In re Northlake Ave.

• Decision Date: 18 May 1917
• Docket Number: 13736.
• Citation: 165 P. 113,96 Wash. 344
• Parties: In re NORTHLAKE AVE. v. CITY OF SEATTLE. WAYLAND et al.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

165 P. 113

96 Wash. 344

In re NORTHLAKE AVE.

WAYLAND et al. v. CITY OF SEATTLE.

No. 13736.

Supreme Court of Washington

May 18, 1917

Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, King County; Boyd J. Tallman Judge.

Condemnation proceedings by the City of Seattle, opposed by Margaret Wayland and others. From the judgment the named defendant and others appeal. Judgment offirmed.

Carkeek & McDonald, of Seattle, for appellants.

Hugh M Caldwell, Walter F. Meier, and Howard A. Hanson, all of Seattle, for respondent.

FULLERTON J.

The city of Seattle by ordinance provided for widening and extending a street situated within its boundaries known in the record as Northlake avenue. The work required taking and damaging certain tracts of land owned in severalty by a number of persons. This action was brought to condemn the necessary land and to ascertain the just compensation required to be paid to the several owners. Among the tracts of land taken and damaged were tracts belonging to the appellants in this action, who appeal because dissatisfied with the award made them. The errors assigned all relate to rulings of the court excluding evidence offered to show the value of the property taken.

The appellants, Wayland, Monks, and Magnesia Asbestos Supply Company, in presenting their case to the jury offered in evidence the assessment roll of King county showing the values placed on their properties by the county assessor, and the values upon which they had paid taxes, for some five years immediately prior to the trial. The rejection of this proffered testimony is the first error assigned. The appellants concede the general rule, that tax rolls are not competent evidence of the value of property in actions not pertaining to the question of taxation, where value is the sole issue sought to be proved, but they contend for an exception to the general rule. They rely on the fact that it is the city of Seattle which is condemning, and that the city has had a part in making up these assessment rolls, in that it has had a representative on the county board of equalization during the period of time covered by the proffered rolls. In other words, it is contended that the rolls were admissible as declarations against interest. There are cases, from jurisdictions where the property holder is required by law to file with the assessor a sworn statement showing the character of the property owned by him with an estimate of its value, which hold that such sworn statement is competent evidence, in an action between the owner and a stranger when the value of the property is an issue, to contradict the owner and as a declaration against interest; but the cases on the question, even as thus limited, are by no means uniform. However, we think the rule, if conceded, could have no application to the question here presented. The city as the representative of the public performs many functions, more or less widely related, acting through separate and independent officers, and it may be questioned, we think, whether the acts and declarations of its officers in the performance of one of such functions could, in any case, be evidence against it while in the performance of another. But clearly it cannot be so when the functions are so distinct that its acts in the one in no manner stultify or annul its acts in another. Had the city in the present instance called its assessing officers as witnesses, and had they testified in contradiction of the assessment rolls, doubtless the appellants could have questioned them concerning their former representations, and, had they remained obstinate, could have introduced the rolls to contradict them, or they could have made their own witnesses and taken their opinions as to the values of the property. But the assessment rolls were not independent evidence of the values of the property on the issue as here presented.

Again in this jurisdiction the assessor places his own values on real property for the purposes of taxation. It is a matter of common knowledge, of which the courts can take judicial notice, that the valuations placed thereon by such officers for such purposes are relative rather than actual, that the functions of the board of equalization are not to correct insufficient or excessive valuations as a whole, but are to correct erroneous valuations as applied to an individual or a community of individuals, so that the individual or the community of individuals are not called upon to bear either more or less than their just proportion of the burden of taxation.

For these reasons, and for the further reason that the evidence is at best but secondary, the courts maintain the rule that assessment rolls are not independent evidence of the market value of real property in cases where such market value is the sole question at issue. The principles apply to the present case, and the court did not err in its rulings.

The appellant Magnesia Asbestos Supply Company makes the further contention that the court erred in refusing to permit it to show that its land had an additional value by reason of the fact that it owned adjacent shore lands abutting upon outlet. This land gave the land a water outlet. This land was separated from the lands a part of which was taken by a street and was not included as lands taken or damaged in the petition to condemn. The tracts were not used in common, and the most that could be said concerning them is that they could be so used by making use of the intervening street. The general rule is that it is only the tract of land physically invaded that can be considered in assessing either damages or benefits. In re Queen Anne Boulevard, 77 Wash. 91, 137 P. 435,...