Hansen v. City of San Buenaventura

Opinion

GRODIN, J.

Defendant City of San Buenaventura (hereafter referred to as Ventura) owns and operates a water company which serves customers who reside both in and outside the city boundaries. In 1972, Ventura enacted an ordinance imposing a 70 percent surcharge on water supplied to customers living outside the city limits. Those nonresident customers brought this class action to challenge the surcharge, seeking declaratory relief and damages on the ground that the rates imposed were unreasonable, arbitrary, and discriminatory and that the rate structure denied them equal protection.…