Klinger v. People ex rel. Hughes

• Decision Date: 31 October 1889
• Parties: KLINGER v. PEOPLE ex rel. HUGHES, State's Attorney.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

130 Ill. 509

22 N.E. 600

KLINGER

v.PEOPLE ex rel. HUGHES, State's Attorney.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 31, 1889.

Appeal from appellate court, third district.

A. T. Pipher

and S. R. Reed, for appellant.

Charles Hughes, State's Atty., and % j. l. r/ay, for appellee.

MAGRUDER, J.

When this case was decided in the appellate court of the third district the following opinion was delivered by Mr. Justice PLEASANTS, of that court:

‘This was an information in the nature of a quo warranto filed by the state's attorney of Piatt county, against Klinger, Vandervort, and Wooding, charging in separate counts that respondents usurped the office of drainage commissioners of the town of Blue Ridge, of drainage commissioners of drainage district No. 1, of said town, and of drainage commissioners of, in, and for certain pretended drainage districts or systems of drainage which they have designated as drainage systems No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4, respectively, and without right or authority have proceeded to lay out, survey, plat, and construct ditches therein, and to levy taxes, assessments, etc., therefor. Respondents filed a plea averring that Blue Ridge was a town in Piatt county; that said county has for years been under township organization; that in 1883 there was presented to the town clerk of said town, with the requisite bond, a petition signed by a majority of adult owners of all the lands in said town, being also owners in the aggregate of more than one-third of all said lands, praying that a drainage district be organized, embracing all the lands in said town for the purpose in that behalf in the statute mentioned; that due notice thereof was given to the then commissioners of high ways of said town; that they proceeded regularly under the provisions of the drainage act approved May 29, 1879, to organize, and did so organize, the district prayed for, as drainage district No. 1, in said town; that no other drainage district has been organized in said town; and that respondents are now the commissioners of high ways of said town. The plea set out at great length the several steps and proceedings taken by all concerned in the alleged organization, and the several provisions of the act above referred to, and of that approved June 27, 1885, by which, as they claim, the same were respectively directed or authorized. A demurrer to the plea, assigning divers causes therefore, was sustained. Respondents Vandervort and Wooding then filed a disclaimer, and declined to defend further; and Klinger abiding by the plea, a judgment was entered of ouster and for costs against Klinger and Vandervort, Wooding having only just succeeded Wheeler (a former co-respondent) as commissioner of highways, and been substituted for him as respondent herein. From that judgment Klinger appealed, and brings the record here for review.

‘On the part of the people it is contended that the plea shows that the district therein referred to never had a legal organization; and, further, that if it had, the respondents abandoned it, and have undertaken, of their own motion, without any petition, to create four distinct districts, under the name of ‘systems of drainage.’ The plea states that upon the organization of said district the commissioners, in the discharge of their duties, went upon and examined all the lands within it to determine upon a plan of drainage therein; and upon such examination, being aided therein by a competent engineer, found the surface of the land in said district, embracing the whole town, was such as to constitute four distinct water-sheds, having different directions for the...