City of Chehalis v. City of Centralia

Citations

• 77 Wash. 673
• 138 P. 293
• 1914 Wash. LEXIS 961

Syllabus

<p>Eminent Domain — By Cities — Priority. As between two cities seeking to condemn tbe same land, tbe one first in time is first in right.</p> <p>Eminent, Domain — By Cities — Prerequisites—Ordinance—Sufficiency. Under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 7769, providing that a city desiring to condemn land shall provide therefor by ordinance, an ordinance providing for the submission of a plan or intent to acquire a gravity water system, containing a recital that it is proposed to acquire the necessary lands by purchase or condemnation, and describing the location of a proposed dam and intake, sufficiently manifests an intent to condemn land, as against another city seeking to condemn the same land; since the statutes are to be strictly construed only as against the owners of the land, and the law does not require any formal direction to the city attorney to institute condemnation proceedings.</p> <p>Same — Proceedings—Petition—Description of Property. Under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 7771, requiring a reasonably accurate description, a petition in condemnation proceedings is not fatally defective in that the description of the property did not close, where it was sufficient to identify the property, and the same was properly described in the decree; accuracy only in the decree being essential.</p> <p>Same — Proceedings—Defenses. In condemnation proceedings for a city to acquire lands for a storage reservoir for a water system, it is no defense that, pending the trial, another city had acquired the rights of lower riparian owners, especially where it was not sought to condemn such riparian rights; since the acquisition of such rights did not confer the right to divert the waters for municipal purposes.</p>