Kaler v. Puget Sound Bridge & Dredging Co.

Citations

• 72 Wash. 497
• 130 P. 894
• 20 A.L.R. 674
• 1913 Wash. LEXIS 1499

Syllabus

<p>Judgments — Persons and Matters Concluded — Law of the Case. Where, in an action against a city and a contractor, for damages to property through the filling up of low land under the police power, a nonsuit was granted as to the city, and no appeal was taken therefrom, a judgment against the contractor cannot be sustained on the theory that there was a taking or damaging of property without compensation first paid as required by Const., art. 1, § 16; since the nonsuit as to the city became the law of the case on that point.</p> <p>Municipal Corporations — Improvements—Damage to Property— Defective Plans — Liability. While a city may fill low lands as a sanitary measure without liability for consequential damages suffered by the lands within the district filled, it is liable for injury to abutting property; and when lands originally within the district have, by the engineer having authority to exempt property, been excluded from the district, they became abutting property within the above rule.</p> <p>Same — Damage to Property — Defective Plans — Liability of Contractor. Where a city furnished the plan and directed the work of filling up low lands, and damages to abutting property resulted, not from any negligence or wrongdoing of the contractor, who performed the work in the manner required by the contract, the contractors stand in the relation of agents of the city and not as independent contractors, and the liability rests upon the city and not upon the contractors, who cannot be held after a nonsuit is granted as to the city.</p>