People ex rel. City of East St. Louis v. Holten
| Decision Date | 18 June 1913 |
| Citation | 102 N.E. 171,259 Ill. 219 |
| Parties | PEOPLE, for Use of CITY OF EAST ST. LOUIS, v. HOLTEN et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Circuit Court, St. Clair County; George A. Crow, Judge.
Suit by the People, for the use of the City of East St. Louis, against Frank Holten and others. From a judgment sustaining a demurrer to the declaration, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded.John Hay, of Bellevill, for appellant.
Silas Cook, Whitnel, Browing & Gillespie, and Kramer, Kramer & Campbell, all of East St. Louis, for appellees.
This suit was brought in the circuit court of St. Clair county, in the name of the people of the State of Illinois, for the use of the city of East St. Louis, against Frank Holten and the sureties on his official bond as collector of taxes of the town of East St. Louis for the year 1910. The declaration alleged the appointment of Frank Holten to the office of city treasurer of the city of East St. Louis, by which he became ex officio collector of taxes of the town of East St. Louis; that the bond was executed and approved, and that he collected the taxes for the year 1910 levied by said city. The breach assigned was failure to pay over to the city of East St. Louis the sum of $9,147.57, an alleged balance of the city taxes collected by him and in his hands. Twelve of the defendants filed what they called pleas to the jurisdiction of the court; seven joining in one plea and five in another. These pleas challenged the jurisdiction of the court by alleging that certain taxpayers named in the declaration were not authorized to prosecute the suit for the city of East St. Louis, and that the attorney filing the declaration did not have authority to use the name of the city as a party. The plaintiff demurred to these pleas, and the demurrers were sustained. The defendant Frank Holten, who did not join in the pleas, filed a motion to dismiss the suit upon the same grounds on which the other defendants disputed the jurisdiction. His motion was overruled. Thereupon the defendants filed a general and special demurrerto the declaration, which was sustained, and, the plaintiff electing to stand by the declaration, judgment was entered in bar of the action and for costs. This appeal was prosecuted from the judgment.
[1] A motion was made by the appellees to transfer the cause to the Appellate Court for the Fourth district on the ground that the appeal does not involve any question giving this court jurisdiction, and we reserve the motion to the hearing of the case. This court has jurisdiction on direct appeal in cases relating to the revenue, and this means that the revenue must be directly affected. It is directly involved where the question arises between a recognized authority or municipality authorized by law to assess and collect taxes and those of whom the taxes are demanded. Where the controversy is merely over the question what municipality shall have money derived from revenue, and there is no question whether the money is revenue or not, this court has no jurisdiction by direct appeal, because the suit does not relate to revenue. Reed v. Village of Chatsworth, 201 Ill. 480, 66 N. E. 217;Trustees of Schools v. Board of School Inspectors of Peoria, 208 Ill. 73, 69 N. E. 781;People v. Helt, 203 Ill. 111, 67 N. E. 741.
[2] The principle on which cases of that kind have been decided is that the controversy must relate to the question whether money demanded belongs to the revenue or not which is precisely the question here. So far as the question whether a suit relates to the revenue is concerned, there is no distinction between money in the hands of a tax collector claimed as revenue and the same money demanded from the original taxpayers as revenue. The question to be determined in this suit is whether a certain sum alleged to be in the hands of the collector is revenue of the city of East...
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People v. Smith
...was, or was not, the revenue of the State or one of its subdivisions. Heinrich v. Harrigan, 288 Ill. 170, 123 N.E. 309; People v. Holten, 259 Ill. 219, 102 N.E. 171. Again, the facts of this case fail to meet the standard, for there is here no dispute as to the status or the proper disposit......
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