Gately v. Bateman

California Supreme Court Apr 15, 1881 No. No. 6708Published

Before: McKinstry

AI Brief

AI-generated · verify before citing

Holding. The court held that the street assessments were invalid because the superintendent failed to follow the statutory requirement to assess lots proportionally based on total frontage, instead improperly attempting to charge individual lots for specific work done in front of them.

Issues

Whether the superintendent's assessment method, which charged individual lots for specific work rather than proportionally by frontage, complied with the governing statute.
Whether the failure to distinctly describe and include all lots within the assessment district rendered the assessments void.
Whether the assessments for 'old' and 'new' sidewalks were legally valid under the statute.

Disposition. reversed and remanded

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“It has been repeatedly held by this court that each lot assessed must be distinctly described upon the diagram.”

“The law does not authorize any such discrimination, or any departure from the mode it prescribes.”

“The superintendent disregarded the whole scheme of the statute.”

Synopsis

Street Assessment—Sufficiency of Description.—Where the board of supervisors declare their intention that sidewalks on a street be reconstructed, and one lot with a frontage of eighty-six feet is charged in the assessment for new sidewalks with only thirty-nine feet, there being nothing in the assessment or diagram indicating which particular thirty-nine feet is made subject to assessment or that such thirty-nine feet are separately assessed, the description is insufficient.1

Street Assessment—Charging Lots Separately.—The superintendent of streets has no power to charge each separate lot with the work done in front of it; if sidewalks between certain termini are ordered reconstructed, all the lots fronting on the street are to be treated as benefited in the proportion that each bears to the whole frontage.

Street Assessments—Separate Charges for Old and New Sidewalks.—The superintendent of streets has no power to make separate assessments on lots for old and new sidewalks, but the assessment must be to each lot for a share of the whole expense of reconstruction in the proportion its frontage bears to the whole.

Street Assessment—Necessity of Appeal to Supervisors.—A property owner is not bound to appeal to the 'board of supervisors to have a void assessment annulled.

McKINSTRY, J. This is a suit to foreclose street assessment in San Francisco.

[114]The board of supervisors declared their intention and ordered that the sidewalks on Leavenworth street from Pacific to Jackson streets be “reconstructed.”

Lot 8 on which it is sought to enforce the assessments— is represented on the diagram accompanying the assessments with a frontage of eighty-six feet nine and one-quarter inches. It is charged in the assessment for “new sidewalks” with thirty-nine feet, but there is nothing in the assessment or diagram to indicate which thirty-nine feet of the eighty-six feet nine and one-quarter inches is made subject to the assessment, and nothing in the diagram indicating that thirty-nine feet of the frontage is separately assessed for any work. The statute requires that the diagram shall show the number of front feet assessed “for work contracted for and performed”—shall show each lot assessed: Laws 1871-72, p. 313. It has been repeatedly held by this court that each lot assessed must be distinctly described upon the diagram.

An objection to the proceedings of the superintendent, at least equally weighty, is based on his attempt to charge each separate lot with the work done in front of it. It may be seriously doubted whether a law which should provide such a distribution of the burden would be constitutional: Wood-bridge v. Detroit, 8 Mich. 301; People v. Mayor of Brooklyn, 4 N. Y. 419. But whether the legislature has power thus to provide, it has not thus provided by the law under which the attempt is made to justify these assessments.

As we have seen, the board of supervisors ordered that the sidewalks between certain termini should be ‘ ‘ reconstructed. ’ ’ The evident purpose of the statute is to treat such a reconstruction as of benefit to all the lots of land fronting upon the street—in proportion to the whole frontage of each lot: Act of April 1, 1872, passim; Stats. 1871-72, p. 804. The mere fact that more expense or labor is required in making good the sidewalk opposite a particular lot would constitute no sufficient reason why the law should require that lot to pay more than its ratable proportion of the expense of reconstructing the whole sidewalk. It is enough to say, however, that the law does not authorize any such discrimination, or any departure from the mode it prescribes. Yet the superintendent distributed the expense of reconstructing the sidewalks into two assessments, one for “new” and one for

Gately v. Bateman

AI Brief

Synopsis

More from California Supreme Court

Related research

AI Brief