Thorberg v. City of Hoquiam

Citations

• 77 Wash. 679
• 138 P. 304
• 1914 Wash. LEXIS 963

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Improvements—Change of Grade — Liability — Evidence—Sufficiency. A city establishes a grade, which it cannot thereafter change without paying for the consequential damages to abutting property, where by formal resolution and contract, it improved the street by clearing and grading it to its full width and building a plank road with sidewalks on both sides; the presumption being that a grade was adopted, a formal ordinance establishing a grade not being necessary.</p> <p>Same — Improvements — Permanency. A plank roadway sixteen feet wide must be presumed to be a permanent and not a temporary improvement, where the work was done on the special assessment plan and the cost charged to property in the district, and where the intent to grade the street was clearly manifest.</p> <p>Same — Improvements—Liability for Change of Grade — Remedies of Owner — Injunction — Damages. Where property owners permitted a city to prosecute street improvement work until it was nearly completed, they cannot enjoin the work on the ground that they had not been paid damages by reason of a change of grade; their only remedy being recovery of the damages at law.</p>