City of Los Angeles v. Owens River Canal Co.

This is an appeal by defendants from a judgment entered upon the pleadings in favor of the plaintiffs.

It is contended by the appellants that the trial court erred in overruling defendants’ general and special demurrers to the complaint, also in granting the said motion for judgment on the pleadings. Following the references to the parties made by counsel in their briefs, the plaintiff and respondent, City of Los Angeles; plaintiff and respondent, Board of Water and Power Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, and the defendant and appellant, The Owens River Canal Company, will hereinafter be referred to as the “City”, “Board” and “Canal Company”, respectively. Where it is unnecessary to specify any of the other plaintiffs and respondents by name or any other defendants and appellants by name they will be referred to as the “individual plaintiffs and respondents” and “individual defendants and appellants”.

So far as necessary to a disposition of the points involved in this appeal, the substance of the complaint is as follows: That the City is and at all the times mentioned in the complaint was a municipal corporation organized and acting as such by virtue of a freeholders’…