Western Assurance Co. v. Sacramento & San Joaquin Drainage District

The plaintiffs, five in number, are duly organized corporations, and, during all the times mentioned in the complaint, engaged in the fire insurance business in the state of California, by authority of and obediently to the laws thereof. Each of these insurance companies—some in the year 1919 and the others in the year 1920—issued a policy of insurance in a certain specified sum on the dwelling-house, a tankhouse and windmill, a blacksmith-shop, a garage, a large barn and two small barns, all located upon the east side of Sutter basin by-pass levee, on what was formerly known as the Ball Ranch, in Sutter County, and of which property the Sutter Basin Company was then and at the time of the commencement of this action the owner and in possession. The aggregate amount of the insurance so taken upon and covering said property was $23,587.88.

The defendant is a body corporate and politic under and by virtue of the provisions of an act of the legislature of the state of California, approved March 24, 1911 (Stats. 1911, Ex. Sess., p. 117), and subsequent acts amendatory thereof, said defendant being “generally known and designated as the ‘Reclamation Board of the State of California.’…