Franklin Savings Bank v. Moran

Citations

• 19 Wash. 200
• 52 P. 858
• 1898 Wash. LEXIS 351

Syllabus

<p>DIKES — REASSESSMENT FOR COST OF CONSTRUCTION — LEGISLATIVE POWER — PLEADING —DEMURRER.</p> <p>The legislature has power to provide for a re-assessment of property for local improvements in cases where the original assessment was void because of lack of legislation authorizing it, but a re-assessment made without legislative sanction is utterly ineffectual and void.</p> <p>The act of Mach 19, 1895 (Laws 1895, p. 142, Bal. Code, §§ 3755-3762), entitled, “an act providing for the payment of expenses incurred in compliance with an act entitled ‘an act to provide for the construction, repairing and protection of drains and ditches for agricultural, sanitary and domestic purposes and to provide for the organization of drainage districts and declaring an emergency,’ approved March 19,1890,” while authorizing re-assessments to pay for construeton of drains and ditches, makes no provision in regard to dikes and cannot be held as authorizing a re-assessment to cover the expense of dikes and dams constructed under a void statute.</p> <p>The fact that a demurrer admitted the averment that a dike had been constructed under the provisions of the invalid drainage law of 1890, instead of the invalid law of 1888, would not make the curative act in relation to void drainage proceedings applicable to the case at bar, since courts are powerless to grant relief which is not warranted by the statute invoked by the pleader.</p>