Nega v. Chicago Rys. Co.

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: STONE
• Citation: Nega v. Chicago Rys. Co., 317 Ill. 482, 148 N.E. 250 (Ill. 1925)
• Decision Date: 18 June 1925
• Docket Number: No. 16021.,16021.
• Parties: NEGA v. CHICAGO RYS. CO. et al.

317 Ill. 482
148 N.E. 250

NEGA
v.
CHICAGO RYS. CO. et al.

No. 16021.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 18, 1925.

Action by the Boyda Dairy Company, in the name of Frank Nega, against the Chicago Railways Company and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal.

Reversed.

[317 Ill. 483]Appeal from Superior Court, Cook County; Jacob H. Hopkins, judge.
Brown, For & Blumberg, of Chicago (John R. Guilliams, Charles Le Roy Brown, Franklin B. Hussey, and Frank L. Kriete, all of Chicago, of counsel), for appellants.

Brown, Alschuler & Reagh, of Chicago, for appellee.

STONE, J.

Appellee, Frank Nega, was injured while driving a horse-drawn wagon for the Boyda Dairy Company. The night was dark and stormy, and one of appellants' street cars ran into and injured him. The Boyda Dairy Company paid him the sum of $50 for medical services and a further sum of $1,225. Appellee brought this suit in his own name to recover damages for the injuries received. The jury returned a verdict for $10,000 damages for personal injuries to Nega. It is conceded that Nega, the dairy company, and the appellants were all under the Workmen's Compensation Act, if the act was valid. The injury was sustained on June 17, 1920. In the court below appellants moved for a verdict and judgment for them on the ground that sections 6 and 29 of the Compensation Act (Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1923, c. 48, §§ 143, 166) then in force precluded the maintenance of any action against a third party causing the injury, where, as here, all parties were under the Compensation Act. Appellee argued against such motion, and urges here that the entire Compensation Act as it stood in 1919 was unconstitutional. The trial court held the act unconstitutional as a whole, and that for that reason it formed no bar to the action at law for injuries. Judgment was entered on the verdict, and the cause comes directly to this court, because a constitutional question is involved.

It is conceded by appellee that, if the Compensation Act as amended in 1919 was not unconstitutional in its entirety, [317 Ill. 484]it constituted a complete bar to this action. Clause 1 of paragraph (f) of section 19 of the act, as amended, is as follows:

‘The circuit court of the county where any of the parties defendant may be found shall by writ of certiorari to the Industrial Commission have power to review all questions of law presented by such record, except such as arise in a proceeding in which under paragraph (b) of this section decision of the arbitrator or committee of arbitration has become the decision of the Industrial Commission. * * * Such suit by writ of certiorari shall be commenced within twenty days of the receipt of notice of the decision of the commission.’ Laws 1916, p. 548.

It is contended by appellee that, because this paragraph of section 19 did not give power to the courts to review disputed questions of fact, as well as questions of law, it was void, as contravening the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and, that being so, the entire act was unconstitutional. It is urged in support of this claim that this court has, in effect, held in Otis Elevator Co. v. Industrial Com., 302 Ill. 90, 134 N. E. 19, this paragraph is unconstitutional. This is a misconception of what was held in the Otis Elevator Co. Case. The amendment of 1921, and not the act as it stood in 1919, was expressly held to be applicable to the review in that case. Clause 1 of paragraph (f) of section 19, as amended in 1921 (Laws 1921, p. 457 [Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1923, c. 48, § 156]), provided that the circuit court shall have power by writ of certiorari to review all questions of law and fact presented by the record. To that clause was added this proviso:

‘Provided, that no additional evidence shall be heard in the circuit court, and the findings of fact made by the commission shall not be set aside unless contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence,’ etc.

The question involved in that case was as to the validity of this proviso, which, by stating when or how a finding could be set aside on review, sought to place a limitation, not on the right of the court to review [317 Ill. 485]the facts, but upon the manner or rule of decision to be used and exercised by the court in such review. What was there considered was

[148 N.E. 251]

the independence and freedom of judicial consideration of issues reviewed by the court in the exercise of its own rules of decision, and the proviso referred to was held to be void, as an attempt to prescribe a rule governing judicial action and determination; it there being said that whatever rules of decision courts may have themselves made do not give power to the Legislature to lay down such rules. The following language was also used:

‘Due process of law requires submission to a judicial tribunal for determination upon its own independent judgment as to both law and facts, according to the settled rules governing judicial action and decision’-citing Ohio Valley Water Co. v. Ben Avon Borough, 253 U. S. 287, 40 S. Ct. 527, 64 L. Ed. 908.

That language is to be considered in the light of the subject-matter of the question before the court. Considered apart from such question, it was in no wise essential or pertinent to the decision. The validity of the Compensation Act as it existed prior to 1921 was not being considered, and this is clearly pointed out in the opinion, and also in Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. v. Chicago Rys. Co., 309 Ill. 346, 141 N. E. 172. The only question considered and decided in the Otis Elevator Co. Case that in any way touches on the validity of the statute there under consideration was that concerning the power of the Legislature to prescribe rules governing judicial action and decision, and when considered in connection with the only question then before the court will readily be seen to bear in no way upon the question in this case. That case is not to be construed, either as holding the Compensation Act of 1919 invalid in whole or in part, or as a determination of the question whether judicial review, in order to meet the requirements of due process, must include a review of conflicting evidence as well as issues of law. That question was not in the case. The amendment of 1921 was applicable, and provided for review of issues of fact as well [317 Ill. 486]as issues...