Baxter v. the Bd. of Trade of The City of Chicago.

• Decision Date: 30 September 1876
• Citation: 1876 WL 10304,83 Ill. 146
• Parties: JAMES BAXTERv.THE BOARD OF TRADE OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

83 Ill. 146

1876 WL 10304 (Ill.)

JAMES BAXTER

v.THE BOARD OF TRADE OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

September Term, 1876.

APPEAL from the Superior Court of Cook county; the Hon. S. M. MOORE, Judge, presiding.

Mr. JOHN J. HERRICK, for the appellant.

Messrs. DENT & BLACK, and Messrs. LAWRENCE, CAMPBELL & LAWRENCE, for the appellee.

Mr. JUSTICE CRAIG delivered the opinion of the Court:

On the 7th day of November, 1872, appellant, James Baxter, was expelled from membership in the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago. On the 18th day of August, 1874, he filed, in the Superior Court of Cook county, a petition for mandamus, in which he prayed that the board of trade might be summoned to appear, and show cause why a writ of mandamus should not be issued, requiring it to restore petitioner to all the rights, privileges and functions of membership in the board. After the petition for mandamus was filed, and summons issued thereon, appellant filed this bill, in which he prayed for an injunction to prevent the board of trade from interfering with the free exercise, by complainant, of all the rights, privileges and functions of a member of that body, including the right to enter the rooms and remain at all the meetings of the board, and transact business in buying and selling grain and other products. The bill prayed that, upon a final hearing, a decree should be entered, continuing the injunction until the final determination of the proceedings in the petition for mandamus.

The board of trade interposed a demurrer to the bill, which the court sustained, and dissolved the injunction and dismissed the bill, and the complainant in the bill appealed.

We do not consider it necessary to a decision of this case to consider all the propositions which have been argued by appellant's counsel. The main question presented by the record, and, indeed, the only one necessary to be considered, is, whether a court of equity has jurisdiction to decree the relief prayed for in the bill.

The proceeding which appellant had instituted at law to test the validity of the action of the board of trade which resulted in his expulsion, if he had been illegally expelled, and had the right to resort to the courts, would, upon a final trial, necessarily, have resulted in restoring him to all the rights and privileges of membership. Appellant did not file the bill in this case with the view or for the purpose of having the court pass upon the action of the board of trade, but its object was, or at least the effect of a court of equity assuming jurisdiction would be, to restore appellant to membership at once, regardless of whether the expulsion was legal or illegal. This would be manifestly unjust. If a party has been excluded from the rights and privileges of a corporation by the action of the corporation, he ought not to be restored until it has been determined that the act of expulsion by the corporation was illegal; and yet, if the remedy was by injunction, as is claimed here, the effect would be to restore the party in the first instance, even though he may have been legally expelled, and leave the determination of the legality of the act to be determined in the future.

We do not understand resort can be had to the writ of injunction, either directly or indirectly, to obtain affirmative relief.

The decision in Menard v. Hood, 68 Ill. 122, is in point here. It was there said: “In our practice, the writ of injunction is only called into use to afford preventive relief. It is never employed to give affirmative relief, or to correct wrongs and injuries already perpetrated, or to restore parties to rights of which they have been deprived.”

In Wangelin v. Goe, 50 Ill. 463, where the owner of a mill had been illegally put out...