Askam v. King County
Citations
- 9 Wash. 1
- 36 P. 1097
- 1894 Wash. LEXIS 245
Syllabus
<p>EMINENT DOMAIN — APPROPRIATION OE LAND FOR DITCHES WITHOUT COMPENSATION — CONSTITUTIONAL LAW — POLICE POWER OF STATE.</p> <p>The drainage law of this state (Gen. Stat., tit. 21, ch. 1) is unconstitutional, as it provides for the taking of private property without there having been an assessment of damages or the payment of compensation therefor.</p> <p>A law providing for the taking of private property without compensation, for the purpose of constructing ditches to drain swamps, cannot be upheld as being an exercise of the police power of the state for the abatement of a nuisance, when the act does not declare the nuisance to be of such imminent danger to the public welfare as to require the private property of others than those maintaining the nuisance to be taken without compensation.</p>
How courts have described this case
Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.
- holding that the Legislature did not “deprive the plaintiffs of any vested right” when it passed a law “changing the remedy” for breach of bond but not “destroy[ing] the right of action”
- upholding retrospective application of a statute changing the remedies available in certain instances
- “[T]he legislature possessed the power to take away by statute, what was given by statute, except vested rights.”
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
Judges: Hoyt, Stiles
Read full opinion on CourtListenerSourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).
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