Wells v. Wood

Vanclief, C. Action to enforce lien of street assessment in the sum of one hundred and one dollars and forty-six cents for labor and material performed and furnished by plaintiff’s assignor under contract with the superintendent of streets in improving Mission street, in the city of San Francisco, from Courtland avenue to West avenue. The judgment was in favor of the plain[256]tiff for the sum demanded, and defendant appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

1. On the trial defendant proved that the portion of Mission street to which said contract related had been graded, curbed, and macadamized to official grade in March, 1877, about fourteen years prior to the letting of the contract in question; and also proved that in 1888, by order of the board of supervisors, that part of Mission street involved in this action had been widened by adding sixteen and a-half feet to the eastern side thereof. On June 1, 1891, the board of supervisors passed a resolution of intention to order the improvement in question, describing it as follows: “ That Mission street, from Courtland avenue to West avenue, be graded to the official line and grade, that redwood curbs and rock gutterways be laid thereon, and that the roadway and sidewalks thereof be macadamized.” In all the subsequent proceedings, including the contract, the improvement was described as in the resolution of intention, except that certain specifications, in accordance with general orders of the board, were added to the contract.

The principal ground upon which appellant claims a reversal of the judgment is that the improvements were not properly nor sufficiently described in the resolution of intention nor in the subsequent proceedings; that while the work done on the addition of sixteen and one-half feet to the east side of the street may have been grading and macadamizing, that done on the old part of the street was regrading and remacadamizing, and should have been so denominated.

Waiving other possible answers to this objection, I think the description of the proposed work was sufficient. The substantial nature of the work of grading and that of regrading is the same, namely, grading. The latter is only a repetition of the former. The statute requires only a description of the work; that is to say, an intelligible description sufficient to notify owners of lots [257]