In re Third, Fourth & Fifth Avenues, Seattle

Citations

• 49 Wash. 109
• 94 P. 1075
• 1908 Wash. LEXIS 535

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Street Improvements — Assessment of Benefits — Validity—Agreement Exempting Property. An assessment for a local improvement made under Bal. Code, § 775, which requires that each lot shall bear its proportion of the expense according to benefits received, and § 789, requiring the jury to offset benefits against damages, is invalidated by an agreement made between the city and certain property owners whereby an agreed verdict was to be returned allowing one dollar for land taken, one dollar for damages to land not taken, and one dollar for damages by reason of change of grade, where the agreement was carried out in the assessment of benefits by the jury, which was advised that there was no contest as to the lots of such owners.</p> <p>Same — -Eminent Domain — Collateral Attack. Where property has been condemned for a local improvement, and supplementary proceedings are had for the assessment of the property benefited, objections to the confirmation of the assessment roll, on the ground that verdicts were rendered in the condemnation proceedings under unlawful agreements with property owners whereby their property was relieved from assessment, constitute a collateral attack upon the condemnation proceedings, and cannot be entertained unless the judgments therein were rendered without jurisdiction.</p> <p>Same — Jurisdiction—Necessity of Ordinance — Statutes — Construction in Other States. Where statutes relating to local improvements are practically a reproduction of the laws of another state, the decisions of such state holding that the court is without jurisdiction of an assessment proceeding unless it is based upon a valid ordinance will be followed by the supreme court of this state, and a valid ordinance is necessary to jurisdiction.</p> <p>Same — -Jurisdiction—Objections to Award — Collateral Attack. Where an ordinance authorized a local improvement and the condemnation of property therefor, pursuant to the requirements of the law, and