Heaney v. Northeast Park Dist. of Evanston

• Decision Date: 18 April 1935
• Docket Number: No. 22873.,22873.
• Citation: 195 N.E. 649,360 Ill. 254
• Parties: HEANEY et al. v. NORTHEAST PARK DIST. OF EVANSTON et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

360 Ill. 254

195 N.E. 649

HEANEY et al.

v.NORTHEAST PARK DIST. OF EVANSTON et al.

No. 22873.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 18, 1935.

Proceeding by Charles J. Heaney and others against the Northeast Park District of Evanston and others. From a decree pro confesso, defendants appeal.

Reversed, and proceeding dismissed.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; Benjamin P. Epstein, judge.

Charles Center Case and Allan J. Carter, both of Chicago, for appellants.

Adams, Hawley, Brown & Adams and Bayley, Merrick, Webster & Gregory, all of Chicago (Tappan Gregory, Melvin M. Hawley, and Robert L. Hunter, all of Chicago, of counsel), for appellees.

SHAW, Justice.

In the spring of 1929 a petition for the formation of the Northeast Park District of Evanston was filed pursuant to the act of the General Assembly entitled ‘An Act to provide for the organization of park districts and the transfer of submerged lands to those bordering on navigable bodies of water,’ approved June 24, 1895, in force July 1, 1895, as amended (Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1931, c. 105, § 256 et seq.; Cahill's Rev. St. 1931, c. 105, par. 295 et seq.). Pursuant to this petition, which was for the formation of the district and for placing the names of certain persons on the ballots as candidates for commissioners, the county judge of Cook county issued his order calling the statutory election for July 9, 1929. The election was held in accordance with the order of the county judge, the returns were made to him and were canvassed by him, and thereafter he entered an order declaring that all of the acts and proceedings required by law to be done before and after the election had been fully and lawfully done; that 817 votes had been cast at the election-411 for the organization of the proposed park district and 406 against it. His order further declared that the persons named therein were elected to the office of commissioners and decreed the park district to be a duly organized body politic. Subsequent to this order of the county court, a petition was filed in the circuit court of Cook county asking leave to file an information in the nature of quo warranto against the persons named as commissioners of the park district, and upon this petition leave was granted and the petition filed in the name of the people, on relation of Gustav E. Seegren, questioning the right of the incumbents to act as commissioners for the district and challenging the legality of its organization. The proceeding thus started came to this court, and our opinion thereon may be found in People ex rel. v. Sackett, 351 Ill. 363, 184 N. E. 646. In that case demurrers were sustained to certain pleas, and the judgment of the circuit court of Cook county in that respect was reversed in this court and the cause remanded. In that case we specifically held that the steps in the organization of the park district in question were judicial acts, and also that the act of 1895 above referred to presents a complete system for organizing such a district. During the pendency of the quo warranto proceedings above mentioned the appellees herein filed a written statement in the circuit court of Cook county seeking to invoke section 117 of the General Election law (Smith-Hurd Ann. St. c. 46, § 120, Cahill's Rev. St. 1933, c. 46, par. 130); designating their written statement as a contest petition challenging the validity and results of the election for the formation of the district now in question. Specifically, and in the words of the appellees, the procedure was started to ‘contest results of an election held upon July 9, 1929, upon the following proposition: ‘Shall the following described territory, situated in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, viz., * * * be organized into a park district to be known as the Northeast Park District of Evanston?’' It is alleged in the so-called contest petition that the majority of the votes legally cast at the election were against the creation of the district. The park commissioners individually and the district as a corporation demurred to the petition, which demurrer was overruled. Having elected to stand by their demurrer, the court entered a decree pro confesso sustaining the allegations of the petition and granting the relief prayed. The record is brought here by direct appeal; a franchise being involved.

The steps by which a described territory becomes a municipal corporation as a park district are prescribed by statute, and upon completion of that procedure it is, in the words of the act, ‘deemed an organized park district, * * * and the said district so organized shall have the name designated and set forth in said petition, and by such name and style the same may sue and be sued, contract and be contracted with, acquire and hold real estate and personal property necessary for corporate purposes and adopt a common seal and alter the same at pleasure, and such district shall constitute in law and equity a body corporate and politic and exercise the powers herein specified. All courts of this state shall take judicial notice of the organization of said park district and of the election of said commissioners.’ Laws 1895, p. 273, § 5 (Smith-Hurd Ann. St. c. 105, § 260, Cahill's Rev. St. 1933, c. 105, par. 299). We have held that such a park district is a municipal corporation. Van Nada v. Goedde, 263 Ill. 105, 104 N. E. 1072. We have also held, as above noted, in connection with this same park district, that the functions of the county judge in declaring the district organized are judicial acts.

While the acts performed are judicial, it is also true that the proceedings for the formation of the park district are special and statutory in their nature and constitute neither an action at law nor a suit in equity. Such proceedings may be reviewed only in whatever manner, if any, may be provided by the statute itself. Freeport Motor Casualty Co. v. Madden, 354 Ill. 486, 188 N. E. 415;City of Chicago v. Chicago Steamship Lines, 328 Ill. 309, 159 N. E. 301;People v. Emmerson, 294 Ill. 219, 128 N. E. 385. To permit this proceeding to be carried on in the circuit court would amount to a review by that court of the final judicial act of the county court, which, so far as we can see from the statute, is not provided for either directly or by necessary implication.

A...