Hanson v. Board of Trustees

California Court of Appeal Oct 16, 1925 No. Docket No. 5128.Published

Before: Cashin

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Holding. The court held that the Board of Trustees' determination of special benefits for an assessment district is conclusive absent fraud or an abuse of discretion, and that the trial court properly excluded irrelevant or hearsay evidence.

Issues

Whether the trial court erred in striking portions of the complaint alleging probative facts rather than ultimate facts.
Whether the trial court properly excluded evidence regarding other assessment districts, hearsay testimony, and expert opinions on property values.
Whether the Board of Trustees abused its discretion in ordering the improvements.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“the determination by the trustees of a municipality that the property included in the district will be specially benefited is conclusive in the absence of fraud or such an abuse of discretion as is equivalent to fraud”

“the absence of benefit cannot be a judicial question unless the fact found by the Board be unsupported by evidence”

[587]

CASHIN, J.

An action was brought by C. H. Hanson and Lucretia K. Hanson, appellants herein, against respondents R. C. Ward, W. H. Derr, C. B. Hatch, O. C. Cappelman, and R. L. Hemingway, who were on December 11, 1923, the members of the Board of Trustees of the Town of Mill Valley, a municipal corporation of the sixth class, and Frank C. Melntire, the contractor for the work of constructing certain improvements hereinafter mentioned, to have declared void the proceedings leading to the award of a contract therefor and to enjoin further action thereunder.

Respondent Board on December 11,1923, adopted a resolution of intention to order certain work to be done and improvements to be made in the grading and paving of certain streets within the town in accordance with plans and specifications therefor adopted on the same date, the expense of the improvement, .as provided in the resolution, to be charged upon a district thereby created, declared therein to be .benefited by the improvement and to be known as Assessment District No. Six, it being therein provided that the proposed work should be done pursuant to the act known as the Improvement Act of 1911 (Stats. 1911, p. 730), and amendments thereto, and therein fixed a day on which objections to the proposed improvement might be made and of which due and legal notice was given.

On the day fixed appellants, who were the owners of a certain lot within the assessment district, filed in writing their objections to the proposed improvement. Thereafter at an adjourned meeting respondent Trustees overruled the objections and ordered the improvement to be made in accordance with the resolution of intention. A contract was thereafter entered into with respondent Melntire for the construction thereof, and the action mentioned was brought, appellants alleging therein that the Trustees failed to consider the objections made, acted contrary to and against the evidence, that their order overruling such objections was an abuse of discretion in that they “well knew and believed that the benefit derived from such improvement would be far less than the assessment to be imposed.”

[588]

Hanson v. Board of Trustees

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CASHIN, J.

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