Woodward v. City of Seattle
Decision Date | 30 July 1926 |
Docket Number | 19653. |
Citation | 248 P. 73,140 Wash. 83 |
Parties | WOODWARD v. CITY OF SEATTLE. |
Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, King County; D. H. Carey, Judge.
Action by Walter C. Woodward against the City of Seattle. From a judgment of dismissal, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Riddell & Brackett, of Seattle, for appellant.
Thos J. L. Kennedy, Geo. A. Meagher, and A. C. Van Soelen, all of Seattle, for respondent.
Appellant as plaintiff, brought this action to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the driver of a motor bus operated by the city of Seattle as a part of its municipally owned street railway system. A demurrer having been sustained to his complaint upon the theory that the operation of the bus was ultra vires, appellant filed an amended complaint, pleading, in addition to the facts originally alleged, the city ordinance pursuant to which the bus was operated. A demurrer was again interposed and sustained, the plaintiff elected to stand upon his amended complaint, and the action was dismissed.
The plaintiff, appealing here, presents for determination the question only of the power of the city to enact an ordinance establishing a motor bus service as incidental to the operation of its municipal street railway system.
The occurrence complained of took place on April 27, 1923, after the enactment, but before the taking effect, of chapter 173, Session Laws of 1923, which act expressly authorized the city to so operate motor busses. Hence anything here decided can affect only those causes of action which arose prior to June 7, 1923.
Under this authority the city has purchased and acquired a railway system which has served the city generally, but the city has grown and at the time in question there were parts of it inadquately served by the street railway. The people of the Beacon Hill district grouped together, purchased and operated a motor bus transporting passengers to and from the end of the municipal car line. Finding this undertaking burdensome, they proposed to donate their bus to the city if the city would operate it as theretofore operated. Thereupon the city enacted Ordinance No. 42350, the material portions of which are as follows:
Under this ordinance the city undertook to operate the bus, and while it was so doing the injury complained of occurred.
The appellant seems to contend that the state has imposed upon or granted to the city certain corporate functions, not only of a governmental but also of a corporate or business nature, to be exercised for the benefit of its citizens, and that a presumption of regularity attaches to its exercise of discretion in all such matters, or, as said in State v. Pitney, 79 Wash. 608, 612, 140 P. 918, 920 (Ann. Cas. 1916A, 209):
Conceding that to be a true expression of the rule as applied to the police power, the answer is that the police power is not here involved.
Admittedly the statutory grant of power we have quoted contains no express authority for the operation of motor busses, and to hold that such power is incidental or implied requires first a finding that it is necessary to the exercise of the powers expressly granted.
In State ex rel. Huggins v. Bridges, 97 Wash. 553, 166 P. 780, it was held that the municipality had only such implied powers as are indispensable to the declared objects and purposes of the district.
In State ex rel. Hill v. Port of Seattle, 104 Wash. 634, 638, 177 P. 671, 673, it was said:
'* * * The rule of construction is that any doubt as to the power of a municipal corporation must be resolved against the municipality--only such powers as are expressly granted, or such as are necessarily incident to its granted power, will be sustained, for the policy of the law has always been to limit, rather than to extend, the proprietary functions of a municipal corporation.'
The power granted by the statute is restricted to railways; and to say that the term 'railways' may be construed to include motor busses and motor bus routes is to say that the term also includes...
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...§ 53.60 (3d rev. ed. 1975). An ultra vires act is one performed without any authority to act on the subject. Woodward v. Seattle, 140 Wash. 83, 87, 248 P. 73 (1926). Here there is no plausible claim that the city did not have authority, through its building department, to issue building per......
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