Peter R. Gadd, Inc. v. Workman

RICHARDS, J.

The petitioner herein has applied for a writ of mandate wherein it seeks to compel the respondents, the city council of the city of Los Angeles and the members thereof, to confirm a certain assessment made in the course of a certain street improvement proceeding within what is known as the Adams Street and Smiley Drive Improvement District, which improvement had been initiated and thus far carried forward under and in pursuance of the “Improvement Act of 1911” [Stats. 1911, p. 730], and its subsequent supplementary or amendatory enactments. Said public improvement had been initiated through the adoption by the respondents of an ordinance of intention on the fifteenth day of May, 1925, and had proceeded thereunder up to the time when the assessment therefor had been filed with the city clerk and the notice to property owners required by said original and amendatory acts had been given by said official, fixing the twelfth day of July, 1926, as the time when property owners would be heard before said city council upon their appeals from said assessment and objections to the confirmation thereof. The regularity of the proceedings thus far taken in the course of the progress of said improvement and in the levy of said assessment is not an issue in the proceeding before us, since the petitioner herein is here insisting that the re

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spondents by their action in denying the appeals of the property owners at the hearing upon said last-named date have thereby confirmed said assessment, and hence of necessity the regularity of the proceedings upon which it was predicated. The respondents are not here making any contention as to the irregularity of the proceedings upon which said assessment was based, but only that the regularity and legality of said assessment has not yet been finally determined. The sole question presented upon the hearing herein relates to the action of said city council taken upon the hearing before it upon said last-named date with respect to the objections and appeals of the property owners then presented and to the finality of its action in that regard. Section 21 of the Improvement Act of 1911, as amended in 1923 [Stats. 1923, p. 113], provides for the making and filing with the city clerk by the street superintendent or “city engineer of his assessment made in the course of the improvement in question, and provides for giving notice of the filing of such assessment by said official to all interested parties in order that those who feel themselves aggrieved by the burden of said assessment or by any errors or informalities in the proceeding upon which the same has been based may appeal to the city council by briefly stating in writing the grounds of their said appeal. At the time fixed in said notice for the hearing or hearings upon such appeals said section provides that the city council shall proceed to hear and determine the same. Said section further provides that “When no appeal is taken, or when the orders and determinations of the council upon appeal have been complied with, and the council is satisfied with the correctness of the assessment, thereupon the street superintendent shall attach thereto a warrant bearing date of said order of said city council.” Pursuant to the provisions of said act said city council proceeded to hold the meeting provided for in said notice and to hear the appeals and objections of the property owners then or theretofore presented and filed. There were a large number of such appeals, wherein many and various reasons were presented by the respective property owners objecting to stich assessment. The president of the city council instructed the clerk to proceed with the reading of these separate appeals, and as each appeal was read a hearing was had