Agricultural Transp. Ass'n v. Carpentier

• Decision Date: 14 December 1953
• Docket Number: No. 33066,33066
• Citation: 2 Ill.2d 19,116 N.E.2d 863
• Parties: AGRICULTURAL TRANSP. ASS'N et al. v. CARPENTIER, Secretary of State, et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 863

116 N.E.2d 863

2 Ill.2d 19

AGRICULTURAL TRANSP. ASS'N et al. v. CARPENTIER, Secretary of State, et al.

No. 33066.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 14, 1953.

William F. Fuiten, and Londrigan & Londrigan, Springfield, for appellants.

Latham Castle, Atty.Gen. (John L. Davidson, Jr., Lee D. Martin, and Mark O. Roberts, Springfield, of counsel), for appellees.

BRISTOW, Justice.

Plaintiffs appealed to the Appellate Court for the Third District from an order of the circuit court of Sangamon County dissolving a temporary injunction and dismissing their suit for want of equity. On motion of the defendants-appellees, the cause was transferred to the Supreme Court on the theory that the Appellate Court was without jurisdiction because revenue is directly involved. After such transfer to the Supreme Court, plaintiffs-appellants filed their motion to transfer the appeal back to the Appellate Court for the Third District on the theory that the Appellate Court was in error in holding the revenue to be directly involved. Defendants-appellees also filed their motion to vacate an order entered by the Appellate Court continuing the temporary injunction in force, pending disposition of the cause, on the theory that such was a void order because of lack of jurisdiction in the Appellate Court. Said motions have been taken with the case.

The complaint in chancery filed by the plaintiff Agricultural Transportation Association alleged that it had paid under protest certain 1953 truck license fees assessed under the 1951 amendment to the Motor Vehicle Law (Ill.Rev.Stat.1951, chap. 95 1/2, pars. 9, 12a, and 22), to the Secretary of State; that a case entitled "Charles F. Mansfield v. Charles F. Carpentier, as the Secretary of State of the State of Illinois, No. 53-S-5127" was pending in the superior court of Cook County attacking the constitutionality of said amendatory act, wherein one of the plaintiffs was engaged exclusively in interstate commerce; that the United States Supreme Court, in Bode v. Barrett, 344 U.S. 583, 73 S.Ct. 468, 97 L.Ed. 567, refused to pass upon the constitutionality of said amendatory act as applied to such persons engaged exclusively in interstate commerce; that if said amendatory act were adjudged unconstitutional as to such persons it would be unconstitutional as to everyone; that said amendatory act was unconstitutional, specifying therefor the same reasons as were alleged in Bode v. Barrett, 412 Ill. 204, 106 N.E.2d 521; that if said amendatory act were held unconstitutional in the case then pending in the superior court of Cook County, then the Secretary of State of Illinois would have no legal authority to collect the additional fees thereunder from the plaintiff; that plaintiff sought the return of said funds paid under protest and prayed a temporary injunction against the Secretary of State and the Treasurer of the State of Illinois, pursuant to the provisions of "An Act in relation to the payment and disposition of moneys received for or on behalf of the State" (Ill.Rev.Stat.1951, chap. 127, par. 172), restraining transfer of such funds to general State funds until the further order of the court or until the final adjudication of the case pending in the superior court of Cook County, and for such other relief as equity might require. The temporary injunction was duly issued as prayed without notice and without bond. Subsequently, the complaint was amended to include additional similar payments under protest by the plaintiff and approximately 250 intervening petitioners, and a temporary injunction was likewise issued as to those payments.

A motion to dissolve the injunctions and to dismiss the complaint as amended was made by defendants on the basis that there was no longer any question as to the validity of the amendatory act of 1951, since the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Bode case; that the pendency in the superior court of Cook County of another case did not establish a right on the part of the plaintiff and intervening petitioners (hereinafter called plaintiffs) to the relief prayed, and that the injunctions issued were contrary to the provisions of the act relating to injunctions (Ill.Rev.Stat.1951, chap. 69, par. 3), because they were issued without notice.

The trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint for want of equity but continued the temporary injunction in force for a period of ninety days to permit perfection of an appeal. After the appeal to the Appellate Court for the Third District was perfected, that court, on motion of plaintiffs, continued the injunction in force until final disposition of the cause.

The basic issue presented by this case for adjudication is whether or not the facts alleged in the complaint and admitted by the motion to dismiss state a cause of action for equitable relief to the plaintiffs therein and a right to a temporary injunction under the provisions of the statute in question. Before considering such basic issue, however, we must consider the motion challenging the jurisdiction of this court on a direct appeal.

Section 75 of the Civil Practice Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1953, chap. 110, par. 199), provides that appeals shall be taken directly to the Supreme Court in all cases relating to revenue. In this case, an injunction is prayed restraining the defendants, as Secretary of State and Treasurer of the State of Illinois, from transferring to the State road fund certain moneys paid to them under a licensing statute of the State, and the ultimate relief sought is the return of such moneys to the plaintiffs. The injunctive relief prayed is merely incidental to the ultimate relief of the return of moneys to which the State asserts a right under a licensing statute. The receipt or loss of revenue by the State is directly dependent upon the outcome of this litigation. As held by this court in Majestic Household Utilities Corp. v. Stratton, 353 Ill. 86, 186 N.E. 522, even though only an interpretation of a statute is involved, a direct appeal to the Supreme Court because the case relates to revenue is warranted in a suit to recover a tax paid under protest, a preliminary injunction having issued restraining the further disposition of such funds until further order of the court under the statute here involved. In numerous other cases involving a question as to the right to recover moneys paid under protest, where injunctions in respect thereto have been issued under the provisions of the same statute here in question, direct appeals have been taken to this court from the trial court decree without the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court being questioned, although there was no other basis in such cases for jurisdiction of the court therein except the involvement of revenue. Ward & Co. v. Stratton, 342 Ill. 472, 174 N.E. 547; St. Louis Southwestern R. Co. v. Stratton, 353 Ill. 273, 187 N.E. 498; Libby, McNeil & Libby v. Stratton, 359 Ill. 398, 194 N.E. 572. The Appellate Court for the Third District properly granted defendants' motion to transfer the cause to this court, and plaintiffs' motion to transfer the cause back for want of jurisdiction is denied.

The statute mentioned above, which authorizes this type of proceeding in equity, provides in substance that when moneys are paid to any department or officer of the State government under protest, such department or officer shall so notify the State Treasurer, who shall place such money in a special fund to be known as the "protest fund," and which money is to be transferred to the appropriate funds in which it would otherwise have been placed had there been no protest, at the expiration of thirty days, unless the parties making such payment under protest shall, within such period of thirty days, file a complaint in chancery and secure an injunction restraining such payment until the final order or decree of the court. The proceeding is required to be by bill in chancery, and the statute specifies that such judicial remedy shall relate only to questions which must be decided by the court in determining the proper disposition of the moneys paid under protest.

Plaintiffs' position is that they are entitled to have the temporary injunctions remain in force until there is a final adjudication of the constitutionality of the 1951 amendment to the Illinois Motor Vehicle Act in the Mansfield litigation pending in the superior court of Cook County. Although, in the body of their complaint, the plaintiffs state that they seek the return of the funds paid under protest, the prayer of said complaint is limited to the issuance of a temporary injunction until final adjudication of the Mansfield case in the superior court of Cook County, and...