Case Name: W. R. Gault et al. v. Columbus (City) et al.
Court: Franklin Circuit Court
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1904-07-23
Citations: 20 Ohio C.C. Dec. 335
Docket Number: 
Parties: W. R. Gault et al. v. Columbus (City) et al.
Judges: Wilson and Sullivan, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Ohio Circuit Court Decisions
Volume: 20
Pages: 335–336

Head Matter:
ASSESSMENTS — LIMITATION OF ACTIONS.
[Franklin (2nd) Circuit Court,
July 23, 1904.]
Wilson, Sullivan and Dustin, JJ.
W. R. Gault et al. v. Columbus (City) et al.
1. Action to Restrain Collection of Street Assessments — wren Barred..
The right of action to restrain the collection of street assessments on the-ground of excess of benefits, is not barred in four years from date of the assessment. The statute begins to run from the dates when the respective installments are due.
2. Purchasers of Abutting Property Chargeable with Notice of Faulty Con-, struction Estopped.
Abutting owners, knowing of the defective construction of a street before the work was approved and the reserve fund paid to the contractors, are thereafter estopped from contesting the assessment, on the ground of' such faulty construction.
[Syllabus approved by the court.]
Bbror to Franklin common pleas court.
W. O. Henderson and DeWitt C. Jones, for plaintiffs.
Butler, Marshall & Keating, for defendants.

Opinion:
DUSTIN, J.
In this case we do not concur in the view of the common pleas, court (Gault v. Columbus, 13 Dec. 575), that the action is barred by reason of not having been brought within four years from the making-of the assessment.
The threatened injury of which plaintiffs complain is the collection of assessments in excess of benefits, and such threatened collection-was impending at the commencement of the action.
But we do think that the defendants are estopped to complain off the defective construction of the street, because they knew of such defects long before the work was approved and the reserve fund paid to the contractors, and took no action to prevent such approval or payment. They thus, by their laches, allowed the city to lose the fund it. had reserved for such contingencies, and have not an equitable standing before the court.
The plaintiffs who became purchasers after the assessment, and' in their deeds assumed and agreed to pay the same as part consideration for the property, are also estopped.
Other purchasers (if any) who became such after the assessment, but did not assume the payment in their deeds, are nevertheless charge able with notice of the assessment through the records and stand in the shoes of their grantors so far as knowledge of the defects is concerned.
As to the claim that the assessments are in excess of benefits we are not satisfied that it is clearly made out.
The decree, therefore, will be in favor of the city, and the injunction dissolved, at plaintiffs' costs.
Wilson and Sullivan, JJ., concur.