Geo. Gregory Printing Co. v. De Voney

• Decision Date: 20 February 1913
• Citation: 257 Ill. 399,100 N.E. 1066
• Parties: GEO. GREGORY PRINTING CO. v. DE VONEY et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

257 Ill. 399

100 N.E. 1066

GEO. GREGORY PRINTING CO.

v.DE VONEY et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 20, 1913.

Appeal from Municipal Court of Chicago: Henry C. Ward, Judge.

Action by the Geo. Gregory Printing Company against John B. De Voney and others. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.Louis Greenberg, of Chicago, for appellants.

Charles R. Napier and Charles S. McIlvaine, both of Chicago, for appellee.

CARTER, J.

January 26, 1912, appellee, a corporation, brought suit in the municipal court of Chicago against appellants for the recovery of a claim of $1,037.02. After various motionsby the parties and rulings of the court, on March 28, 1912, the appellant John B. De Voney petitioned the court for a change of venue, alleging that ‘all of the judges of the municipal court are prejudiced against the petitioner and in favor of the plaintiff.’ Thereupon the municipal court granted the change of venue prayed, and ordered that the cause be transferred to branch 5 of said court, ‘to be there tried before the Hon. Harry C. Ward, Judge of the city court of Sterling, Whiteside county, Ill., who will be called to this city and to sit in branch 5 of this court and determine the above entitled cause.’ Thereafter Judge Ward heard the cause over the objection of appellants, and judgment was entered in favor of the appellee company. The case has been appealed direct to this court upon the ground that the municipal court act (Hurd's Rev. St. 1911, c. 37) is unconstitutional.

[1][2] It was first urged, in the trial before Judge Ward, that, the change of venue having been granted from all the judges of the municipal court, therefore Judge Ward, who was called in to sit in the municipal court, was disqualified to hear the cause. This court held in American Badge Co. v. Lena Park Improvement Ass'n, 246 Ill. 589, 92 N. E. 972, that section 13 of the municipal court act, authorizing judges of the municipal court to interchange with judges of other city courts, was constitutional. In granting a change of venue, the court may send the case to some other court of record of competent jurisdiction, in the same or some other convenient county, to which there is no valid objection. Lowry v. Coster, 91 Ill. 182. Why, then, should it not be sent to another judge against whom no valid objection can be raised, called in to that court? Ever since the law went into effect giving three judges to the same circuit, it has been the almost universal custom of the circuit judges in this state not to send a case out of the county where it was pending when an affidavit was filed for change of venue on account of the prejudice of one of the judges, but to call in one of the other judges in the same circuit to try the case. We deem this practice fully justified by the decisions of this court. Curran v. Beach, 20 Ill. 260;Myers v. Walker, 31 Ill. 353. In Vandalia Drainage District v. Vandalia Railroad Co., 247 Ill. 114, 93 N. E. 53, where an application for a change of venue was made from the county judge of Fayette county, it was held that the party making the application obtained all the relief to which he was entitled when the county judge in question called in the county judge of another county, who had no interest in the proceeding. To the same effect is Chicago & Alton Railroad Co. v. Harrington, 192 Ill. 9, 61 N. E. 622. In American Car Co. v. Hill, 226 Ill. 227, 80 N. E. 784, a change of venue had been taken from two circuit judges on the ground of their prejudice. The case then came on for trial before a city...