Facts: Respondent Alvin Kincaid filed suit against the City of Seattle in the Superior Court for King County after Kincaid’s property was damaged by the grading of a street. The jury returned a verdict for Kincaid, awarding him damages equivalent to the cost of restoring the property to its original condition by removing the fill and constructing a bulkhead. The city of Seattle appealed to the Supreme Court of Washington, asserting that the difference in the fair market value of Kincaid’s property before and after the grading was the proper measure of damages.

Question(s): What was the proper formula for calculating the damages incurred by Kincaid as a result of the city of Seattle’s street grading?

Conclusion: Justice Chadwick’s opinion for the Court held that Kincaid’s action was not an action sounding in tort as a municipality’s efforts to engage in infrastructure improvements could not constitute tortious wrongdoing regardless of whether the damage to Kincaid’s property was part of a master plan or not. Therefore, the Court ruled that the trial court should have instructed the jury to use the diminution in the value of Kincaid’s property rather than the cost of restoration as the measure of the damages incurred by Kincaid as the alterations to Kincaid’s property stemming from the city’s street grading represented, in the eyes of the law, part of a valid improvement plan that could not be modified by private citizens.

Docket No. 11156

Petitioner: City of Seattle

Respondent: Alvin Kincaid

Decided: Thursday, August 7th, 1913

Vote: 4-1

Opinion: 74 Wash. 617 (1913)

Court: Crow1 Court (1913-1914)

Crow

Fullerton

Mount

Chadwick

Gose

Morris

Parker

Ellis

Main