State ex rel. McCullough v. City of Seattle

Citations

• 60 Wash. 241
• 110 P. 1008
• 1910 Wash. LEXIS 1033

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Special Assessments — -Refunds—Recovery — Statutes—-Retroactive Law. Rem. & Bal. Code, § 7892, providing that any funds in tbe treasury of a city belonging to tbe fund of a local improvement district after the payment of the whole cost thereof, shall on demand be repaid to the payors of the fund in cases where the assessment roll had theretofore been filed as well as in cases where it had not been filed at the time of the passage of the act, was intended to be retroactive, and removes the bar of the statute of limitations for the recovery thereof, where the same was passed at the next session of the legislature after a decision of the supreme court upholding the two-year statute of limitations from the delinquency of the assessment as a reasonable one, the city having no moral right to the money, and the ascertainment of the amount often being postponed beyond the two-year period.</p> <p>Limitation of Actions — Removal of Bar — Constitutional Law— Due Process. The legislature has power by a retroactive law to take away the natural right of a municipal corporation to plead the statute of limitations against a moral claim which in good conscience it ought to pay; and the same does not violate the due process clause of the constitution.</p>