Boies & Soulé v. East Bay Municipal Utility District

This is an appeal from a judgment adverse to the petitioner in a mandamus proceeding.

For purposes of brevity the appellant, a corporation, will be referred to as Boies, and the respondent, a public utility district, as the District. Stripped to essentials, the facts are these: Boies, a subdivider, owning property within the boundaries of the District, applied to the District for water service to 20 lots. Some of these lots lay along Bacon Way. The others lay along Bacon Court. The two streets intersect. A water main of the District traverses Bacon Way. There is no water main along Bacon Court. Boies offered to pay the cost of extending the main from Bacon Way along Bacon Court to its lots farthest removed from Bacon Way. The water main on Bacon Way terminates at a District reservoir overlooking the two streets. The elevation at the reservoir is 100 feet or more above Boies’ lots numbered 42, 43, 60 and 61, on Bacon Way. The elevations of the other 16 lots in the tract are within 100 feet of the elevation of the reservoir. Engineering data established that the minimum water pressure at Lots 42, 43, 60 and 61, without benefit of booster pumps, would be 40 pounds per square inch…