Bd. of Educ. of Normal Sch. Dist. v. Blodgett

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BAKER
• Citation: Bd. of Educ. of Normal Sch. Dist. v. Blodgett, 155 Ill. 441, 40 N.E. 1025 (Ill. 1895)
• Decision Date: 14 January 1895
• Parties: BOARD OF EDUCATION OF NORMAL SCHOOL DIST. v. BLODGETT.

155 Ill. 441

40 N.E. 1025

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF NORMAL SCHOOL DIST.

v.BLODGETT.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 14, 1895.

Appeal from circuit court, McLean county; Thomas F. Tipton, Judge.

Assumpsit by Charles H. Blodgett against the Board of Education of Normal School District. Plaintiff obtained judgment. Defendant appeals. Reversed.

Fifer & Phillips, for appellant.

J. E. Pollock and A. J. Barr, for appellee.

BAKER, J.

The Board of Education of Normal School District, defendant below and appellant here, was incorporated in 1867 by special act of the legislature. 3 Priv. Laws 1867, p. 329. The act by which it was incorporated was declared to be a public act. On July 15, 1867, the board borrowed of W. E. Woodward $1,500, and issued to him therefor three bonds for the sum of $500 each, and numbered, respectively, 30, 31, and 32; said bonds bearing interest at the rate of 10 per cent. per annum, payable semiannually. Said bonds were afterwards purchased from the holders thereof by Charles H. Blodgett, appellee herein, at their full face value. He held them until after their maturity, when new bonds of like import, numbered 60, 61, and 62, respectively, and dated September 1, 1873, and running five years, were issued to him in lieu thereof. On March 2, 1874, the board executed and delivered to appellee a certain other bond for $500, numbered 77; said bond bearing date said March 2, 1874, running five years, and drawing 10 per cent. interest, payable semiannually. The bond states upon its face that it was issued in lieu of bond No. 36, surrendered; and the consideration therefor ($500) was paid by appellee to the treasurer of the board. Interest was paid on the original bonds until their maturity, and on bonds 60, 61, 62, and 77, up to September 1, 1877, but no interest has been paid on any of them since that date. Section 9 of the charter of the Board of Education of Normal School District reads as follows: ‘For the purpose of erecting school houses and purchasing school sites, it shall be lawful for said board to borrow, at a rate of interest not exceeding ten per cent. per annum, and issue bonds therefor, in sums not less than one hundred dollars; which bonds shall be executed by the president and clerk of said board, in the name of the board, and countersigned by the treasurer of the board; and to secure the payment of said bonds said board may mortgage any part or the whole property belonging to said board.’ And it is stipulated and agreed in the case at bar that the money for which the above-mentioned bonds were given was not borrowed nor used by the board of education for any purpose for which said board was authorized by its charter to issue bonds. The board of education had no power to issue the bonds, and they were void. It was so held by this court in 1880, in the case of Hewitt v. Board, 94 Ill. 528. Afterwards an act was passed by the legislature which was approved June 17, 1893, and in force July 1, 1893, and which act was as follows:

‘An act to amend an act entitled ‘An act in regard to limitations,’ approved April 4, 1872; in force July 1, 1872.

‘Section 1. Be it enacted by the people of the state of Illinois represented in the general assembly: That an act entitled ‘An act in regard to limitations,’ in force July 1, 1872, be, and the same is hereby, amended by adding thereto the following, to be numbered section 27: ‘Sec. 27. That when any person has paid money into any incorporated school district of this state, and bonds have been issued by such corporation therefor, which are illegal, and where the statute of limitations has run against the recovery of the original consideration for which said bonds were issued, then in such case the statute of limitations is hereby extended, and the person so paying money for such illegal bonds, or his legal representatives or assigns, shall have a right of action in his own name, or as such representative against such corporation, for one year from the time this act takes effect, and not after, to recover the amount of the original consideration paid for such bonds, together with six per cent. interest per annum on such original consideration from the date that interest ceased to be paid on such bonds, until July 1, 1891, and five per cent. interest per annum thereafter.’' Laws 1893, p. 139.

