McConoughey

This is a proceeding by one claiming to be a taxpayer and elector of the city of San Diego to contest an election held for the purpose of determining a proposition to incur a large indebtedness, and to issue bonds of the city to the amount of a million and a half of dollars for the construction or acquisition of waterworks.

The action is one which could not be maintained by anyone except a taxpayer or elector of the city, and the first finding made by the trial court is: “That the said A. M. McConoughey is not, and was not during any of the times mentioned in the amended complaint herein, an elector and taxpayer, or an elector or a taxpayer, of or in the said city of San Diego, California.” This ought to have ended the case, for the only legitimate object of the proceeding was to obtain a judgment binding upon the city, its taxpayers and electors, and they ought not to be bound by a litigation which the plaintiff had no right to institute or to maintain.

The court, however, proceeded to find upon all the issues in the case, and to make a decree affirming the validity of the election and the various proceedings involved. From this decree the plaintiff appeals. If he is neither a…