Clark v. City of Chicago

• Decision Date: 21 February 1905
• Citation: 73 N.E. 358,214 Ill. 318
• Parties: CLARK et al. v. CITY OF CHICAGO.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

214 Ill. 318

73 N.E. 358

CLARK et al.

v.CITY OF CHICAGO.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 21, 1905.

Appeal from Cook County Court; W. H. Hinebaugh, Judge.

Proceeding by the city of Chicago against Robert R. Clark and others to confirm a special assessment. From the judgment of confirmation, Clark appeals. Affirmed.Ritsher, Montgomery & Hart (Armand F. Teefy, of counsel), for appellant.

Robert Redfield and Frank Johnston, Jr. (Edgar Bronson Tolman, Corp. Counsel, of counsel), for appellee.

HAND, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the county court of Cook county confirming a special assessment to pay the cost of constructing a system of sewers in Belmont avenue from Lake View Boulevard to Evanston avenue, and in Evanston avenue from North Clark street to Buckingham Place, in the city of Chicago. The appellant appeared and filed objections to the confirmation of said assessment as to his property, which were overruled. A jury was then waived, and the question of benefits was tried before the court, and the assessment was reduced as to a part of appellant's property, and, as modified, was confirmed.

The appellant urges four reasons in this court as grounds of reversal: First, that the engineer's estimate of the cost of the improvement was not sufficiently itemized; second, that the ordinance is void because unreasonable; third, that property outside of the district which will be benefited by the improvement has not been assessed; and, fourth, that the property of the appellant is assessed for a larger amount than it will be benefited by the improvement, and is required to bear by the assessment more than its proportionate share of the cost of the improvement.

It is insisted by counsel for the appellee that the legal objections filed in this case (72 in number) were overruled by the court pro forma, and that they should not be considered by this court, for that reason. In the absence of a showing to the contrary, we must presume all objections found in the record, covered by the assignment of errors and argued in the briefs, were passed upon by the trial court. Where a large number of objections are filed, in a case of this character, the trial court, upon the application of the city, should require the objector to point out specifically upon what objections he relies; and, the action of the court in that regard being properly preserved, this court, upon appeal or writ of error, would deem all other objections waived, and would refuse to consider the same.

The objection that the engineer's estimate of the cost of the improvement is not sufficiently itemized is without force. The itemized estimate submitted to the board of local improvements by the city engineer shows the estimated cost of the substantial component elements of the improvement. In Hulbert v. City of Chicago (Ill.) 72 N. E. 1097, an estimate of the cost of a local improvement which contained those elements was held to be sufficiently itemized.

The objection that the ordinance is void because unreasonable rests upon the contention that the district covered by the improvement is now amply provided with sewers. No proof was introduced upon the hearing of legal objections to sustain said objection, and the evidence heard by the court upon the question of benefits will not be considered in support of that objection. The question of the necessity of a local improvement is by law committed to the city council, and the courts have no right to interfere to prevent the construction of a local improvement unless the ordinance is so unreasonable as to render it void. Walker v. City of Chicago, 202 Ill. 531, 67 N. E. 369.

The objection that property outside the district has not been assessed, which will be...