People ex rel. Gill v. Hamilton

• Decision Date: 11 June 1937
• Docket Number: No. 24034.,24034.
• Citation: 366 Ill. 455,9 N.E.2d 243
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. GILL, County Collector v. HAMILTON.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

366 Ill. 455

9 N.E.2d 243

PEOPLE ex rel. GILL, County Collector

v.HAMILTON.

No. 24034.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 11, 1937.

Proceeding by the People, on the relation of Joseph L. Gill, county collector, to collect taxes levied against the property of Edward Hamilton, who filed objections thereto. From a judgment for relator, the objector appeals.

Judgment affirmed.Appeal from County Court, Cook County; Edmund K. Jarecki, judge.

Robert N. Holt and Scott, MacLeish & Falk, all of Chicago, for appellant.

Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., Manuel E. Cowen, Charles Center Cose, and Kirkland, Fleming, Green, Martin & Ellis, all of Chicago (Joseph B. Fleming and Thomas M. Thomas, both of Chicago, of counsel), for appellee.

HERRICK, Justice.

The objector, appellant here, filed in the county court of Cook county his objections to certain taxes levied in 1934 by the Chicago Park District against his property. The objections were overruled. The court entered judgment and order of sale. The cause comes here on the objector's appeal.

The major question for decision is whether the Chicago Park District had the legal authority to levy a tax for the year 1934. Before the creation of that district, there were 22 park districts in the Chicago area. Nineteen of these were organized under the Act of 1895. Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 105, §§ 256-295; Cahill's Stat. 1933, c. 105, pars. 295-334, pp. 2017-2027. The 3 remaining districts, South, Lincoln, and West, were organized in 1869 under special laws. 1 Private Laws of 1869, pp. 342-379.

It is the objector's contention that the Chicago Park District had no power to levy a tax for the year 1934. He urges that all districts created under the act should have levied their taxes and filed their levies with the county clerk within the first quarter of the fiscal year which expired on March 31, 1934. He further states that such districts could not anticipate that the Chicago Park District would be organized, but that it was the duty of the several duly organized districts to have proceeded with their levies and made provisions to operate through the year. If the Chicago Park District was organized, it would succeed to such funds collected through such levies and disburse the funds in the carrying on of the park work. It does appear from the stipulation in the record that some park districts other than Old Portage and Sauganash passed levy ordinances prior to May 1, 1934. No taxes are purported to have been extended on any of such levies other than Old Portage and Sauganash. The Chicago Park District came into existence May 1, 1934.

The objector urges that the act of 1895 above cited provided that the appropriations for park districts organized under the act must be passed within the first quarter of the fiscal year. The objector is in error in his position that the statute of 1895, as it existed in 1934, required the tax to be levied in the first quarter of the now superseded park districts' fiscal year. Section 22 of the act of 1895 (as amended, Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 105, § 277) required park districts organized under that act to levy their taxes at the same time and in the same manner, as nearly as practicable, as the taxes were then levied for city and village purposes. Section 1 of article 8 of the Cities and Villages Act provides that cities and villages shall levy their taxes on or before the third Tuesday of September of each year. Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 24, § 123; Cahill's Stat. 1933, c. 24, p. 337. The statute requiring park districts to levy their taxes in the first quarter of the fiscal year was added by an amendment approved July 10, 1935. Laws 1935, p. 1034, § 19a (Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 105, § 274a). The three park districts organized under the private laws above cited were not required to levy their taxes prior to May 1 of each year.

The objector also relies upon a letter from the comptroller of the Chicago Park District dated August 7, 1935, to the county clerk in which he states, in substance, that that district, on September 10, 1934, adopted a tax levy ordinance for the year 1934 which superseded all tax levies which may have been filed by any of the superseded park districts, with the exception of the taxes for corporate purposes for which levies were filed prior to May 1, 1934, by the Old Portage and Sauganash park districts. This letter cannot improve the objector's position on this branch of the case. Even though any such districts had adopted tax levy ordinances and duly certified them to the county clerk in those cases where no tax anticipation warrants had been issued against such levies, then, under the authority of section 11 of the Consolidation Act (Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 105, §§ 333.1 to 333.23; Cahill's Stat. 1933, c. 105, pp. 2098-2104), the Chicago Park District could repeal, abrogate, or amend any ordinance, resolution, by-law, or rule theretofore made by any superseded district. This language is broad enough to include the repeal of any tax levy against which no anticipation warrants had been issued or no rights of third parties intervened. It is obvious that, conceding that other now superseded districts did, in 1934, make and file levies while in corporate life, the Chicago Park District, by its action, legally repealed all such ordinances under the provisions of section 11 (Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 105, § 333.11).

The objector further urges in support of this branch of the case that the statute did not authorize the levy of a tax, in 1934, by the Chicago Park District. By section 7 of the Consolidation Act (Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 105, § 337.7) the Chicago Park District was vested with all the powers theretofore vested in the superseded districts. Section 2 of the act (as amended, Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 105, § 333.2) provides that all powers and duties vested in or exercised by the former districts through their corporate officials should be vested in or exercised by the Chicago Park District. It is admitted that each of the 22 original park districts which, by the Consolidation Act, were welded into the Chicago Park District, had the statutory power to levy taxes and possessed certain functions in their corporate capacity with which to raise taxes to meet expenses. This right existed to levy taxes for the year 1934 until extinguished by the creation of the Chicago Park District to which, by implication, the power to tax was transmitted. Mount Pleasant v. Beckwith, 100 U.S. 514, 25 L.Ed. 699. It was not the intention of the Legislature that there should be a hiatus in the power to levy a tax during the interim from the time of the creation of the Chicago Park District on May 1, 1934, and the simultaneous corporate death of the 22 original districts, until a tax could be levied by the Chicago Park District for the year 1935.

In our opinion this view is amply justified by section 19 of the Consolidation Act. Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 105, § 333.19; Cahill's Stat. 1933, c. 105, par. 586, p. 2102. This section specifically and in no uncertain language gives the Chicago Park District the power to tax in the following words: ‘The Chicago Park District commission is hereby empowered to levy and collect a general tax on the property in the park district for necessary expenses of said district for the construction and maintenance of the parks, boulevards,’ etc. It further provides that the amount to be raised by the tax in each year should be certified to the county clerk on or before the second Tuesday in September of each year. Section 2 provides that the referendum vote on the proposition to organize the Chicago Park District should be had on the second Tuesday in April, 1934. If the voters failed to adopt the act on that date, on the petition of 25,000 legal voters of that district, a further referendum vote might be had. By consulting section 17 of the act (Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 105, § 333.17; Cahill's Stat. 1933, c. 105, par. 584, p. 2101), we find that provision is made for a corporate fiscal year as of January 1, to December 31, to commence, however, after the year in which the Consolidation Act was adopted. It is significant that the same section provides for the apportionment of the revenue to the corporate expenses. The corporation, for the year following its organization, is required to budget by an appropriation ordinance on which a public hearing must be had. No such limitation is proposed for the year in which it came into being. For that year the requirement is merely that the appropriation for expenses shall be an ordinance of record. The provision for a public hearing on the proposed appropriation for the years succeeding the year of the corporate birth does not apply. We are fully in accord with the principle, and the enforcement thereof, urged upon us by the objector, that the power to tax must be given a strict construction, but here, even under a rigid application of the rule, we believe the power to tax is granted. Our conclusion is that the Chicago Park District had complete statutory authority to levy a tax for the year 1934.

It is next urged that if it be decided that the Chicago Park District had power to levy a tax for 1934, then only two-thirds of the annual...