Anderson v. City of Jacksonville

• Decision Date: 13 May 1942
• Docket Number: No. 26258.,26258.
• Citation: 380 Ill. 44,41 N.E.2d 956
• Parties: ANDERSON v. CITY OF JACKSONVILLE. BLUE v. SAME.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

380 Ill. 44

41 N.E.2d 956

ANDERSON

v.CITY OF JACKSONVILLE.

BLUE

v.SAME.

No. 26258.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 13, 1942.

Consolidated suits by W. H. Anderson, and by John Lawrence Blue, against the City of Jacksonville, to recover money allegedly due under the Policemen's Minimum Wage Act. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.Appeal from Circuit Court, Morgan County; Walter W. Wright, judge.

Albert W. Hall, City Atty., E. W. Cleary, and Orville N. Foreman, all of Jacksonville, for appellant.

Edward J. Flynn, of Jacksonville, for appellees.

SHAW, Justice.

W. H. Anderson and John Lawrence Blue instituted separate suits in the circuit court of Morgan county against the city of Jacksonville, seeking to recover monies claimed to be due them under the provisions of the Policemen's Minimum Wage act. The amount for which recovery was sought was the difference between the sums they had been paid and the minimum salaries provided for in the act. Ill.Rev.Stat.1941, chap. 24, sec. 11-2. The two cases were consolidated in the circuit court, because they are admittedly identical and in that court each plaintiff recovered the sum of $1,375.

The city has appealed and questions the constitutionality of the Policemen's Minimum Wage act. All of the constitutional questions raised by them, except one, have heretofore been decided by this court in People v. City of Springfield, 370 Ill. 541, 19 N.E.2d 598,121 A.L.R. 1311;Littell v. City of Peoria, 374 Ill. 344;People ex rel. Gramlich v. City of Peoria, 374 Ill. 313, 29 N.E.2d 539; and in Morgan v. City of Rockford, 375 Ill. 326, 31 N.E.2d 596. In People v. Gannon, 375 Ill. 504, 31 N.E.2d 954, these questions were held no longer debatable and the cause was transferred to the Appellate Court.

The two questions not previously passed upon are a contention that the act in question attempts to increase the compensationof municipal officers appointed for a definite term of office during such term, in violation of section 11 of article IX of the constitution, Smith-Hurd Stats., and a further question, not involving the constitution, as to the validity of certain releases which appear to have been executed each month by each policeman at the time he was paid. The constitutional question gives us jurisdiction and we will therefore decide both points.

The first point is without merit because it has been definitely held by this court that where the term of an office is not fixed by a constitutional or statutory provision, it is held at the pleasure of the appointing power, and although that power has attempted to fix a definite term for the office, as in this case was done by ordinance, the constitutional provision above referred to does not apply and the salary may be raised, lowered or revoked by the proper authority. Quernheim v. Asselmeier, 296 Ill. 494, 129 N.E. 828. This holding was followed and reaffirmed in the recent case of People v. City of Chicago, 374 Ill. 157, 28 N.E.2d 93, as it had also been in Morgan v. DuPage...