The Grading Debt That Never Was
A judge rules that Seattle property owners don't have to pay for street improvements that the city never actually finished.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Judge Langley rendered a decision in the South Twelfth Street grade tax case, declaring the assessment invalid. Property owners contested the assessment on the grounds that the work was never completed according to the contract and ordinance. The city admitted the nullity of the first attempt but argued it had the right to reassess under an amendment to the charter. Judge Langley disagreed, noting that the city's process—ordering the work, letting contracts, and assessing liens without any mechanism for property owners to appeal or protest—was not 'due process of law.' Because the street remained unfinished and impassable, the court vacated the liens and granted a perpetual injunction against the city's attempts to collect the assessment.
“If the city accepts unfinished work as performance, it ought not to expect property owners willingly to pay the contract price.”
This 1894 case captures an early, combative chapter in the history of Seattle's Local Improvement Districts (LIDs). The tension between city officials pushing regrades and property owners fighting back against assessments for work that failed to materialize remains a defining theme of Seattle's civic development.
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