People ex rel. Black v. Dukes

• Decision Date: 18 May 1983
• Docket Number: No. 57431,57431
• Citation: 70 Ill.Dec. 509,449 N.E.2d 856,96 Ill.2d 273
• Parties: , 70 Ill.Dec. 509 The PEOPLE ex rel. Bruce W. BLACK, State's Attorney, Appellant, v. Denzil L. DUKES, Appellee.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 856

449 N.E.2d 856

96 Ill.2d 273, 70 Ill.Dec. 509

The PEOPLE ex rel. Bruce W. BLACK, State's Attorney, Appellant, v. Denzil L. DUKES, Appellee.

No. 57431.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 18, 1983.

Knuppel, Grosboll, Becker & Tice, Petersburg, for appellee; Homer J. Tice, Petersburg, of counsel.

G. Edward Orr, Civil Asst. State's Atty., Pekin, for plaintiff-appellee-petitioner.

SIMON, Justice:

The State's Attorney for Tazewell County petitioned the circuit court for that county for a writ of quo warranto holding that it was illegal for the defendant, Denzil L. Dukes, to hold simultaneously the offices of trustee of the South Pekin village board of trustees and member of the South Pekin Grade School board of education. The amended complaint alleged that on April 8, 1978, Mr. Dukes was elected to fill an unexpired term on the school board; on July 10, 1978, he was appointed to the village board; on April 10, 1979, he was reelected to a four-year term on the village board; and on April 14, 1979, he was reelected to a three-year term on the school board. The complaint further alleged that because the village and school board were given authority by the Constitution (Ill. Const.1970, art. VII, sec. 10(a)) to contract with each other and the village board was authorized by statute (Ill.Rev.Stat.1979, ch. 85, par. 611 et seq.) to grant financial assistance to the school district, simultaneous membership on both boards is inconsistent and legally incompatible. The quo warranto petition recited that because Mr. Dukes was serving as a member of the village board when elected to the school board on April 14, 1979, he is to be treated in law as having resigned from the village board at that time and prayed for a judgment of ouster against Mr. Dukes from his membership on the village board. Mr. Dukes, for his part, sought to remain on both boards. As far as the record discloses, neither the State nor Mr. Dukes ever sought any other form of relief.

On June 25, 1981, the circuit court allowed the petitioner's motion for summary judgment and entered a judgment declaring that by his election to the school board on April 14, 1979, Mr. Dukes had ipso facto resigned as a member of the board of trustees of the village. Mr. Dukes appealed from this summary judgment and declaratory judgment order, and on September 7, 1982, the appellate court filed an opinion, with one judge dissenting, reversing the judgment of the circuit court (108 Ill.App.3d 965, 64 Ill.Dec. 497, 439 N.E.2d 1305).

The State's Attorney filed a petition for leave to appeal which this court allowed. He filed no further briefs in this court and did not appear for oral argument when this appeal was heard by this court on April 7, 1983. The defendant, Mr. Dukes, filed an answer to the petition for leave to appeal and a brief and argument in this court, and his attorney was present when the case was called for oral argument.

It now appears that Mr. Dukes submitted his resignation as a member of the village board on September 6, 1982, and the resignation was accepted by the village board on the same date. The record does not show whether this resignation was ever called to the attention of the appellate court, although the resignation was effective the day before the opinion of the appellate court was filed.

Mr. Dukes now holds office only as a member of the school board, and that was his status when the appellate court reached its decision. The State did not contend that Mr. Dukes had forfeited this office by operation of law, but rather alleged that he had forfeited his position of village trustee, the office which he resigned. As a result, there remains no present controversy between the State and Mr. Dukes for which a pronouncement by either this court or the appellate court could provide a remedy. The issues raised by the parties are therefore moot, and the cause should have been dismissed without opinion by the appellate court had it known of Mr. Dukes' resignation. We do so now.

The courts of this State should not decide a case where "[a]ny judgment [they] could render would be ' "wholly ineffectual for want of a subject matter on which it could operate" ' " (Madison Park Bank v. Zagel (1982), 91 Ill.2d 231, 235, 62 Ill.Dec. 950, 437 N.E.2d 638, quoting Brownlow v. Schwartz (1923), 261 U.S. 216, 217, 43 S.Ct. 263, 264, 67 L.Ed. 620, 621) and could have advisory effect only. This is true even where leave to appeal has been granted after the cause became moot. (Madison Park Bank v. Zagel (1982), 91 Ill.2d 231, 236, 62 Ill.Dec. 950, 437 N.E.2d 638.) A principal reason for this well-established rule of justiciability is the fear that the parties to a dispute which for practical purposes has ceased to exist will lack the "personal stake in the outcome of the controversy [which serves] to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult * * * questions" (Baker v. Carr (1962), 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663,...