Chelan County v. Navarre

Citations

• 38 Wash. 684
• 80 P. 845
• 1905 Wash. LEXIS 1231

Syllabus

<p>Trial—Setting Cause foe Trial—Allowance of Three Days’ Time—Review—Evidence Not Brought Up. Error does not conclusively appear in allowing only three days in which to prepare for a trial of proceedings to condemn a way for a county road from the fact that the locality was forty miles from the county seat; and, in the absence of the evidence before the court on setting the cause for trial, the order will be affirmed.</p> <p>Jury—Waiver of Right to Jury Trial in Condemnation Proceedings—Statutes—Change in General Laws. Where defendants in a condemnation suit refuse to pay the jury fee provided for by Laws 1903, p. 50, the right to a jury trial is waived, since Bal. Code, § 5620, and Const, art. 1, § 16, provide for waiver as in1 other civil actions, in the manner provided by law, without re* ferring to any particular existing statute, thereby having reference to the general law in force at the time of the condemnation, although enacted subsequently to the act relating to condemnations.</p> <p>Highways—Eminent Domain—Petition for County Road— Description—Definiteness. In proceedings to condemn a way for a county road, under Laws 1901, p. 201, the definiteness of the petition with reference to the terminal points and course of the proposed road is not jurisdictional, since it may not be followed and is not relied upon as notice to the land owners, but the petition is sufficient if the road is described in a general way.</p> <p>Same—Petition Asking for More Than One Road—Irregularity. The fact that a petition to condemn a way for a county road asks for more than one road, or a road with a branch, is merely an irregularity, and cannot be urged as a jurisdictional defect in a proceeding brought to condemn land for one of such roads.</p>