Godber v. City of Pasadena

PRESTON, J.

This appeal questions the validity of a reassessment made by the City of Pasadena under a street proceeding authorized by the 1903 Street Opening Act (Stats. 1903, p. 376, amended; Stats. 1913, p. 429). The regularity of the proceeding in every respect other than as to the power of the city to order this reassessment is conceded. The facts are undisputed, but the parties draw opposite deductions therefrom. The same principles of law are likewise relied upon by all parties but they differ as to their applicability or their application.

In 1923 the said city set about to open, extend and widen Oakland Avenue, a territory through a level area in about the center of the business district. After the construction of the new street, boundaries of the area benefited were established and a district organized and on April 28, 1925, the directors of the city confirmed the assessment upon the property of the district made presumably consonant with the degree of benefit bestowed by the new improvement. Plaintiff owned two parcels of land in this district, known on the assessment-roll as lots numbers 84 and 85. He paid the assessments of $239.72 and $930.49, respectively. Thereafter, and on the second day of June, 1925, the city, purporting to act under section 26a of said above-mentioned statute, as amended, passed a resolution declaring the assessment of April 28, 1925, invalid because unreasonable and not levied in proportion to the benefits derived. The assessment was

[92]

then set aside and a reassessment was ordered pursuant to said section. Thereafter said reassessment was confirmed by said city and recorded on August 15, 1925. Under it $3,000 was added to said lot number 84 and $4,000 to lot number 85, a total increase of $7,000.

Plaintiff thereupon sought by the complaint herein an injunction against the enforcement of said second assessment alleged to be invalid solely by reason of the preexisting assessment. There was no allegation of an entire lack of benefit nor was there any allegation that the second assessment was in any way disproportionate, unfair or arbitrary nor was there any allegation that said first assessment was itself just and fair. In other words, the complaint rests plaintiff’s cause solely upon the existence of said two assessments and the contention that the first assessment alone can be the valid one. The city answered but did not enlarge the issue nor did the intervener, a property owner in the district, who was allowed to become a party to the proceed- . ing. The trial was short. The case was submitted on a stipulation of facts which carried the issues no further than as made by the pleadings. No evidence was offered by either side to show that either assessment was or was not disproportionate to the benefits conferred. The evidence, therefore, sheds no additional light upon the subject.