People ex rel. Schaefer v. New York, C. & St. L.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 21 October 1933
• Docket Number: No. 21893.,21893.
• Citation: 187 N.E. 443,353 Ill. 518
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. SCHAEFER, County Collector, v. NEW YORK, C. & ST. L. R. CO.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

353 Ill. 518

187 N.E. 443

PEOPLE ex rel. SCHAEFER, County Collector,

v.NEW YORK, C. & ST. L. R. CO.

No. 21893.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 21, 1933.

Error to St. Clair County Court; Paul Farthing, Judge.

Proceedings by the People, on the relation of Edwin M. Schaefer, County Collector, against the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company. To review an adverse order, the relator brings error.

Affirmed in part, and reversed in part and remanded, with directions.

Louis P. Zerweck, of Belleville (H. Grady Vien, of East St. Louis, F. A. Garesche, of Madison, and F. J. Tecklenburg, of Belleville, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

Pope & Driemeyer, of East St. Louis (W. J. Stevenson, of Cleveland, Ohio, of counsel), for defendant in error.

JONES, Justice.

The New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company, defendant in error, filed objections in the county court of St. Clair county to the application of the county collector for judgment against the company's property for unpaid taxes. The court sustained objections to three items. A writ of error has been prosecuted to review the court's action in that regard.

Two of the items objected to relate to the county tax included in the levy made in 1931, and the other item involves a tax levied in 1931 by the East Side Levee and Sanitary District. The items of county tax complained of are listed in the certificate of levy under the hearing, ‘for maintenance of the county home and county hospital, to be applied as follows:’ The items are: ‘For salaries of the superintendent, matron, employees and nurse, $19,368; for the general repairs and improvements of buildings, $4,000; for food and supplies for the inmates and for the ordinary expenses incidental to general maintence, $40,000.’ Besides the itemized levy made for maintenance of the county home and county hospital there is an item, ‘For general support of the paupers of the county outside of the county home, $35,000.’ The court held the $35,000 item and the $40,000 item invalid.

The objection to the $35,000 item was properly sustained, because counties under township organization having a population of less than 500,000 have no power to levy a tax for the support of paupers outside of the county home. Since the amendment of 1931 to section 15 of the Paupers Act (Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1933, c. 107, § 15), counties of the class above mentioned, except as otherwise provided by law, have been relieved of the obligation to support poor and indigent persons resident of the various townships situated therein. People v. Alton Railroad Co., 352 Ill. 297, 185 N. E. 576. There was no legal basis for a levy for support of paupers outside the county home.

The $40,000 item was objected to on two grounds. The first was that under the above-mentioned statute the county has no authority to levy taxes for the ordinary expenses incidental to the general maintenance of a poor farm, or, in fact, to levy taxes for pauper purposes to any extent. This contention was decided to be untenable in People v. Alton Railroad Co., supra, and People v. Franklin, 352 Ill. 528, 186 N. E. 137. The second ground of objection to said item is that the levy is for several purposes, and since there is no way to ascertain the exact amount intended to be levied and used for each purpose the levy as to the entire item is invalid. The right of a taxpayer to have stated separately what are the purposes for which public money is appropriated is definitely established, and a levy which is not sufficiently definite to apprise him of the purpose for which the money is to be expended is invalid (Siegel v. City of Belleville, 349 Ill. 240, 181 N. E. 687;People v. Bowman, 253 Ill. 234, 97 N. E. 304;People v. Cairo, Vincennes & Chicago Railway Co., 237 Ill. 312, 86 N. E. 721); but it is equally well settled that it is not necessary to specify each particular item of expense for which the levy is made. A single general purpose is sufficient to include every appropriate expenditure required for the purpose although there may be many items. This is particularly true where it is difficult to determine in advance the exact amount of the several items. The statute must be given a practical and common-sense construction. People v. Bowman, supra.

The levy made for maintenance of the county home and county hospital was divided into three items, and the purpose of each was stated with such particularity that no taxpayer could fail to understand the intended use of the money. The first item covers salaries of officers and employees. The second is for the expense of general repairs and improvements of buildings. The third is for food and supplies for the inmates and for ordinary expenses incidental to general maintenance. It is urged that a levy for food and supplies for inmates has a separate and distinct purpose from a levy for ordinary expenses incidental to general maintenance. When the three items are considered together there appears no basis for such an objection. Food is necessary to the general maintenance of the inmates and of the county home. So are supplies, such as medicine, bedding, soap, and many other articles. To require a more particular itemization of expenses connected with furnishing food, supplies, and other articles of general maintenance would be to go beyond the reasonable and practical rule heretofore recognized by this court. An item for repairs, care, support, and maintenance of a court-house was held to be sufficiently definite in People v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co., 266 Ill. 196, 107 N. E. 222. There is no valid objection to levying a gross sum for several purposes which are embraced within some general designation giving the necessary information to the taxpayer. People v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 271 Ill. 236, 111 N. E. 110;People v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co., 306 Ill. 529, 138 N. E. 135.

Upon the hearing it was contended that a portion of the $40,000 item was intended for the payment of pauper claims which had been previously allowed but which remained unpaid. We cannot be concerned with any concealed or undisclosed...