Seattle’s Street-Grade Tax Test Case

Court activity has increased recently over defenses to street-grade assessments, and on motion day Corporation Counsel and other attorneys representing the city had cases on the calendar. Yesterday Judge Langley overruled a demurrer in one of the cases. The case will become a test of a material issue and will undoubtedly be carried to the Supreme Court.

In this case, as in many others, the improvement was ordered while the old city charter was in force but was not completed until after the adoption of the freeholders’ charter in 1890. The difference is that formerly assessments were made upon valuation, but now they are made upon the front foot of abutting property. The city contends that the laws in force when the grading contract was entered into became part of the contract, and that the assessment was properly made by the city under the old system. The contract’s property owner maintains that the old charter expired on adoption of the new one, and that as the lien did not attach until the assessment was made, it should have been made under the charter of 1890, which, according to the Supreme Court’s decision in the famous Wilson case, had entirely superseded the old charter.

The result will determine the legality of assessments upon a number of streets, and the city has won the first victory. The case was argued two weeks ago by Pratt for the city and by counsel for the defendant, and Judge Langley directed them to submit briefs before he ruled in favor of the plaintiff. Seven suits were dismissed, plaintiffs having been paid or the actions adjusted out of court. They involved assessments on Olive, Rainier, Dexter and other streets.