Muller v. Great Northern Railway Co.

Citations

• 75 Wash. 631
• 135 P. 631
• 1913 Wash. LEXIS 1761

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Streets — Grades —- Damages to Abutting Property — Liability op Railroad Company. In an action against a railroad company for damages to abutting property by the original grading of streets to meet approaches to an overhead railway crossing at street intersections, evidence that a cut of thirteen feet was made in the street, when a cut of not to exceed five feet was all that would have been required to accommodate the interests of the people and travel at the point in question, and that the city council required the railroad company to grade the approaches as a condition of closing other streets, is inadmissible; since it did not tend to prove that the natural surface of the street had been reduced to the grade line for the first time established for any other purpose than in the course of its normal and ordinary improvement for street purposes, taking into consideration the connecting streets and the needs of the community served; and the fact that the city council required the railroad company to grade the streets, as a condition to its closing other streets, would not prove that the street was not improved in its normal and ordinary manner for street purposes.</p>