Hannah v. People

• Decision Date: 19 June 1902
• Citation: 64 N.E. 776,198 Ill. 77
• Parties: HANNAH v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

198 Ill. 77

64 N.E. 776

HANNAH

v.PEOPLE.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 19, 1902.

Appeal from circuit court, Cook county; M. F. Tuley, Judge.

Action by the people against John S. Hannah for contempt. From a judgment adjudging defendant guilty, he appeals. Affirmed.

Carter, J., dissenting.

Custer, Goddard & Griffin and James E. Munroe, for appellant.

H. J. Hamlin, Atty. Gen., and Henry S. Robbins, for appellee.

BOGGS, J.

This is an appeal by John S. Hannah from a judgment of the circuit court of Cook county adjudging him guilty of contempt and imposing a fine of $100 for violating a decree of that court enjoining him and other interested parties from storing in the public warehouse of the Central Elevator Company any grain directly or indirectly owned by or belonging to said elevator company or the firm of Carrington, Hannah & Co., of which appellant was a member, or in which said corporation or firm had any interest other than as public warehousemen. Upon information in chancery theretofore filed in said circuit court by the attorney general against said Central Elevator Company and eight other companies, they and each of them, their managers, agents and employés, had by the decree of said court been enjoined from storing and mixing their own grain with the grain of their customers in their own elevators. Appeals were taken from the decrees in those cases to this court, where they were affirmed. Central Elevator Co. v. People, 174 Ill. 203, 51 N. E. 254. While these appeals were under consideration in this court the legislature passed an act, approved May 26, 1897 (Laws 1897, p. 302), amending section 6 of the warehouse act of April 25, 1871, purporting to make it lawful for owners, lessees, or managers of public warehouses of class A to store their own grain and mix it with the grain of others of the same grade in their own warehouses, on condition hereinafter set forth. After this act was adopted, and after the decree was affirmed by this court, the appellant, as manager of the Central Elevator Company, and who was one of the owners of stock in said company, with full knowledge of said decree and its affirmance, and of the perpetual injunction thereby granted, stored and continued to store the grain of the elevator company, and of the copartnership of which he was a member, in the warehouse of said company, claiming the right to do so under said amendatory act of 1897, but disclaiming any intent to violate the injunction of the court. In the proceedings instituted against Hannah as for contempt the circuit court held that the act of 1897 was unconstitutional and void, and entered the judgment and imposed the fine appealed from.

Since this case was taken under advisement by this court, the appellant, John S. Hannah, died, and, his death having been suggested to the court, a motion was made by the Northern Trust Company that it be substituted, as his executor, as appellant. It has also been suggested that the appeal abated upon the death of said John S. Hannah, and, if so, that the executor could not, of course, be substituted as a party in his stead. We are of the opinion that this cause has not abated. It is ancillary to the one in which the injunction was granted, and partakes of its character. It is a civil remedy of the parties to enforce the decree, and is not criminal in its nature. People v. Diedrich, 141 Ill. 665, 30 N. E. 1038;People v. Weigley, 155 Ill. 491, 40 N. E. 300;Lester v. People, 150 Ill. 408, 23 N. E. 387,37 N. E. 1004,41 Am. St. Rep. 375. The motion to substitute the executor, the Northern Trust Company, as appellant herein, is allowed.

Upon the merits the only question involved in the case is the constitutionality of said amendatory act of 1897. Careful consideration of this question has brought us to the conclusion that the provisions of the amendatory act are inconsistent with the spirit and purpose of the provisions of the constitution of 1870 with relation to public warehouses, and that the said act of 1897 must be declared inoperative for the reason it is in contravention of such constitutional provisions. That the framers of the constitution deemed the matter of the protection of producers and shippers of grain against wrong, frauds, and impositions on the part of those engaged in the business of providing storage for grain of great importance is demonstrated by the fact they devoted an entire article of the constitution to that subject. Const. 1870, art. 13. Sections 1, 2, 6, and 7 of said article 13 of the constitution are as follows:

‘Section 1. All elevators or storehouses where grain or other property is stored for a compensation, whether the property stored be kept separate or not, are declared to be public warehouses.

