In re West Wheeler St.
| Decision Date | 17 April 1915 |
| Docket Number | 12210. |
| Parties | In re WEST WHEELER ST. v. ANKENY et al. CITY OF SEATTLE |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, King County; J. T. Ronald Judge.
In the matter of West Wheeler Street, City of Seattle. From an order referring the entire assessment roll to the eminent domain commission on the complaint of R. V. Ankeny and others, the City of Seattle appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions.
Jas. E. Bradford, Howard A. Hanson, and C. B White, all of Seattle, for appellant.
Hastings & Stedman, Raymond D. Ogden, R. E. Thompson, Jr., and Peters & Powell, all of Seattle, for respondents.
This is the second appeal touching a special assessment roll made by the eminent domain commissioners of the city of Seattle. The opinion on the first appeal (In re West Wheeler Street, in City of Seattle, 77 Wash. 3, 137 P. 303), presents a full statement as to the physical conditions of the district. It there appears that the district included two physically separate improvements; one consisting of a roadway leading from Fifteenth Avenue West to Seventeenth Avenue West located on what is there designated as the 'lowlands,' and not benefiting the 'highlands' on Magnolia Bluff; the other an overhead roadway extending from Fifteenth Avenue West, northwesterly across and above the lowlands, and benefiting the highlands only. It was there found that the cost of the lowland roadway to the extent of about $30,000--the exact amount now appears to be $33,554.09--was erroneously assessed to the highlands. All of the highland owners did not appeal from the order confirming the original roll, but only owners the principal of whose assessments amounted to $18,474.75. They were successful in the former appeal, and this court remanded the roll for revision.
After confirmation the original roll, except as to the specific properties and assessments involved in the former appeal, was certified to the city treasurer for collection as provided by the statute. Rem. & Bal. Code, § 7798. The city treasurer then fixed and gave notice of the time when such assessments might be paid without interest or penalty ending June 11 1913, after which interest and penalty attached as provided by law. All of the assessments not involved in the original appeal have now been paid, most of them within the time fixed by the treasurer's notice, some after delinquency, but before sale, and some by a sale and issuance of certificates of purchase of the property assessed.
Pending the first appeal certain of the original appellants voluntarily paid the principal sum of their assessments to the treasurer, who marked the same paid upon the assessment roll which was in his possession. In remanding the cause, department 2 of this court, as then constituted, said in its opinion:
'The judgment of the lower court is therefore reversed, and the cause remanded, with instruction to revise the assessment so that the cost of the street which is solely for the benefit of the lowlands shall be assessed thereto and deducted from the assessment upon the highlands and lands not benefited thereby.'
Counsel for the city, construing that language under the statute governing such appeals as of necessity applying only to such specific assessments as had been appealed from and the appeal from which had not been waived by payment in full, prepared an order revising the assessment roll as to such assessments alone. That order was prepared upon the theory that each of the appellants, except such as had waived the appeal by payment, is entitled to reduction of his specific assessment in the proportion that the total cost of the disputed item, $33,554.09, bears to the total principal of the assessments levied upon the highlands, $116, 447.65. The former of these amounts is 28.815 per cent. of the latter. (These figures are not disputed; hence we assume that they are correct.) The order presented by the city therefore reduced each of the specific assessments appealed from in the original roll, excepting those which had been paid pending the appeal, in this 28.815 per cent. thereof, by a mere mathematical computation, confirmed the assessments so reduced, but left the original roll undisturbed as to all other assessments, and directed the eminent domain commissioners to reassess the property actually benefited by the improvement to make up the deficiency created by such reduction.
At the hearing, when this order was presented, the court, over the objection of the city, permitted property owners who had not appealed from the original judgment confirming the roll and others who had appealed, but had voluntarily paid their assessments according to that roll, to appear by attorney and object to the entry of this order. The court, construing the opinion of this court on the first appeal as a direction to that effect, re-referred the entire roll to the eminent domain commission to recast the same by omitting from the assessment against all of the highlands the amount which should have been assessed against the lowlands alone, which the court apparently found to be $30,973.10, and assess the same against the lowlands, which are solely benefited thereby, and report the amended roll back to the court for further action. The city appeals.
There is but one question presented: Should the decision of this court on the first appeal be construed literally as reversing the entire judgment of confirmation, thus necessitating a recasting of the entire roll, or should it be construed as reversing that judgment only in so far as it related to the properties of the owners who appealed from that judgment?
A judgment of any court only speaks with reference to the parties and their privies. Where its terms are general, they will be construed as confined to such parties and privies. 1 Freeman, Judgments (4th Ed.) § 155.
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