James v. City of Seattle

Citations

• 49 Wash. 347
• 95 P. 273
• 1908 Wash. LEXIS 583

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Improvements'—Assessment for Benefits — Limitation—Petition by Owners. Under Laws 1903, p. 121, restricting the city council, in levying assessments for local improvements, to fifty per cent of the assessed value of the property benefited, except where a petition by three-fourths of the owners specifies “not to exceed a certain higher percentage,” the term “percentage” is not to be given a technical meaning restricting the assessment to a fractional part of the assessed value; hut an assessment may be made for two hundred per cent of the value, when petitioned for, if within the constitutional limit of the value of actual benefits conferred.</p> <p>Same — Proceedings—Mode oe Valuation — General Assessment as Basis. Upon a petition for an improvement limiting the levy for benefits to two hundred per cent of the “assessed value,” without specifying that reference was made to the last valuation for general taxation, it is proper to base the levy for benefits upon an assessment made after the petition was filed and before the ordinance was passed, if passed within a reasonable time.</p> <p>Same — Proceedings—Petition oe Owners — Conditions—Effect— Jurisdiction. A condition, expressed in a petition for a local improvement, calling for certain things and providing a lien therefor “so far as the same may he legally made a lien” is not a jurisdictional one, rendering the proceeding nugatory; since if it could not be legally done it was nevertheless the intention of the petitioners that the improvements be made.</p> <p>Same — Contracts —Validity—Bids—Conditions—Effect. Conditions named in proposals for bids upon a contract for a municipal contract, requiring the contractor to excavate for private property owners and to contract with them, do not render the proceeding void unless it can be said as a matter of law that the conditions necessarily increase the cost of the improvement.</p> <p>Same. Where the regrade of streets calls for a cut of fifty