Hinckley v. City of Seattle

132 P. 855, 74 Wash. 101, 1913 Wash. LEXIS 2005
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedJune 13, 1913
DocketNo. 11113
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 132 P. 855 (Hinckley v. City of Seattle) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hinckley v. City of Seattle, 132 P. 855, 74 Wash. 101, 1913 Wash. LEXIS 2005 (Wash. 1913).

Opinion

Chadwick, J.

— The material facts in this case are not disputed. The plaintiffs are the owners of a lot extending from Dexter avenue to Westlake avenue, in the city of Seattle. The lot slopes from Dexter avenue down to Westlake avenue. The city of Seattle condemned the right to raise the grade of Dexter avenue, to widen it 7 feet, and to make a bank with a slope of one and one-half to one on the property of the plaintiffs. Damages were assessed and paid by the city, and Dexter avenue was improved in accordance with the original plans and specifications. After the fill had been made, the earth that had been put into Dexter avenue began to sink, and was repeatedly filled by the city. In the meantime, plaintiffs had excavated that part of their lot abutting on Westlake avenue so as to make it level with that street. After a time Dexter avenue began to sink, and the fill on the Dexter avenue side of their property began to slide down hill, and the earth in that part of the lot that had been excavated or cut down to the street level bulged or buckled. The foundation of plaintiffs’ dwelling house was destroyed and the house had to be removed. We take it from the record that, barring the pushing down of the fill or bank and the buckling of that part of the lot which had been cut to the level of Westlake avenue, there was no great change in the contour of the land. Plaintiffs brought this action to recover damages. From a verdict in their favor, the city has appealed.

The first and principal contention of the city is that all of the issues raised in this case were adjudicated in the Dexter avenue regrade case, and that it is not liable for any damages which may have been caused by the weight of the fill imposed upon respondents’ property.

Undoubtedly the city believed, when it drew its plans for the regrade of Dexter avenue, that it had condemned enough land for the bank, and to sustain the fill it contemplated and [103]*103which, it thereafter made in Dexter avenue abutting plaintiffs’ property. Appellant invokes the rule that “all matters that were, should have been, might have been, or could have been raised in the condemnation proceedings are adjudicated and forever foreclosed by that judgment.” This may be admitted, but it does not answer the question whether a loss that neither party had any reason to anticipate and the possibility of which, if suggested, would have been rejected as speculative and conjectural by the trial court can now be compensated in damages. In the case brought by the Olympia Light & Power Co. v. Harris, 58 Wash. 410, 108 Pac. 940, the claimant undertook to show that a ridge which the company purposed to use as a retaining wall for the waters of a lake when raised to a higher level would not successfully retain the waters, but would permit of leakage or seepage. We said:

“As to whether it will or not is now conjectural, and must be until it is put to the desired use. If it then should be ascertained that it is ineffectual, respondents have their remedy in an action where the damage can be readily and easily determined from the physical facts then existing, and not as a matter of speculation and conjecture as it must now be.”

In the Dexter avenue condemnation, the city proceeded regularly. It condemned the right to raise the grade and to make a slope on plaintiffs’ property of one and one-half to one. It fixed this ratio because from experience it had found it to be sufficient. On the other hand, plaintiffs graded that part of their lot abutting on Westlake avenue to conform to the established grade. This was a lawful thing to do, a necessary thing to do if the property was to be made available, and a thing to be anticipated in the natural order of events. The thing that was not anticipated was the sinking of the fill in the street, which had to be backfilled for a long time, and which not only added to the weight of the fill as called for in the plan, but also pushed the slope further [104]*104down on plaintiffs’ property, and from some cause, or combination of causes, made the earth on the graded part of the lot buckle up. An engineering problem is presented. Manifestly a property owner should not be held to the doctrine of res judicata when he has failed to set up as an item of damages something that was not foreseen by the engineers who drew the plans for the improvement of Dexter avenue, or those who had charge of the work.

We find no hesitation in applying the doctrine of Casassa v. Seattle, 66 Wash. 146, 119 Pac. 13, to the facts in this case. There the city assumed that a one to one slope would be sufficient. The property owner moved his house back beyond the slope: “When the contractors for the city proceeded with the work of excavation, the slope was not sufficient to hold the soil, which on account of its character slid into the cut, and carried with it the houses, which were completely demolished.” A recovery was had, although it was argued, and with much force, that a plan for a one to one bank, taking into consideration the “character of the soil and it disposition to slide,” was patently deficient, and the consequent damages must have been considered by the jury. A condemnation must proceed along the lines marked out by the condemner; the property owner cannot anticipate, and will not be heard to speculate, upon possible consequences. They must be reasonably probable. Olympia Light & Power Co. v. Harris, supra. Having in mind these principles, we held that, where the “character of the soil” was such as to defeat the estimates and the opinions of the engineers, more land was occupied than was contemplated and that additional damages could be recovered. The damage sustained by plaintiffs may be justly attributed to a physical condition, the character of the underlying soil. The case of Provine v. Seattle, 59 Wash. 681, 110 Pac. 619, is also relied on. In that case the trespass was wilful and the verdict could have been sustained in any event; it may, however, be considered [105]*105as authority to sustain the holding that a city cannot take more than it has paid for.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company “by authority of law,” which we may assume for the purposes of this case is the power of eminent domain, proceeded to construct a connecting line over an embankment between two points on its main track for the purpose of avoiding a dangerous and expensive curve. The company put into the embankment or fill about 160,000 cubic yards of earth and other filling, when the surface of property owned by an abutting owner irregularly upheaved so that his building was almost completely wrecked and was deserted by his tenants. It was the theory of the complainant that the upheaval was due to the deposit of filling material upon soft ground; that the silt and mud were thereby forced back upon adjacent property, “or that the filling material itself moves upon and through the mud, under the surface of his lot and up through that surface, and he insists that from one or the other or both of these causes the surface of the lot has been and is being disturbed.” The right to recover damages in such a case is admitted. Herbert v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 43 N. J. Eq. 21, 10 Atl. 872.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
132 P. 855, 74 Wash. 101, 1913 Wash. LEXIS 2005, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hinckley-v-city-of-seattle-wash-1913.