State ex rel. Wauconda Investment Co. v. Superior Court

Citations

• 68 Wash. 660
• 124 P. 127
• 1912 Wash. LEXIS 1348

Syllabus

<p>Eminent Domain — Power—Authority of County — Statutes— Construction. Under the rule that counties have only such powers as are conferred by statute, and that statutes of eminent domain, being in derogation of common right, are to be strictly construed, a county has no power to condemn lands within a city of the first class for a public wharf or dock, not connected with a county road; since a wharf is in no sense a county road; Rem. & Bal. Code, § 8114, limiting the right of eminent domain to wharf sites at the terminus of county roads and not within the limits of first-class tide lands.</p> <p>• Same. Such power is not conferred by the act of 1911, p. 8, authorizing a county to sell bonds in aid of enterprises undertaken by the state or county in aid of commerce and the “acquisition” of canals, docks, wharves, etc., the act not expressly conferring the power of eminent domain, and the power never being implied from the power to “acquire.”</p> <p>Same. Laws 1895, eh. 2, passed for the single purpose of permitting King county to condemn a right of way for the Lake Washington Canal, and granting the power of eminent domain expressly limited to the purposes mentioned in the first section, cannot he extended hy implication to authorize a county to exercise the right of eminent domain to acquire a public wharf or dock, under Laws 1911, p. 3, providing for county aid to certain state and Federal enterprises in aid of commerce and the acquisition of docks and wharves, which contains no grant of the right of eminent domain.</p>