Brueggemann v. Young

• Decision Date: 17 February 1904
• Citation: 208 Ill. 181,70 N.E. 292
• Parties: BRUEGGEMANN v. YOUNG.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

208 Ill. 181

70 N.E. 292

BRUEGGEMANN

v.YOUNG. ^*

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 17, 1904.

Appeal from City Court of Alton; J. B. Vaughn, Judge.

Election contest by Henry Brueggemann against Anthony W. Young. From an adverse judgment, contestee appeals. Reversed.Burton & Wheeler, Dunnegan & Leverett, David E. Keefe, and Levi Davis, for appellant.

B. H. Canby and J. V. E. Marsh (John J. Brenholt, B. J. O'Neil, and E. C. Hagen, of counsel), for appellee.

An election was held on April 21, 1903, and duly elected mayor of the city of Alton, and qualified as such. The appellee, who had been mayor for the preceding term, was a candidate for re-election, and, upon the appellant being sworn into office, filed his petition in the city court of the city of Alton to contest the election of the appellant. The appellant made a motion to dismiss the petition, on the ground that the city court was without jurisdiction to entertain said petition and to hear and determine said election contest. The court overruled the motion, whereupon the appellant filed an answer. A trial was had which resulted in a finding and judgment against the appellant, and he has brought the record to this court for review by appeal, and has assigned as error the action of the court in overruling his motion to dismiss the petition filed by appellee for want of jurisdiction, and in holding the court had jurisdiction to hear and determine said election contest. Other assignments of error have been made upon the record, but, from the view entertained by the court upon the questio of jurisdiction, that question alone will be considered.

HAND, C. J. (after stating the facts).

The circuit courts of this state, by the act of 1895, amending section 97 of chapter 46, entitled ‘Elections' (2 Starr & C. Ann. St. 1896 [2d Ed.] p. 1661, § 97), are given jurisdiction to hear and determine contests of the election of mayors of cities. The section of the statute, as amended, conferring such jurisdiction, reads as follows: ‘The circuit courts in the respective counties, and in Cook county the superior court also, may hear and determine contests of the election of judges of the county courts, mayors of cities, presidents of county boards, presidents of villages, in reference to the removal of county seats and in reference to any other subject which may be submitted to the vote of the people of the county, and concurrent jurisdiction with the county court in all cases mentioned in section ninety-eight (98).’ In King v. Jordan, 198 Ill. 457, 64 N. E. 1072, it was held that county courts were without jurisdiction to try contests of the election of the officers named in said section, and that the trial of such contests, by said section, outside of Cook county, had been committed exclusively to the jurisdiction of the circuit courts.

By section 1 of the act of 1901 (Laws 1901, p. 136), entitled ‘An act in relation to courts of record in cities,’ it is provided that the city courts organized under said act shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit courts within the city in which the same may be located ‘in all civil cases and in all criminal cases arising in said city, and in appeals from justices of the peace in said city,’ and it is contended that, city courts having been invested with concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit courts, and jurisdiction having been conferred upon circuit courts to try contested elections of mayors of cities, the city courts have jurisdiction over such contests. The correctness of that contention depends upon whether an election contest is a ‘civil case.’ If the contest instituted by the appellee against the appellant is, within the meaning of the law, a civil case, as the circuit courts have jurisdiction of such a contest, and the city courts have concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit courts in all civil cases, it necessarily follows that the city court of the city of Alton had jurisdiction of said proceeding to contest said election, and was authorized to hear and determine said contest.

It has, however, been repeatedly held by this court that an election contest is not a case. The class of cases mentioned as civil cases in the first section of the city court act clearly was intended to include only law cases and equity cases as they were known to the common law, and such other actions since provided for by statute as belong to the same class or are of the same nature as previously existing actions at law or in equity in which personal or property rights are involved, and where a remedy for the recovery of property or for damages occasioned by the infringement of a right is given. The contest of an election is not an action at law or in equity, and does not belong to the same class and is not of the same nature as previously existing actions at law or in equity, and does not fall within the designation ‘all civil cases,’ over which concurrent jurisdiction is conferred upon the circuit and city courts. In Douglas v. Hutchinson, 183 Ill. 323, 55 N. E. 628, it was held that the circuit court of Cook county did not have jurisdiction to try a contest of an election for judge of the superior court of said county by virtue of the original jurisdiction conferred upon circuit courts by the Constitution, which provides circuit courts shall have jurisdiction of ‘all cases in law and equity’ where there was no statute in force conferring jurisdiction upon said cou...