LITIGATION

LITIGATION

The legality of the second $1,020,000 bond issue for the purpose of acquiring the Union Hollywood Water Company, of Los Angeles, Cal., and the extension of the municipal water distributing system to the extreme western section of the city limits, was attacked in a suit filed in the Superior Court by attorneys on behalf of a property owner of the bond district. The suit was directed against the Mayor and other city officials, and the court was asked to restrain the city from selling the bonds or making them a lien on the property of the district, on the ground that the issue is illegal and void.

直辖市可以assessments on a foot-frontage basis for water pipes, but a private water company has no such right, rules Public Service Commissioner James Alcorn, of Harrisburg, Pa., in deciding in favor of Harry S. Craumer, Wyomissing, in a complaint against the Sinking Spring Water Company, which operates in vicinity of Reading. Craumer was charged 50 cents a foot according to the frontage lot of his property before water service was given. Commissioner Alcorn says that it does not help to call the charge a service charge and declares that the cost of the water pipe would form a very important element in valuation of the company’s property. “Undoubtedly,” says he, “the laying of water pipe in front of a property enhances its market value, but a private water company has no right to make any charge on that account. This water pipe was laid some years ago and if the complainant purchased the property since the pipe was laid he paid for the improvement in the purchase price. A municipality, a branch of the government, is authorized by law to make such assessments because of the local benefit to the property, but a private water company has no such right.