Chenu

The plaintiff applies to this court for a writ of mandate directing the defendant, as chief of the division of motor vehicles of the department of finance of the state of California, to issue to the plaintiff certain license plates, with the accompanying certificates, such license plates to be attached to certain automobiles owned by the plaintiff, as required by the Motor Vehicle Act. The plaintiff is a municipal water district, organized under the act of May 11, 1911, and amendments thereto. (Stats. 1911, p. 1290; Stats. Ex. Sess. 1911, p. 92.) By the act ot April 6, 1915, the organization of said district was declared valid and it was declared to .be duly created as a public corporation. (Stats. 1915, p. 84.) The plaintiff has constructed and completed a large water collecting, storing, and distributing system, and is operating the same in accordance with said act, by collecting, selling, and distributing water to the inhabitants of the district and others. In carrying out its public duties and obligations under the act, as required, it is necessary for it to use thirteen motor vehicles, all of which are used exclusively by it in the discharge of its public duties. It applied…