86 Iowa 603 | Iowa | 1892
The plaintiff claims that he was and is the owner of certain lots situated in Rose Hill addition to the city of Sioux City, on Summit avenue and intersecting streets, between Sixteenth and Twenty-first streets; that, prior to the eighth day of April, 1890, the defendant, the city of Sioux City, had caused a grade to be established on said Summit avenue and
As the appellants’ counsel say, there is but one question raised by the demurrer to the petition, to wit: “Do the filling up and grading of residence lots in accordance with the established grade of the street, and preparing the same to be built upon, constitute the making of improvements, as contemplated by section 469 of the Code?” That portion of the section referred to, which is material to the question raised, reads: “When any city or town shall have established the grade of any street or alley, and any person shall have built or made any improvements on such street or alley according to the. established grade thereof, and such city or town shall alter said established grade in such a manner as to injure or diminish the value of said property, said city or town shall pay to the owner or owners * * * the amount of such damage or injury,” etc. The decision of the question to be
The cases cited by the appellee, and on which it bases its claim that “when, after an enumeration, a statute employs some general term to embrace other' cases, the other cases must be understood to be eases of the same general character, sort, or kind with those named,” are not applicable to this case. Nor is the construction of the word “improvement,” as used in our mechanics’ lien law, in Brown v. Wyman, (56 Iowa 452,)that the breaking of land is not an“improvement,” applicable here. The breaking of land, or the fitting of land for a crop, is quite a different thing from grading it, and thereby fitting it for a permanent use, Looking at the object and purpose of the statute, why should not the grading of a lot, which may, perhaps, cost as much as the erection of a house thereon, be treated as an “improvement?” It is fitting the property for use. It is done by the owner relying upon a grade as then established, and conforming the surface of the lot thereto.
It is contended that, as the statute uses the words “on such street or alley,” when a lot is graded down, the “improvement” is not on the land, but of the land. But that is too narrow and technical a construction of the statute. The intent of the law was, that the owner of property in a city or town which