Warren v. Chandos

Citations

• 115 Cal. 382
• 47 P. 132
• 1896 Cal. LEXIS 1021

Syllabus

<p>Street Assessment — Improvement not Specified in Resolution or Contract — Change of Grade by Supervisors — Cost of Filling Lessened—Power of Supervisors.—The supervisors have no power to authorize a change in the amount of assessment constituting a lien, by increasing or diminishing the work to be. done by a contractor for a street improvement, and where they lowered the grade of a street after the letting of a contract under a resolution of intention to fill it to a higher grade, the improvement to fill it to the lower grade not being specified in the resolution of intention, nor in the contract, the supervisors had no jurisdiction to order such improvement, and there was no contract therefor, and no basis for a valid assessment for such improvement.</p> <p>Id.—Proceedings in Invitum — Equity—Statutory Power—Validity of Assessment.—Proceedings for the improvement of streets are in invitum, and purely statutory, and afford no opportunity for invoking any of the principles of equity, and the validity of the assessment therefor depends upon the exercise of a statutory power, and the party seeking the right to enforce it must show that the statutory power has been strictly pursued.</p> <p>Id.—Appeal to Supervisors Unnecessary.—Where an assessment is rendered invalid by a change in the official grade of a street after the letting of a contract to the official line, the lotowners need not appeal to the board of supervisors for a correction of the assessment, and there is no error in such case which could be corrected on appeal.</p> <p>Id.—General Power of Supervisors—Effect of Change of Grade —. Annulment of Contract.— The supervisors, having general ^ower over all improvements of streets, and to fix and change the official grade or width thereof, and to rescind a previous order for the improvement of a street, the effect of an order changing the line of the official grade of a street, after a contract has been let for the grading thereof, under a prior resolution of