Matapan National Bank v. City of Seattle

Citations

• 115 Wash. 596
• 197 P. 789
• 1921 Wash. LEXIS 774

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations (502)—Local Improvement Fund— Wrongful Diversion. Where a city collects any part of a special fund arising from the collection of improvement assessments and misappropriates it hy paying warrants issued on the fund insufficient to satisfy earlier warrants, it is liable to the holders of the earlier warrants from its general fund to the extent of such misappropriation.</p> <p>Limitation of Actions (45)—Local Improvement—Warrants—• Notice of Fund. Where an action against a city by a warrant holder, based on the misappropriation of a special fund, was barred by the statute of limitations, a transferee of the warrant could not maintain an action thereon under the rule that the statute begins to run against a party injured only from the time he acquires knowledge of the misappropriation; since a municipal warrant is not a negotiable instrument and a purchaser takes it subject to the defense that it was barred in the hands of the prior holder.</p> <p>Same (57)—Computation—Discovery of FLaud—Want of Diligence. In an action against a city to recover upon a warrant against a special fund which had been misappropriated by the city, a complaint alleging that a prior holder of the warrant had made repeated demands for its payment and was informed each time there were no funds available, was demurrable as showing on its face that such holder had sufficient knowledge to put him upon inquiry as to the specific cause therefor, and that his failure to discover that the absence of funds was' due to misappropriation by the city would not toll the statute of limitations either in his favor or in favor of his transferee.</p>