People v. Reclamation Dist. No. One Hundred & Eight

The principal purpose of this action is to procure a judgment • to the effect that the Declamation District was not. legally created, and has not now any legal existence. It was held in Dean v. Davis, 51 Cal. 409 , that a reclamation district was a public corporation. The reasons there stated, and the authorities cited, fully sustain the proposition. Such corporations are sometimes denominated quasi corporations, for the reason that they have not all the powers which belong to corporations by ' the common law, or all those which are usually possessed by ^ municipal corporations; but as they possess all the powers, either, by express grant or necessary implication, which are ^ requisite for the performance of the duties enjoined upon them by law, they are to be regarded as public corporations for mu-, nicipal purposes.

The plaintiff, for the purpose of showing that the Declamation District had not been legally organized—that is to say, that the corporation had not been duly created—offered to prove that at the hearing of the petition for the organization of the , District, no evidence was introduced before the Board of Supervisors showing that the petitioners owned more than…