Lloyd

Certain property owners within an assessment district, who sued to enjoin respondents from executing a contract awarded pursuant to proceedings had under the “Improvement Act of 1911” for the extension of the municipal pier, appeal from a judgment of nonsuit.

Their first point is that they should have been allowed to prove that no permit for such extension had ever been obtained from the federal authorities as required by an act of Congress of March 3, 1899 (U. S. Code, Ann., title 33, sec. 401, p. 377) and that, upon such proof, they were entitled to the injunction, as, in the absence of such permit, the contract and its award were invalid. In support of their general allegation, that the city never had jurisdiction to order the work, appellants offered to prove that the proposed improvement was located in navigable waters of the Pacific Ocean and that the city had never obtained the requisite permit. Upon respondents’ objection to its relevancy, the court properly rejected this offer because the allegation was a mere conclusion of law (Spaulding v . Wesson, 84 Cal. 141 [ 24 Pac. 377 ]), which tendered no issue (21 Cal. Jur. 26), and therefore was insufficient to support the…