Jeanne and Jerome Abeles Foundation v. Clark

• Decision Date: 27 September 1963
• Docket Number: No. 37678,37678
• Citation: 192 N.E.2d 809,28 Ill.2d 556
• Parties: The JEANNE AND JEROME ABELES FOUNDATION et al., Appellees, v. William G. CLARK, Attorney General, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 809

192 N.E.2d 809

28 Ill.2d 556

The JEANNE AND JEROME ABELES FOUNDATION et al., Appellees, v. William G. CLARK, Attorney General, Appellant.

No. 37678.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Sept. 27, 1963.

William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Springfield (William C. Wines, Raymond S. Sarnow, A. Zola Groves and Edward A. Berman, Asst. Attys. Gen., of counsel), for appellant.

Altheimer, Gray, Naiburg, Strasburger & Lawton, Chicago (Richard Z. Kabaker, Chicago, of counsel), for appellees.

UNDERWOOD, Justice.

The Jeanne and Jerome Abeles Foundation, the Abel E. and Mildred R. Fagan Foundation, the Albert Pick, Jr., Fund and the Pick Benevolent Association, each a corporation organized and existing under the terms of the General Not-For-Profit Corporation Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1961, chap. 32, par. 163a et seq.), filed their complaint against the Attorney General asking a declaratory judgment that none of the plaintiffs is a trustee under section 3 of the Charitable Trust Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1961 chap. 14, par. 53) and therefore need not comply with the provisions of said act, and seeking an injunction restraining the Attorney General from enforcing the terms of the act against plaintiffs. Thereafter an amended complaint was filed which added an allegation that the Charitable Trust Act, insofar as it purports to require compliance by charitable corporations, violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the United States constitution and the due process clause of the Illinois constitution, and that the act embraces a subject not expressed in the title thereof in violation of article IV, section 13, of the Illinois constitution, S.H.A. The prayer of the original complaint was expanded to request a declaratory judgment that the act is unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable.

The Attorney General then filed his motion to strike the amended complaint, and the circuit court of Cook County, after hearing, found the plaintiffs were not 'trustees' as that term is defined in the statute, and also found the statute to be constitutional. The defendant elected to stand on his motion and the court entered its final decree declaring none of the plaintiffs subject to the Charitable Trust Act. The Attorney General brings this case here on direct appeal from the finding that plaintiffs are not 'trustees' within the act, and plaintiffs filed their cross-appeal from the finding that the act is constitutional. All parties seek a determination here on the issue of the validity of the statute, and the Attorney General seeks a determination that plaintiffs are 'trustees' within the meaning of section 3 of the act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1961, chap. 14, par. 53), and therefore are charitable trustees under the act, and subject to all of the provisions thereof. They seek to predicate jurisdiction here upon the fact that the trial court expressly passed upon the validity of a statute.

Section 75 of the Civil Practice Act, (Ill.Rev.Stat.1961, chap. 110, par. 75), provides for direct appeals to this court in certain enumerated instances, and if we have jurisdiction here, it must be either because the State is interested as a party or otherwise or because the validity of a statute is involved.

In Keplinger v. Lord, 357 Ill. 571, 574, 192 N.E. 549, 550, we said: 'The state is interested in a case, within the contemplation of the particular section of the Practice Act, only when it has a direct and substantial, as distinguished from a mere nominal, interest in the subject-matter of the litigation. (Citing cases.) Moreover, the direct and substantial interest which is the condition of a direct appeal, it has been said, must be an interest of a monetary character.' The issues here do not meet this monetary interest test. Burke v. Civil Service Com., 26 Ill.2d 609, 188 N.E.2d 47; People ex rel. Ill. Commerce Commission v. Galvin, 26 Ill.2d 341, 186 N.E.2d 284.

Reference to the complaint and amended complaint here discloses that the primary relief sought by plaintiffs was a judgment declaring them not to be trustees within the meaning of section 3 of the Charitable Trust Act and that they need not comply with the provisions of the act. On this issue, plaintiffs prevailed. By the amended complaint, plaintiffs...