Title Insurance & Trust Co. v. Bean

[712]

HOUSER, J.

In pursuance of a petition presented to the board of supervisors of Los Angeles County, which petition was signed by the plaintiff and each of fifteen other individual owners of respective pieces of real property, said board of supervisors, acting in accordance with the provisions of the so-called “Road District Improvement Act of 1907”, and statutes amendatory thereof (Stats. 1907, p. 806; Stats. 1921, p. 311), awarded a contract for the improvement of a road specified and described in the said petition. As its final act in connection with such improvement, said board of supervisors ordered the issuance of certain bonds in payment to the contractor for the work done by him or it in the completion of the contract, and which said bonds were thereupon issued and delivered to the contractor.

Although, as provided by the terms of the statute, as the proposed improvement progresses, as well as after its completion, an owner of real property affected by said proposed improvement is afforded an opportunity to object thereto and to have a hearing with reference to his objection before the board of supervisors—the record herein shows that at no time preceding the completion of the work of improvement, nor on any occasion until long after the bonds in payment of the work done had been delivered to the contractor, did the plaintiff offer or make any objection of any sort in connection with said improvement to said board of supervisors; nor was it until after a tax' or assessment had been levied against the property owned by the plaintiff for the purpose of collecting an installment or fixed portion of the cost of such improvement that the action herein was commenced by the plaintiff to quiet title to its said property as against the lien arising from such tax or assessment. It is from a judgment rendered in such action in favor of the defendants that this appeal is presented to this court.

The objections of appellant are directed to an error which occurred in the “Notice of Final Hearing” before the board of supervisors in the matter of the improvement, which error, in substance, is that the name of the contractor who performed the work was incorrectly stated in said notice of final hearing; also to the effect of the tax or assessment levied for the payment of the work of improvement, in that the total amount of the several levies of taxes or assess