Hillman v. City of Seattle

• Decision Date: 21 September 1903
• Citation: 33 Wash. 14,73 P. 791
• Parties: HILLMAN v. CITY OF SEATTLE.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

73 P. 791

33 Wash. 14

HILLMAN v. CITY OF SEATTLE.

Supreme Court of Washington

September 21, 1903

Appeal from Superior Court, King County; Boyd J. Tallman, Judge.

Suit by Clarence D. Hillman against the city of Seattle to enjoin the enforcement of an ordinance. From a judgment for defendant plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Frederick R. Burch, for appellant.

M. Gilliam and Wm. Parmerlee, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiff was the owner of certain lands within the city limits of the city of Seattle, and was engaged in the business of platting and recording and selling lots therein. The complaint alleges that he platted certain of said lands into lots and blocks and presented said plat to the city council for its approval and that the city council, acting under the authority of Ordinance No. 2,593, entitled 'An ordinance to regulate the manner and form of making and approving and filing plats of additions or subdivisions of land within the city, and plats of additions to the city of Seattle within and without the city,' refused to approve the same, for the alleged reason that the conditions precedent, as provided in said ordinance, had not been complied with; and the city threatened to prosecute said plaintiff if he filed said plat with the county auditor without its said approval. Plaintiff brought this action to enjoin the enforcement of said ordinance against him on the ground that the same was ultra vires, void, and inoperative, and that its enforcement would seriously damage him in his said business. A demurrer to the complaint or petition was sustained, and the action dismissed. Plaintiff appeals.

Respondent maintains strenuously that injunction will not lie to prevent the enforcement of a penal ordinance, and, as a general rule this is admitted to be true, especially with regard to the enforcement of strictly police regulations; but it is insisted by appellant that this is not a police regulation, notwithstanding a penalty is fixed for each violation thereof. The great difficulty of passing upon the constitutionality of an ordinance or statute in a proceeding to prevent its enforcement is that it compels the court and council to anticipate in a great measure its possible effects on individual rights and constitutional safeguards, and decisions under such circumstances could hardly be taken as reliable precedents for future cases. It seems to us, however, that a person who has valuable property rights at stake ought not to be required or expected to submit to the odium of being dragged into a criminal court before being permitted to take steps to protect these rights. But the court will not, in an action of this kind, pass upon any more of said ordinance than is squarely before it and absolutely necessary to a decision of the case. The parts of the ordinance complained of are sections 747-750 of the Municipal Code of 1902, and are as follows:

'Sec. 747. Before any plat of any addition or subdivision of any land within the limits of the city of Seattle, or any plat purporting to embrace an addition to the city of Seattle, whether covering lands within or without the city limits, shall be filed for record in the office of the auditor of King County, such plat shall be first submitted by the person or persons making the same to the city council for approval.

'Sec 748. When any such plat is so submitted to the city council the same shall be referred to the city engineer and thereupon it shall be the duty of the city engineer to examine the same and to make such actual surveys of the land described in the plat as will enable him to certify to its correctness and to report to the city council the matters specified in this section. The city engineer shall report to the city council whether the streets and alleys marked on such plat are of proper width and coincide with other streets and alleys, or extensions of the same abutting on the land so platted, and...