Clark v. Pacific Power & Light Co.

Citations

• 91 Wash. 130
• 157 P. 462
• 1916 Wash. LEXIS 1022

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Use op Streets — Obstructions—Ordinances — Construction—Violation—Negligence Per Se. A city ordinance prohibiting the maintenance of guy wires at less than a certain height above the “authorized grade of any street,” under penalty of a fine, being penal and subject to strict construction, can have no application to streets for which no grade had been authorized by ordinance or some equally formal act evidenced by writing or actual improvement; hence the maintenance of such a wire in a street the grade of which was established only by user, is not a violation of the ordinance, and would not be negligence per se.</p>