‘Sec. 2. The owner, lessee or manager of each and every public warehouse situated in any town or city of not less than 100,000 inhabitants, shall make weekly statements under oath, before some officer to be designated by law, and keep the same posted in some conspicuous place in the office of such warehouse, and shall also file a copy for public examination in such place as shall be designated by law, which statement shall correctly set forth the amount and grade of each and every kind of grain in such warehouse, together with such other property as may be stored therein, and what warehouse receipts have been issued, and are, at the time of making such statement, outstanding therefor; and shall, on the copy posted in the warehouse, note daily such changes as may be made in the quantity and grade of grain in such warehouse; and the different grades of grain shipped in separate lots shall not be mixed with inferior or superior grades without the consent of the owner or consignee thereof.’

‘Sec. 6. It shall be the duty of the general assembly to pass all necessary laws to prevent the issue of false and fraudulent warehouse receipts, and to give full effect to this article of the constitution, which shall be liberally construed so as to protect producers and shippers; and the enumeration of the remedies herein named shall not be construed to deny to the general assembly the power to prescribe by law such other and further remedies as may be found expedient, or to deprive any person of existing common law remedies.

‘Sec. 7. The general assembly shall pass laws for the inspection of grain, for the protection of producers, shippers and receivers of grain and produce.’

In obedience to the mandates of the constitution, the general assembly, at the session of 1871, adopted an act entitled ‘An act to regulate public warehouses and the warehousing and inspection of grain, and to give effect to article 13 of the constitution of this state,’ approved April 25, 1871, 3 Starr & C. Ann. St. p. 3316. This enactment divided the public warehouses, as defined in article 13 of the constitution, wherein grain might or should be stored, into two classes, designated, respectively, as ‘Class A’ and ‘Class B.’ Class A includes only such warehouses, elevators, or granaries as are located in cities having not less than 100,000 inhabitants, and the act otherwise defined warehouses of this class as follows: ‘Public warehouses of class A shall embrace all warehouses, elevators or granaries in which grain is stored in bulk, and in which the grain of different owners is mixed together, or in which grain is stored in such a manner that the identity of different lots or parcels can not be accurately preserved.’ The public warehouse of the Central Elevator Company is located in the city of Chicago, and is included in class A. Section 3 of the act of 1871 provided that the owner, lessee, or manager of any warehouse of class A should be required to procure from the circuit court of the county in which the warehouse is situated a license authorizing such owner, lessee, or manager to transact business as a public warehouseman. Section 6 of the act of 1871 is as follows, except the words italicized and placed in brackets.

‘Sec. 6. It shall be the duty of every warehouseman of class A to receive for storage any grain that may be tendered to him in the usual manner in which warehouses are accustomed to receive the same in the ordinary and usual course of business, not making any discrimination between persons, [ or between himself as the owner of grain stored in such house and other persons,] desiring to avail themselves of warehouse facilities,-such grain in all cases to be inspected and graded by a duly authorized inspector, and to be stored with grain of a similar grade received at the same time, as near as may be. In no case shall grain or different grades be mixed together while in store; but, if the owner or consignee so requests, and the warehouseman consent thereto, his grain of the same grade may be kept in a bin by itself, apart from that of the owners; which bin shall, thereupon, be marked and known as a ‘separate bin.’ If a warehouse receipt be issued for grain so kept separate, it shall state, on its face, that it is in a separate bin, and shall state the number of such bin; and no grain shall be delivered from such warehouses unless it be inspected on the delivery thereof by a duly authorized inspector of grain. Nothing in this section shall be so construed as to require the receipt of grain into any warehouse in which there is not sufficient room to accommodate or store it properly, or in cases where such warehouse is necessarily closed. [ The proprietors, lessees or managers of public warehouses of class A may store in any such warehouses owned, leased or managed by them grain of their own and mix it with the grain of others of like grade stored therein, and may purchase warehouse receipts representing grain on store in such warehouses owned, leased or managed by them; but when any such proprietor, lessee or manager shall desire to so store and mix his own grain in any such warehouse or warehouses owned, leased or managed by him, or to purchase receipts for grain...