People ex rel. Lange v. Old Portage Park Dist.

• Decision Date: 06 June 1934
• Docket Number: No. 22127.,22127.
• Citation: 190 N.E. 664,356 Ill. 340
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. LANGE et al. v. OLD PORTAGE PARK DIST.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

356 Ill. 340

190 N.E. 664

PEOPLE ex rel. LANGE et al.

v.OLD PORTAGE PARK DIST.

No. 22127.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 21, 1934.

Rehearing Denied June 6, 1934.

Quo warranto by the People, on the relation of F. H. Lange and others, against the Old Portage Park District. From a judgment dismissing the information and quashing the writ, relators appeal.

Reversed and remanded, with directions.Appeal from Superior Court, Cook County; Harry B. Miller, judge.

Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., and Lawlor, Walsh & Bernstein, all of Chicago (Edwin D. Lawlor, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellants.

T. B. McGrath, Jr., and Frank S. Righeimer, both of Chicago, for appellee.

ORR, Chief Justice.

An information in quo warranto by appellants against the Old Portage Park district, appellee, charging unlawful annexation of territory, was dismissed and the writ quashed by the superior court of Cook county. The principal grounds for dismissal were that appellants had been guilty of laches in presenting their complaint and that great public inconvenience and damage would result if the relief sought were granted. Upon the court's refusal to enter a judgment of ouster, this appeal was taken.

In the petition for leave to file the information, it is alleged that appellee is a park district in Cook county created under ‘An Act to provide for the organization of park districts,’ etc. Park Act of 1895, § 1 et seq., as amended, Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1933, c. 105, § 256 et seq. Appellee is charged with unlawfully asserting jurisdiction over certain territory because of an annexation election held November 5, 1929, pursuant to an illegal petition filed in the county court of Cook county on October 11, 1929. This petition for annexation, while purporting to have been signed by 122 legal voters, is alleged to have been signed by less than 100 legal voters residing within the territory sought to be annexed. On this point it is averred that the petition for annexation was signed twice by the same persons, that it was signed by persons who did not reside within the territory to be annexed, and that certain persons whose names appear upon the petition did not sign it or authorize any one to sign for them. Other allegations of legal irregularities or insufficiencies are made by appellants which we deem it unnecessary to consider. Upon leave granted, the information was filed, containing the same allegations as the petition. Appellee demurred generally and also specifically attacked the information, averring that it showed upon its face that appellants had been guilty of laches in attacking the annexation. The demurrer was overruled, and appellee pleaded matters in justification.

Preliminary to a consideration of the petition for annexation, we must first settle a dispute between the parties as to who carries the burden of showing that the questioned signatures are legally insufficient. The case of People v. Sackett, 351 Ill. 363, 184 N. E. 646, had to determine the question of the legal organization of a park district under the same Park Act of 1895. There we held that the defendants in a quo warranto proceeding must either disclaim or justify. When justification is attempted, the pleas must aver all of the facts necessary to show their authority. The people are not in the first instance required to show anything to substantiate the charges contained in the information. Consequently the burden here rests upon appellee to justify the signatures questioned until it has established 100 of them to be the valid signatures of 100 legal voters residing within the territory to be annexed.

Another essential inquiry is whether, since the county judge found that the petition for annexation was signed by 100 legal voters residing in the territory to be annexed, the sufficiency of the signatures can afterwards be questioned, inasmuch as the record imports verity. Nicholson v. Loeff, 253 Ill. 526, 97 N. E. 1060. It is true that a county judge under the Park Act of 1895 and the amendments thereto performs judicial functions. People v. Sackett, supra. In the exercise of their law jurisdiction, county courts are courts of general jurisdiction, with power to pass upon the question of their jurisdiction and to exercise it when once determined. By those powers they are distinguished from inferior courts having limited jurisdiction. Anderson v. Gray, 134 Ill. 550, 25 N. E. 843,23 Am. St. Rep. 696;People v. Miller, 339 Ill. 573, 171 N. E. 672. In the case last cited, which had to do with the foreclosure of a lien for taxes levied by a school district, this court dealt at some length with the nature and jurisdiction of county courts. Therein we said that section 18 of article 6 of the Constitution of 1870 declared county courts to be courts of record, with original jurisdiction in all matters of probate, settlement of estates of deceased persons, appointment of guardians and conservators and settlement of their accounts, in all matters relating to apprentices, in proceedings for the collection of taxes and assessments, and such other jurisdiction as may be provided for by general law. This last clause is pertinent to the case at hand. The Miller Case is authority for the rule that every judgment of a court which is not based upon that court having jurisdiction is void-not voidable-and can be attacked at any time, in any court, and in any proceeding in which it is brought in question.

County courts, by virtue of statutes, are given jurisdiction to adjudicate certain special matters which without statutory authority they would have no power to decide. Discussing these powers derived from special statutes, this court in the case of Cobe v. Guyer, 237 Ill. 516, 86 N. E. 1071, said that, when a court of general jurisdiction is clothed with powers not according to the course of the common law and is exercising special statutory powers, no presumptions will be indulged in to bring a matter within its jurisdiction. This holding was reaffirmed in Musselman v. Paragnik, 317 Ill. 597, 148 N. E. 312, (a will contest), wherein there arose the question of the validity of adoption proceedings in a county court. We there held that, as the right of adoption was unknown to the common law and is purely a statutory proceeding, the jurisdiction of the county court in adoption proceedings is not exercised according to common-law formulas but in derogation thereof, and therefore no presumption could be indulged in as to its...