People ex rel. Rice v. McKinnie

• Decision Date: 05 April 1917
• Docket Number: No. 11117.,11117.
• Citation: 115 N.E. 526,277 Ill. 342
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. RICE, County Collector, v. McKINNIE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

277 Ill. 342

115 N.E. 526

PEOPLE ex rel. RICE, County Collector,

v.McKINNIE.

No. 11117.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 21, 1917.

Rehearing Denied April 5, 1917.

Appeal from McLean County Court; James C. Riley, Judge.

Proceedings by the People, on the relation of Joseph Rice, County Collector, against Elizabeth McKinnie. From a judgment entered on application of the County Collector for a special assessment levied by a city upon lands of defendant, the latter appeals. Judgment affirmed.

De Mange, Gillespie & De Mange, of Bloomington, for appellant.

Leslie J. Owen, City Atty., of Le Roy, and Barry & Morrissey, of Bloomington, for appellee.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

This appeal is from a judgment of the county court of McLean county, entered on the application of the county collector for a special assessment levied by the city of Le Roy upon lands of the appellant, Elizabeth McKinnie.

The appellant in eight objections stated, in varying language, that her lands were not within the corporate limits of the city of Le Roy, and therefore the city had no jurisdiction to levy a special assessment thereon. On June 13, 1904, Frank C. Barley and Hugo Pfitzenmeyer presented to the city council a plat of land adjoining the city of Le Roy, and the council approved the plat and passed a resolution including the lands described in the plat within the corporate limits of the city. On June 15, 1904, the plat was recorded, with a certificate of the mayor and city clerk that it had been approved by the city council. From that time to the present the city has exercised its corporate powers over the lands included in the plat by lighting the streets and improving the same. It has graded the streets and put in a lateral sewer connecting with the city sewer system by special assessment on appellant's lands, which she paid. The city was exercising its franchise as a city over the lands in the addition, and the question whether the lands had been legally annexed could not be raised in the application for judgment for he special assessment. Such a question can only be tried in a proceeding by quo warranto in the name of the people, in which a judgment will be conclusive and binding upon all. People v. Newberry, 87 Ill. 41;Osborn v. People, 103 Ill. 224;People v. Dyer, 205 Ill. 575, 69 N. E. 70;People v. Ellis, 253 Ill. 369, 97 N. E. 697, Ann. Cas. 1913A, 589;West Chicago Park Com'rs v. Sweet, 167 Ill. 326, 47 N. E. 728;People v. Pederson, 220 Ill. 554, 77 N. E. 251;Ogle v. City of Belleville, 238 Ill. 389, 87 N. E. 353;People v. York, 247 Ill. 591, 93 N. E. 400. In People v. Hausen, 276 Ill. 204, 114 N. E. 596, an ordinance purporting to annex the additions was passed April 5, 1915, and the tax levy ordinance was passed August 3, 1915. The collection of that tax was the first attempt to extend the franchise over the additions, and there being no question of a de facto corporation including the additions, the objectors had a right to resist the attempt to include their property in the village. In Murray v. City of Virginia, 91 Ill. 558, the question whether the legality of annexations of territory over which a city is exercising its franchises can be raised on ...