Sacramento Municipal Utility District v. All Parties and Persons

These actions were instituted by the plaintiff Sacramento Municipal Utility District to validate bonds issued by the district for the purpose of constructing works to supply the territory within the district with electric power. Judgment validating the issue was entered in each case in the court below, and these appeals followed.

A fundamental objection to the bonds, stressed in briefs and oral argument, is that a portion—in fact, the larger portion—of the territory to be served by the works to be constructed under the bond issue is not within the district at all. The district, as organized in 1923, consisted only of the city of Sacramento and the immediately adjoining territory, and comprised in all about, eighty square miles. The act to provide for the organization of municipal utility districts in section 6a provides that any municipality or county water district not included within the boundaries of a utility district at the time of its creation may be subsequently annexed thereto. In 1934, proceedings were taken by the district to annex two large additional areas. One of these, known as the 11 South Territory,” with an area of four hundred and ten square miles, was assumed…