Hepler v. People ex rel. Wetz
| Decision Date | 11 April 1907 |
| Citation | 80 N.E. 759,226 Ill. 275 |
| Parties | HEPLER et al. v. PEOPLE ex rel. WETZ et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Circuit Court, Livingston County; George W. Patton, Judge.
Information in the nature of quo warranto by the people on the relation of Leonard Wetz and another against C. A. Hepler and others. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendants appeal. Reversed and remanded.Paul R. Chubbuck and A. C. Norton, for appellants.
A. C. Bill, State's Atty., Guy L. Louderback, U. W. Louderback, and R. S. McIlduff, for appellees.
This is an information in the nature of quo warranto commenced by the state's attorney of Livingston county, on the relation of Leonard Wetz and Frank Reed, against C. A. Hepler and George Brown, of Reading township, in Livingston county, and Patrick Healey, of Osage township, in La Salle county, charging that the defendants are unlawfully acting as drainage commissioners of an alleged drainage district known as ‘Union District No. 1,’ and are assuming to exercise corporate powers in the name of said drainage district. The information charged that the district had not been legally organized. Defendants filed a plea to the information, to which a demurrer was sustained, and thereupon filed an amended plea, which recited all the steps that had been taken in the organization of the district, setting out in detail copies of all the various papers filed and orders entered, which upon their face show a compliance with every requirement of the statute in relation to the formation of a union drainage district. A demurrer was overruled to the amended plea, and plaintiffs filed four special replications. A demurrer was sustained to the second, and overruled as to the first, third, and fourth. Plaintiffs subsequently filed three additional replications, designated as ‘second,’ ‘third,’ and ‘fourth’ additional replications. A demurrer was sustained to the third and fourth additional replications, and overruled as to the second. The replications on which issue was joined and upon which the trial was had are as follows:
‘(1) The said plaintiffs, as to all of the pleas filed herein, say that the said commissioners did not, on the 26th day of August, 1904, find the matters and things as in said plea alleged, and did not then and there reduce their findings to writing and file the same with the clerk to be filed with the papers in the case; and of this the said plaintiffs put themselves upon the country.’
‘(3) The said plaintiffs, further replying to said plea of the defendants filed herein, say that at the meeting of the said commissioners on September 13, 1904, the said commissionersdid not make the findings as alleged in said plea, and did not then and there put said findings in writing and sign the same and there file the same with the said clerk, and the said clerk did not then and there enter the same upon the records; and of this the plaintiffs put themselves upon the country.’
‘(4) And the said plaintiffs, as to the pleas of the defendants filed herein, say that the said Joseph Bradley, as clerk of said commissioners, did not, in fact, keep a drainage record, as is required of him by law; that the book which is claimed to be a drainage record of the said alleged Union, Drainage District No. 1 of Reading township, Livingston county, Ill., and Osage township, La Salle county, Ill., was not and never has been in the custody of said clerk, Joseph Bradley, at the time the said district is claimed to have been organized by said commissioners; that a majority of the entries made in said book were not made by said clerk; that the said record is not a true record of the orders and findings of the commissioners made by the clerk and entered by him, as is required by law, but that it is a fraudulent one, made up and prepared by the attorney for said commissioners or by some other person under the instruction of said attorney; that said book was not in the custody of said clerk and never has been until long after the time when the said drainage district is claimed to have been organized; that the alleged orders and findings of the commissioners were made up of typewritten sheets and pasted in said book before the said book came into the hands of said clerk; that some of the entries in said book have been changed and altered since the commencement of this suit, so that the same does not appear now as it did when this proceeding was begun, without this: that the clerk did not, as alleged in said plea, enter at length all of the orders and findings of said commissioners in a well-bound book kept by him and known as the drainage record, all of which said plaintiffs are ready to verify and wherefore they pray judgment.’
Second additional plea: ‘The plaintiff herein, by leave of court first obtained, for further and additional replication to the plea of the defendants herein, say that Joseph Bradley, the alleged clerk, did not on August 18, 1904, post typewritten notices in three public places in said alleged proposed drainage district, stating that a meeting would be held in his office in Ancona, in said Reading township, on the 26th day of August, A. D. 1904, at 1 o'clock p. m., for the purpose of considering said petition and the organization of said drainage district, and did not on the same date file a copy thereof in his office as in said plea alleged; and of this the said plaintiffs put themselves upon the country.’
A jury was impaneled to try these issues, and at the close of defendants' evidence the court directed a verdict of guilty, upon which judgment of ouster was rendered and a nominal fine assessed against the defendants, from which defendants have prosecuted this appeal for the purpose of securing a reversal of said judgment.
VICKERS, J. (after stating the facts).
Appellees having filed replications to the amended plea after a demurrer thereto had been overruled, the sufficiency of the plea stands admitted upon the record. Peck v. Boggess, 1 Scam. 281;People ex rel. v. Gary, 196 Ill. 310, 63 N. E. 749. None of the replications purported to reply to all the facts set up in the plea, nor do all of the replications, when considered together, put in issue every material fact set up in the plea. All material facts set out in the...
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