Case ID: wash_15/html/0499-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Scott, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No 2329.
    Decided November 13, 1896.]
    The City of Tacoma, Appellant, v. The Tacoma Light and Water Company, Respondent.
    
    MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS — CONTRACTS — CONSTRUCTION.
    Where a municipal ordinance authorizing the purchase of a light and water system limits the property purchased to such as was owned or operated by the company as a part of its water and light plants, the city is not entitled to certain real property which belongs to the light and water company, and is used for other purposes.
    Appeal from Superior Court, Pierce County. — Hon. William H. Pritchard, Judge.
    Affirmed.
    
      John Paul Judson, and W. H. H. Kean (James Wickersham, of counsel), for appellant.
    
      Parsons, Corell & Parsons, and Crowley, Sullivan & Grosscup, for respondent.
   The opinion of the court Was delivered by

Scott, J.

This action was brought to obtain possession of certain real property, which the city claims to have purchased of the Light and Water Company at the time it purchased its electric light plant and waterworks, which were involved in a former case before this court between said parties. 13 Wash. 115 (42 Pac. 533). The decision there rendered seems to us to clearly settle this controversy in favor of the defendant, as found by the lower court. The ordinance, under which the purchase was made and the property in question claimed, was referred to in the case cited and was published in Seymour v. Tacoma, 6 Wash. 138 (32 Pac. 1077). Section one of said ordinance limited the property purchased to such as was owned or operated by the defendant as a part of its water and electric light plants. The property in controversy in this case was not so owned or operated, but was used for an entirely different purpose.

Affirmed.

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