Foster v. Commissioners Cowlitz County

Citations

• 100 Wash. 502
• 171 P. 539
• 1918 Wash. LEXIS 781

Syllabus

<p>Counties—Loaning Credit — Association, Company or Corporation. A diking district organized under Laws 1917, pp. 522-545, is not an “association, company or corporation” within Const., art. 8, § 7, forbidding a county to loan money or credit thereto; and hence that act requiring county commissioners to exercise certain powers and perform certain duties with reference to diking districts does not violate such constitutional provision.</p> <p>Constitutional Law — Delegation of Power — Special Assessments. Const., art. 7, § 9, vesting cities, towns and villages with the power to make local improvements by special assessments upon property benefited is not prohibitory and does not prohibit the legislature from conferring the power on diking districts by Laws 1917, pp. 522-545, providing that the costs of the improvement be paid by special assessments upon the property benefited. .</p> <p>Courts—Stare Decisis—Rule of Property. An early decision upon the faith of which a large amount of indebtedness of diking and drainage districts has beep incurred becomes a rule of property upon which the doctrine of stare decisis is of controlling force.</p> <p>Constitutional Law—Due Process'—Taking Property—Notice. The diking district law of 1917, pp. 522-545, does not violate the due process of law guaranties of the, state and Federal constitutions, inasmuch as property cannot be taken or damaged without compensation, nor without notice and opportunity to be heard, with right of jury trial.</p> <p>Levees—Statutes—Certainty. The diking district law of 1917, pp. 522-545, is not indefinite and uncertain in failing to provide in terms for the making of a final order establishing the district, inasmuch as the district is established not later than when the county commissioners decide, after a hearing, upon the nature and extent of the proposed improvement.</p> <p>Levees—District—Establishment—Notice. Section 20, of the diking law of 1917, pp. 522-545, authorizing changes by the county c