 252.)

"For the most part, the term 'public purposes' is employed in the same sense in the law of taxation and in the law of eminent domain." (Cooley on Taxation, 2d ed., 113.) So that a law which is for a public purpose, and which may concern the public welfare, which lays an assessment upon property according to approximate quality of benefit, is not unconstitutional because of that feature. Perhaps to a greater extent than any of the other States, California, speaking through the acts of her Legislature, her court of last resort, and Constitution, seems to have considered the irrigation of lands and the supplying or mines with water as of great public concern. (Code Civ. Proc., sec. 1238; Cummings vs. Peters, 56 Cal. 596; Lux vs. Haggin, 69 Cal., 302305; Coust., art. XIV, sec. 1.

And in no sense can it be said that under the act in question the assessment to pay the bonds is to be levied or collected in order that one man may take another's property for his own exclusive use.

Therefore, it is evident that the districts in question, as organized under the act, are not private corporations, organized exclusively for the purposes of private gains. They are at least quasi public corporations in the sense that the purpose for which they are to be organized is for the general public benefit,

Nor does it follow that the method of assessments and their collection adopted must be assimilated to and follow exactly the mode provided in the Constitution for the assessment and collection of taxes for general State purposes.

The nature of the assessment is one for local improvements, which, however, eventuate in the advancement of the public good, and such assessments and collections can be lawfully made.

It is "clear that those clauses of the Constitution which provide that taxation shall be equal and uniform, and which describe the mode of assessment and the persons by whom it shall be made, and that all property shall be taxed, have no application to assessments levied for local improvements." (Hager vs. Supervisors of Yolo County, 47 Cal. 222.)

And there was said of the Drainage act, so it may be said of the one in hand relative to irrigation, that a system that has for its object the realaiming frora the desert of vast bodies of land, "may justly be regarded a public improvement of great magnitude, and of the utmost importance to the community." It has been planned by the Legislature on the basis

Such a general scheme by which immigration may be stimulated, the taxable property of the State increased, the relative burden of taxation as to the whole people decreased, and the comfort and advantage of many thriving communities subserved, would seem to redound to the common advantage of all the people of the State, to a greater or less extent.

districts, and assessing the cost of improvements to the lands to be benefited." In none of the States where such a course has been pursued "has the power of the Legislature to cause such improvements to be made in this method ever been denied; nor do we see any tenable ground upon which it can be questioned." (Hager vs. Supervisors of Yolo County, 47 Cal. 222.)

The fact that the land is situated in more than one county cannot affect the power of the State to delegate authority for the establishment of the reclamation district," or an irriga. ting district, "to the Supervisors of the county containing the greater part of the lands. Such authority may be lodged in any board or tribunal which the Legislature may designate. The expense of such works may be charged against parties specially benefited, and be made a lien upon their property. All that is required in such cases is, that the

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This is not a law passed to accomplish exclusive and selfish private gains; it is an extensive and far-reaching plan, by which the

reasonable mode, according to the benefit received. Absolute equality in imposing them may not be reached; only an approximation to it may be attainable. If no direct or invidious