Case ID: wash_1/html/0305-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Stiles, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 77.
    Decided August 8, 1890.]
    State of Washington, on the relation of D. B. Baker, v. J. A. Snodgrass, Matt. Brown, David Harris, R. T. Cowan and Luther Davis.
    
      Appeal from Superior Court, Clarice County.
    
    Action by D. B. Baker to enjoin the defendants and ap-pellees, who were the auditor, treasurer and county commissioners,respectively, of Clarke county,State of Washington, from issuing county bonds. In pursuance of an election duly held, there being more than three-fifths of the votes cast in favor of the issuance of forty thousand dollars in county bonds, the appellees were about to negotiate said bonds to raise money for the building of a court house and jail in said county, when the appellant procured a restraining order to prevent the sale of said bonds. At the hearing for a perpetual injunction, the demurrer to the bill was sustained, and final judgment rendered against the appellant. From this judgment the plaintiff appeals to this court.
    There were 792 votes cast at said election, while there were at the date of said election 2,000 duly qualified voters residing within Clarke county. The county was already indebted in the sum of fifty-five thousand dollars, and the assessed value of all real and personal property in the county amounted to the sum of two million sis hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
    
      D. P. Ballard, and J. W. Metcalf, for appellant.
    
      A. L. Miller, for appellees.
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Stiles, J.

The matter at issue in this case was the same as that in Metcalfe v. Seattle, ante, p. 297, there being but onequestion to be passed upon, however, viz.: Thatwhether the majority required to authorize the officials of a county to issue bonds to build a court-house must be three-fifths of all the voters of the county, or three-fifths of those voting. The action of the court below was the same as that of the superior court of King county, and the judgment here must be the same as in Metcalfe v. Seattle, for the reasons fully given in that case.

Judgment affirmed, with costs to appellee.

Anders, C. J., and Scott, Dunbar and Hoyt, JJ., concur.