State ex rel. Craig v. Town of Newport

Citations

• 70 Wash. 286
• 126 P. 637
• 1912 Wash. LEXIS 1045

Syllabus

<p>Pleading — Answer—Conclusions—Certainty. In an action to compel a town to levy a tax to meet warrants issued in payment of a lease, an answer that the lease was for the purpose of securing a water supply without the sanction or authority of the qualified voters of the town, and that the lease was therefore void, pleads a fact and not merely a conclusion, and is sufficiently definite and certain to be proof against demurrer.</p> <p>Municipal Corporations — Public Improvements — Water Supply —Submission to Voters. Under Laws 1901, page 177, providing that the council shall by ordinance submit to the voters any plan for providing the town with water works, no expenditures for a municipal water supply can be incurred until the plan has been submitted to and received the assent of the voters of the town, whether the sum be within or without the first constitutional limit of indebtedness; and the legislature had-power to so provide.</p> <p>Same — Ultra Vires Contract — Ratification—Estoppel. Where the town authorities had no authority to provide for a municipal water supply without submitting the plan to the electors, their action in leasing springs for that purpose without submitting the. matter to a vote is ultra vires, and acceptance of benefits under the contract is not a ratification which would estop the city from disputing the indebtedness unlawfully incurred.</p>