People Ex Rel. Samuel H. Mccrea v. Atchison

• Decision Date: 16 June 1880
• Citation: 95 Ill. 452,1880 WL 10057
• Parties: THE PEOPLE ex rel. Samuel H. McCreav.GEORGE F. ATCHISON et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

95 Ill. 452

1880 WL 10057 (Ill.)

THE PEOPLE ex rel. Samuel H. McCrea

v.GEORGE F. ATCHISON et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Filed at Ottawa Jun. 16, 1880.

APPEAL from the County Court of Cook county; the Hon. MASON B. LOOMIS, Judge, presiding. Mr. GEORGE W. SMITH, and Mr. R. A. CHILDS, for the appellant:

The list of delinquent lands filed with the county clerk in 1879 included those upon which one or more installments of the “West Park and boulevard assessment” remained unpaid. The application for judgment for taxes for the year 1878 and prior years was refused by the county court, for the reason that the statute did not permit the collection of such assessment after five years from the confirmation of the same.

The validity of the “West Park and boulevard assessment” was not, and is not, called in question. That has been held by this court to have been regularly and properly levied. Andrews v. The People, 83 Ill. 529.

Section 13 of the act of February 27, 1869, (1 P. L. 1869, p. 340,) provides, that after the confirmation of the assessment the clerk of the circuit court shall file a copy thereof with the clerk of the county court, “and said assessment shall be a lien upon the said several lots,” etc. Section 5 of the act of April 19, 1869, provides, that “if any assessment made by virtue of this act, or of the act to which this is an amendment, shall be annulled or set aside, a new assessment may be made, returned and acted upon in like manner and upon like notices, and with the same rights to the parties interested, as in the first. If, from any cause, the commissioners shall fail to collect the whole or any portion of any assessment levied for the purposes authorized by said act, and which shall not be canceled or set aside, the said commissioners may, at any time within five years after the confirmation of the original assessment, direct a new assessment to be made, * * * it being the true intent and meaning of this section to make the costs and expenses of such improvement a charge upon the property assessed therefor, to the amount of its proportional benefit, as hereinbefore provided, for the full period of five years from the confirmation of the original assessment, and for such longer period as may be required to collect, in due course of law, any new assessment hereby authorized within that period.”

No new assessment was ever made under the act of April 19, 1869, or the act of May 2, 1873.

The first named act made the assessment a lien and fixed no limit to its duration. The intent of the several acts is to make the property benefited pay the cost of the improvement at whatever distance of time, and not to release it until payment should be made.

Mr. JOHN P. WILSON, for the appellees:

The lien...