Empire Securities Co. v. Levy

KOFORD, J.,

pro tem.

This is an appeal by defendant from a judgment in favor of plaintiff foreclosing a lien against defendant’s lot for a street work assessment. The street work was done and the assessment was levied under authority of the San Francisco Street Improvement Act of 1913, enacted pursuant to the provisions of the city charter. The lot involved was assessed for general taxation purposes for the fiscal year 1915-16 at $160. The street assessment foreclosed against it amounted to $571.48. The lot has a frontage upon the street improved of seventy-eight feet five inches, and a depth of only twenty-five feet three-fourths inch, and appears to have had an assessed value proportionately lower than neighboring lots. The assessment was made payable in six annual installments, so it results that not only the, assessment but also each annual installment amounts to more than fifty per cent of the assessed value of the lot. It is this fact upon which appellant bases his contentions for a reversal of the judgment. The improvement act and the charter expressly forbid an assessment of over fifty per cent of the assessed value of the lot, and

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provide that in case it does exceed this limit the assessment shall be divided into annual installments not exceeding ten in'number. .It is the contention of appellant that the act in question should be given an interpretation forbidding any one installment in excess of the fifty per cent limit, even though there is no express provision to this effect.

The charter of the city and county of San Francisco, subdivision 3, section 8, article VI, chapter 2 (Stats. 1899, p. 297), contains the following provision: “No assessment shall be levied upon any property, which together with all assessments for street improvements that may have been levied upon the same property during the year next preceding, will amount to a sum greater than fifty per cent of the value at which said property was assessed upon the last preceding assessment-book of the city and county.”

In 1913, article VI, chapter • 2, section 33 of the charter was amended (December 10, 1912, approved by legislature March 28, 1913—-Stats. 1913, p. 1602), providing for the passage of an improvement ordinance, for the payment of installments, and also provided: “In any proceeding for the improvement of streets wherein provision is made for the payment of any assessment in annual installments, the amount of such assessment shall not be limited by the provisions contained in subdivision 3 of section 8 of this chapter.”