Portland General Electric Co. v. City of Estacada

241 P.2d 1129, 194 Or. 145, 1952 Ore. LEXIS 180
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 5, 1952
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 241 P.2d 1129 (Portland General Electric Co. v. City of Estacada) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Portland General Electric Co. v. City of Estacada, 241 P.2d 1129, 194 Or. 145, 1952 Ore. LEXIS 180 (Or. 1952).

Opinions

LATOURETTE, J.

Appeal by the city of Estacada from a decree restraining and enjoining it from including within its boundaries the “River Mill Plant” belonging to plaintiff which the city sought to annex under ch. 210, Oregon Laws 1949. The decree held that the annexation proceedings were void as to plaintiff’s property since they were instituted for the sole purpose of taxing plaintiff’s land and were unreasonable and unlawful, and also enjoined the assessor and the sheriff from assessing the property and collecting taxes on it, respectively.

The city’s first proposition, raised on appeal for the first time by a challenge to the sufficiency of the com[147]*147plaint, is that quo warranto would be plaintiff’s sole remedy and that an injunction suit will not lie. The following cases are authority for the propriety of an injunction suit to test the validity of annexation proceedings: Thurber v. McMinnville, 63 Or 410, 128 P 43; Landless v. City of Cottage Grove, 64 Or 155, 129 P 537; Couch v. Marvin, 67 Or 341, 136 P 6; Cooke v. Portland, 69 Or 572, 139 P 1095; Spence v. Watson, 182 Or 233, 186 P2d 785.

The city contends that on authority of State ex rel. v. Port of Tillamook, 62 Or 332, 124 P 637, quo warranto is the exclusive remedy to attack an annexation proceeding. In that case we held that quo warranto is a proper proceeding, but we did not hold that it was exclusive.

The city further urges that the above cases are distinguishable from the case at bar because in those cases the proceedings were declared void in that the cities did not comply with some essential procedural requirement. This contention is not accurate since, in several of the cases above cited, the annexation was attacked on grounds other than the validity of the machinery leading up to the election. It is true, however, that none of the cases went so far as to hold that a suit in equity would be proper in a proceeding of this kind where it was necessary to consider matters aliunde the record.

There is respectable authority in the early Oregon cases for the proposition that where a corporation is de facto rather than de jure quo warranto is the sole remedy. Since there is a wide cleavage of opinion among the members of this court as to which remedy is appropriate in the present case, we are of the opinion that on the record made we may treat this as one for [148]*148a declaratory judgment under § 6-602, OCLA, which follows:

“* * * Any person interested under a deed, will, written contract or other writings constituting a contract, or whose rights, status or other legal relations are affected by a constitution, statute, municipal charter, ordinance, contract or franchise may have determined any question of construction or validity arising under any such instrument, constitution, statute, municipal charter, ordinance, contract or franchise and obtain a declaration of rights, status or other legal relations thereunder.”;

it being remembered that the declaratory judgment statute is a remedial statute and is to be liberally construed and administered, and that questions of fact may be tried and determined as in other cases.

Since the city did not question in the lower court the bringing of the injunction suit, and joined issue and, after an adverse decision, appealed the case and now challenges, for the first time, the propriety of the same, in the interest of justice and to terminate litigation, it is our duty to decide the questions at issue on the merits, if we may properly do so.

The assessor and the sheriff have not appealed from the injunction decree against them. There remains a justiciable controversy between the parties involving the question of the proper exercise of a municipal franchise conferred on. the city by the annexation statute.

In Anderson, Declaratory Judgments, 2d ed, 712, § 309, we read:

“A Declaratory Judgment will be granted even when not prayed for, but some other relief is asked, as an injunction, or where the prayer is in conjunction with a request for other relief, or where the application for other relief is abandoned, or where relief prayed for is denied. Indeed the Court may of its own motion grant declaratory relief in the [149]*149absence of any prayer. So too, a declaratory judgment may be made in response to a prayer for general relief, although inserted with other prayers for different relief.”

We find in §9-102, OCLA, that, “No cause shall be dismissed for having been brought on the wrong side of the court.”

In the case of Miles et al. v. Veatch et al., 189 Or 506, 535, 220 P2d 511, 221 P2d 905, it appears from the amended complaint that the plaintiffs based their cause of suit on the theory that the statute was null and void; that the enforcement of the same would result in irreparable loss and damage to them; that they had no plain, adequate or speedy remedy at law; and that the prayer prayed for a decree declaring the act null and void and perpetually enjoining the law enforcement officials from attempting to enforce the statute. We construed the proceedings as one for a declaratory judgment. On petition for rehearing, it was insisted by the plaintiff that the suit was brought as an injunction suit “for the purpose of procuring an injunction to prevent threatened injury to their property and property rights.” We said:

“* * * Even if that were so, the relief sought involved an adjudication that the initiative act was unconstitutional, and, therefore, was declaratory in character. 16 Am. Jur., Declaratory Judgments, § 3. The amended complaint might have been based upon either the uniform declaratory judgments act (§§ 6-601 to 6-616, O. C. L. A.) or the injunction statute. We construed it as being based upon the former, by reason of the fact that it prayed for a decree ‘declaring said initiative act * * * null and void in its entirety’. We were of the opinion that such a prayer indicated that the pleaders conceived that they had made a case for a declaratory decree. 41 Am. Jur., Pleading, § 110.”

[150]*150Professor Borchard on Declaratory Judgments, 2d ed, said, at p. 362:

“* * * Since quo warranto is a traditional writ of ancient lineage, an occasional court will conclude that it is the indicated method of trying title to office or the validity of an election or other public act. But most courts have readily perceived that the declaratory judgment is a vehicle of relief of equal efficacy with quo warranto for the determination of the rights of the parties, while having the advantage of escaping some of the restrictions of quo warranto, * *

On p. 341 of Declaratory Judgments (published in 1934), Professor Borchard said:

“* * * With the ever-greater interference by government in the affairs of private individuals, it often becomes important to the individual to test the validity of the interference, present or proposed, before it is applied or invoked against him. * * * As a rule, the mere enactment of a statute or ordinance imposing restraints on an individual and implying enforcement by prosecuting officials threatens and hampers the plaintiff’s freedom, peace of mind or pecuniary interests, and creates that justiciability of the issue which sustains a proceeding for an injunction and, a fortiori,

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Bluebook (online)
241 P.2d 1129, 194 Or. 145, 1952 Ore. LEXIS 180, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/portland-general-electric-co-v-city-of-estacada-or-1952.