Blake v. Lindblom

• Decision Date: 21 February 1907
• Citation: 225 Ill. 555,80 N.E. 252
• Parties: BLAKE v. LINDBLOM et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

225 Ill. 555

80 N.E. 252

BLAKE

v.LINDBLOM et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 21, 1907.

Error to Branch Appellate Court, First District; John Gibbons, Judge.

Certiorari by James A. Blake against Robert Lindblom and others to review the action of the civil service commission of the city of Chicago in removing Blake as a patrolman from the police force. From a judgment of the Appellate Court reversing a judgment of the circuit court ordering the issue of the writ, Blake brings error. Affirmed.

James Todd, Newton Wyeth, and Richard J. Cooney, for plaintiff in error.

Michael F. Sullivan (James Hamilton Lewis, Corp. Counsel, of counsel), for defendants in error.

SCOTT, C. J.

Blake, on October 22, 1897 (his name having been duly certified by the civil service commission), was appointed a patrolman in the police department of the city of Chicago. On November 10, 1897, by the direction of the commission, he was discharged. Thereafter the commission, having been advised by the corporation counsel of the city of Chicago that the order of discharge was illegal, reinstated Blake on December 30, 1897. Charges were then preferred against him, and he was notified to appear before the commission on January 4, 1898, for trial. After the service of said notice, and on December 30, 1897, the head of the police department suspended Blake from the service pending the investigation. On January 4, 1898, Blake appeared before the commission, a trial was had and an order entered removing him from the service. Thereafter, on April 22, 1898, the head of the police department addressed a written communication to the civil service commission stating that it was claimed that the discharge of Blake was irregular, and that for the purpose of curing any error, if any existed, the head of the department did, by the communication in question, discharge Blake in pursuance of the provisions of section 10 of the civil service act for a reason set forth in the communication. On the next day, April 23, 1898, this discharge was approved by the civil service commission. On December 19, 1899, Blake filed in the circuit court of Cook county a petition alleging that his discharge was illegal, and praying for a writ of certiorari commanding the civil service commission to send up its record for inspection. Nothing further seems to have been done in the matter until January 10, 1903, when the petition was amended and the writ ordered. The commissioners made return, a hearing was had in the circuit court, the record of the commission was quashed and adjudged to be null and void and without force or effect. The commissioners sued out a writ of error from the Appellate Court for the First District to review this judgment, and the case was assigned to the Branch Appellate Court for that district, where the judgment of the circuit court was reversed without any remanding order, for the reason, as stated in the opinion of the Branch Appellate Court, that the circuit court was without jurisdiction to review the record of the civil service commission by certiorari. Blake brings the cause to this court by writ of error.

Since the entry of the judgment by the Branch Appellate Court this court, in the case of Powell v. Bullis, 221 Ill. 379, 77 N. E. 575, has determined that the circuit and superior courts may, by certiorari, review the proceedings of the civil service commission in removing a police patrolman from office.

Blake...