Kelly v. Chicago Park Dist.
Decision Date | 22 March 1951 |
Docket Number | No. 31697,31697 |
Citation | 98 N.E.2d 738,409 Ill. 91 |
Parties | KELLY et al. v. CHICAGO PARK DIST. |
Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Philip A. Lozowick, of Chicago (Martin G. Loeff, Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.
Michael F. Ryan, of Chicago (R. F. McPartlin, Jr., and Martin J. McNally, Chicago, of counsel), for appellees.
John J. Mortimer, Acting Corporation Counsel, of Chicago (L. Louis Karton, and James B. Parsons, Chicago, of counsel), for the City of Chicago.
This case originated with a suit filed in the circuit court of Cook County by seventeen Chicago Park District employees who sought compensation from the park district for a period covering about seven and one-half years, during which they were wrongfully excluded from their respective positions as civil service employees. The trial court entered judgment for the plaintiffs in lesser amounts than claimed, whereupon both plaintiffs and defendant took an appeal to the Appellate Court for the First District. The latter court held 341 Ill.App. 37, 92 N.E.2d 782, that the plaintiffs were entitled to the full amounts claimed, with some minor exceptions, reversed the judgment of the circuit court and remanded the cause. Upon leave granted, the defendant has perfected an appeal to this court from the judgment of the Appellate Court.
The present litigation is an outgrowth of the consolidation, on May 1, 1934, of twenty-two park districts in the city of Chicago into one district, viz., the Chicago Park District, the defendant in this case. At the time of consolidation, nineteen of the districts, referred to generally as the 'small park districts,' did not operate under the provisions of the Park Civil Service Act of 1911. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1933, chap. 24 1/2, par. 78 et seq.; Laws of 1911, p. 211, as amended.) The remaining three districts known as the 'large park districts' operated under that act. By the provisions of section 14 of the Chicago Park District Act, (Ill.Rev.Stat.1933, chap. 105, par. 333.14,) said act being the authority under which the consolidation was accomplished, the Park Civil Service Act was to apply to the Chicago Park District.
At the time of the consolidation the plaintiffs were employees of the non-civil-service park districts. The commissioners and civil service board of the Chicago Park District, soon after the commencement of their administration on May 1, 1934, concluded that the provisions of section 14 of the Chicago Park District Act did not evince a legislative intent that the employees of the small park districts should, subsequent to the consolidation, enjoy civil service status. The opinion of this court upholding the validity of the Chicago Park District Act became final on October 11, 1934, People v. Kelly, 357 Ill. 408, 192 N.E. 372, and at various times during the month of November, 1934, the plaintiffs were separated from their positions with the defendant. In December, 1935, plaintiffs instituted a mandamus proceeding in the superior court of Cook County to secure the writ necessary to restore them to their positions. The trial court refused to award the writ, but the Appellate Court, in People ex rel. Kelly v. Dunham, 313 Ill.App. 18, 38 N.E.2d 983, (leave to appeal denied, 316 Ill.App. XIV,) reversed that court and remanded with the direction that the writ issue. That appeal was not heard by the Appellate Court until the October term, 1938; the opinion was filed January 19, 1942, and became final when leave to appeal was denied by this court on June 10, 1942. In obedience to the mandate of the Appellate Court, the superior court entered a judgment order on June 30, 1942, and the plaintiffs were sent notices of certification and appointment as civil service employees. All but one reported for certification and appointment and were placed in employment on or about July 16, 1942.
Thereafter, in September, 1942, three months after the prolonged mandamus proceeding had culminated in a final and successful judgment, plaintiffs brought the action which generates this appeal. By it they sought to recover from the defendant salaries aggregating approximately $279,000 for the varying periods they were wrongfully excluded from their respective positions from November, 1934, when they were released, to July, 1942, when they were restored to duty. The judgment of the circuit court only awarded compensation for the period from January 19, 1942, the date when the decision of the Appellate Court reversed the trial court, to the date of the actual reinstatement of each plaintiff in July, 1942. On appeal by the plaintiffs, and cross appeal by the defendant, the Appellate Court reversed the judgment of the circuit court and remanded the cause. Kelly v. Chicago Park District, 341 Ill.App. 37, 92 N.E.2d 782. The Appellate Court was of the opinion that each plaintiff was entitled to the amount he claimed, except in those instances where a plaintiff had, during the period for which compensation was claimed, worked temporarily for the defendant in a capacity other than the one claimed to be his regular one. Compensation so earned was deducted. The total amount ordered to be paid by the defendant to the plaintiffs totalled $279,436.72. We have granted the defendant's petition for leave to appeal, for a further review of the matter.
Throughout this litigation, the defendant has contended that the plaintiffs' salary claims are barred by the five-year Statute of Limitations. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1949, chap. 83, par. 16.) It is urged that the plaintiffs' mandamus proceeding, by which they sought to compel their recognition and reinstatement as civil service employees, and the present proceeding to recover salaries, are but two different types of remedy for the same cause of action and that the statute began to run against the salary claims when the right to pursue the earlier remedy of mandamus accrued. In arriving at such a conclusion defendant relies largely on several cases in which this court has held that civil service reinstatement and recovery of salary may be accomplished in one proceeding. People ex rel. Blachly v. Coffin, 279 Ill. 401, 117 N.E. 85; Pepole ex rel. Sellers v. Brady, 262 Ill. 578, 105 N.E. 1; People ex rel. McDonnell v. Thompson, 316 Ill. 11, 146 N.E. 473. We believe that defendant has incorrectly interpreted the right to join a prayer for salary with a prayer for reinstatement as creating an independent and immediately enforceable cause of action for salary. The cause of action for salaries could not accrue to plaintiffs until their rights to their respective positions were first determined. This was the holding of this court in Kreitz v. Behrensmeyer, 149 Ill. 496, 36 N.E. 983, 24 L.R.A. 59. Defendant points out that there are many factual differences between the Kreitz case and the present one, and seeks to distinguish it chiefly on the ground that, the right to office being determined, there was an elective office rather than a civil service position. We believe the distinction made is without force, for whether it be an elective office or an appointive position, establishing the right to the office or position must be a condition presedent to the right to salary, and until the former right is established no cause of action for salary can accrue. Where a party's success in one action is a prerequisite to his right to maintain a new action, the Statute of Limitations does not begin to run as to the new action until the determination of the pending suit, which decides whether the new right exists. 54 C.J.S., Limitations of Actions, § 110b, page 15, City of Phoenix v. Sittenfeld, 53 Ariz. 240, 88 P.2d 83. Since the plaintiffs' reinstatement suit, in the instant case, was not finally disposed of until June 30, 1942, the suit for salaries filed in September, 1942, was well within the five-year period of limitation.
In determining that plaintiffs were entitled to their salaries for the period they were wrongfully prevented from working, the Appellate Court followed the familiar rule of law pertaining to public officers, which recognizes that if one is lawfully entitled to a public office the right to...
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