Tennent v. City of Seattle

Citations

• 83 Wash. 108
• 145 P. 83
• 1914 Wash. LEXIS 1596

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Ordinances — Requisites — Passage— Validity. The charter requirement of a city that an ordinance shall not be passed at the meeting at which it is introduced cannot be evaded by the subterfuge of first introducing what purported to be an ordinance, but which was without body or parts, and could only have been intended as the title to an ordinance subsequently to be written, and at the next meeting of the council introducing a completed ordinance with substantially the same title but containing various other matters not embraced within the title first introduced.</p> <p>Same — Contracts—Authority—Invalid Ordinance. A contract deriving its sanction wholly from an ordinance of a city is invalid, where the charter prescribed that no ordinance should be passed at the same meeting at which it was introduced, and this provision was violated by the council.</p> <p>Same — Bonds—Submission to Vote — Invalid Ordinance — Ratification. Where a city charter makes an ordinance an essential to the institution of proceedings to submit a bond issue to a vote of the people, and the ordinance submitting the matter is invalid, the bonds are not rendered valid by the fact that the incurrence of the indebtedness was approved by the electors of the city at the election subsequently held under such ordinance.</p> <p>Same — Ordinance — Passage — Validity — Determination by Courts. The courts are not deprived of their right to inquire into the manner in which city ordinances are introduced and passed, upon the principle that the enrolled bill is in itself conclusive evidence of regularity in its passage, as in the case of legislative acts; since the city is not one of the three coordinate branches of the government, but is only exercising delegated authority in a prescribed manner, and an authority must be exercised to see that the city performs its functions in such manner.</p> <p>Same — Control Over Streets — Statutory Provisions. An agreement with, or consent of