Thereupon, on July 6, 1893, and in less than a week after the act went in force, appellee brought this action of assumpsit in the McLean circuit court to recover the amount of the original consideration paid for the above-mentioned bonds, with interest. The declaration consisted of the consolidated common counts. Appellant interposed the general issue, and a plea of the five years' statute of limitations; and appellee replied to the latter plea, counting upon the act approved June 17, 1893, concerning limitations. The case was finally submitted to the court under a stipulation which waived formal issues on the pleadings, both parties to have the full benefit of all the facts appearing in the agreed state of facts signed by them. The stipulation of facts and the bonds were all the evidence offered. The court, upon that evidence, found the issues in favor of the plaintiff below, and rendered judgment against the defendant below for $3,900 damages, and costs of suit, and from that judgment this appeal was prosecuted.

The principal question at issue in the case is in regard to the constitutionality and validity of the act approved June 17, 1893. The claim of invalidity is based on various contentions made by appellant. One of these contentions is that the act is in violation of the last clause of section 22 of article 4 of the constitution of Illinois, which provides as follows: ‘In all cases where a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted.’ Another is that the act is a partial unequal, and invidious statute, and for that reason forms no part of that ‘law of the land’ in accordance with which, by the rule of the common law, and by the mandate of section 2 of the bill of rights in the state constitution, all men are entitled to have their rights determined. Another is that under the constitution the legislature cannot create a debt against a municipal corporation for corporate purposes, and subject it to a tax for its payment, without its consent. And the other is that the statute is in conflict with the rule that, when the bar of a statute of limitations has become complete by the running of the full statutory period, the right to plead the statute as a defense is a vested right, which cannot be destroyed by legislation, since it is protected therefrom by section 2 of the bill of rights, incorporated in the state constitution, which declares that ‘no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law,’ We will consider the last of these contentions, only.

It has been stated so frequently in decisions and in the books that ‘due process of law’ and ‘law of the land’ mean one and the same thing, that it may be regarded as elementary. As early as 1820 this court decided, in effect, that a completed bar of the statute of limitations is a vested right. In March, 1819, the first legislature of the state enacted ‘that all the laws and parts of laws passed by or under the authority of any territorial government, heretofore existing, be, and they are hereby repealed.’ A proviso excepted certain statutes of the territorial government, but did not except the statutes of limitation theretofore in force, and there was no saving clause that applied to them. The same legislature passed an act for the limitation of actions. Laws 1819, p. 351; Id. p. 141, § 8. In Naught v. Oneal, Appendix to Breese, 29, and Beecher's Breese, 36, the court, in deciding a demurrer to a replication, said: ‘If the cause of action accrued one year or more before the repeal of the statute of limitations, still the old statute of limitations is a good bar to the action. It is a complete bar before the repeal, and the repeal of a statute does not affect the rights acquired under the repealed statute.’ The question, as detached from tangible property, does not seem to have arisen in this court since that date, until now. The doctrine, as we understand it, is well and correctly stated in Cooley, Const. Lim. [155 Ill. 447](6th Ed.). On page 448 he says: ‘When the period prescribed by statute has once run, so as to cut off the remedy which one might have had for the recovery of property in the possession of another, the title to the property, irrespective of the original right, is regarded, in the law, as vested in the possessor, who is entitled to the same protection in respect to it which the owner is entitled to in other cases. A subsequent repeal of the limitation law could not be given a retroactive effect, so as to disturb this title. It is vested as completely and perfectly, and is as safe from legislative interference, as it would have been if it had been perfected in the owner by grant, or any species of assurance.’ And on page 454 he says: ‘Regarding the circumstances under which a man may be said to have a vested right to a defense against a demand made by another, it is somewhat difficult to lay down a comprehensive rule which the authorities will justify. It is certain that he who has...