Gray

This action was brought by plaintiff to have it determined that proceedings for the enlargement of defendant irrigation district were void, and that an assessment levied by the defendant district upon plaintiff’s property, in consequence, was invalid. Plaintiff purported to sue on his own behalf and also on behalf of approximately one thousand land owners situated similarly to himself and having property within the Cardiff District, upon which an assessment had been levied. The grounds alleged, generally stated, were that fraud had been committed by the promoters of the plan by which the boundaries of the original Cardiff Irrigation District had been extended to include the land of the plaintiff and of others. We need not here enter into a more particular statement of the grounds of the petition. A demurrer was interposed to the complaint, and the point was urged, among others, that plaintiff had not the capacity to sue for the relief demanded, for the reason that an action such as this could only be maintained at the suit of the people of the state. The court sustained the demurrer, and the plaintiff appealed from the judgment of dismissal which followed.

[1] We think that the…