Halsted

Donald E. Halsted and Ann Halsted, his wife, are land owners in the Strong Ranch Slough Drainage Assessment District in Sacramento County. Believing that the board of supervisors was guilty of arbitrary action and abuse of discretion in approving an assessment against them of approximately one-fourth of the total cost of construction of the Bell Avenue bridge, under the Improvement Act of 1911 (div. 7, Sts. & Hy. Code), the plaintiffs filed a suit against the county, the board of supervisors, the department of public works, the county engineer, the county treasurer, and the Lentz Construction Co., Inc., the organization that built the bridge, praying for a judgment setting aside and annulling the purported assessment and enjoining the collection thereof. The case never reached the evidence stage, as the trial court sustained a demurrer to the complaint without leave to amend, on the ground that the pleading . . does not and cannot state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. ’ ’

A memorandum opinion indicates the trial judge’s reason for this terminal order; in the absence of fraud or mistake, he said, the action of the board of supervisors could not be attacked in…