People ex rel. Stuckart v. Chicago, B.&Q.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 17 December 1919
• Docket Number: No. 12429.,12429.
• Citation: 125 N.E. 310,290 Ill. 327
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. STUCKART, County Collector, v. CHICAGO, B. & Q. R. CO.

290 Ill. 327

125 N.E. 310

PEOPLE ex rel. STUCKART, County Collector,

v.CHICAGO, B. & Q. R. CO.

No. 12429.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 17, 1919.

Tax collection proceeding by the People, on the relation of Henry Stuckart, County Collector, in which objections were interposed by the Chicago, burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. From judgment for the People, the Railroad Company appeals.

Reversed in part and remanded, with directions.Appeal from Cook County Court; S. N. Hoover, Judge.

Landon & Holt, Ellis & Lewis, and William Struckmann, all of Chicago (Robert N. Holt and Elmer Leesman, both of Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.

Maclay Hoyne, State's Atty., Michael F. Sullivan, Charles Center Case, Jr., and Robert E. Gentzel, all of Chicago (Louis J. Behan, of Chicago, of counsel), for West Chicago Park Com'rs.

Edmund D. Adcock, Ross C. Hall, C. Arch Williams, and Walter E. Beebe, all of Chicago, for Sanitary Dist. of Chicago.

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal from the judgment of the county court of Cook county overruling all objections of appellant and giving judgment against its lands for general taxes of 1917 levied by the West Chicago Park Commissioners and those levied by the Sanitary District of Chicago. The objections to the West Chicago Park tax involve the constitutionality of certain statutes. The commissioners filed with the county clerk of said county their certificate of levy, which necessitated extending a tax against appellant's property at the rate of 1.5 mills under ‘An act to authorize the corporate authorities of towns to issue bonds for the completion and improvement of public parks and boulevards, and to provide a tax for the payment of the same,’ approved and in force June 12, 1891 (Hurd's Stat. 1917, p. 2078); also another tax at the same rate under an act similarly entitled, approved and in force June 21, 1895 (Id. p. 2095); also another tax at the same rate under an act similarly entitled, approved, and in force July 1, 1897 (Id. p. 2112); also another tax at the same rate under an act entitled ‘An act in regard to the completion, improvement and management of public parks and boulevards, and to provide a more efficient remedy for the collection of delinquent assessments,’ approved May 2, 1873, and in force as amended July 1, 1909 (Id. p. 2063). The levy under the first three acts in question amounted in the aggregate to a rate of 4.5 mills, and was scaled by the county clerk to a rate of 2.638 mills. Each of these levies under the first three acts above mentioned was for the cost of governing, maintaining, and improving the several parks and boulevards, etc., and not for the payment of bonds or interest on bonds. It appears from the stipulation of the parties interested that in previous years taxes had been levied and paid, from time to time, under these three acts for the payment of interest and principal on bonds, and that such bonds had all been paid prior to the levy of the tax in question.

It is contended by the appellant that the tax in question is invalid and void because the title to each of said acts permits the levy of the tax for the purpose of paying the principal and interest on bonded indebtedness authorized therein only, and that other provisions of said acts purporting to authorize the levy of a tax to be used and expended by the commissioners ‘in governing, maintaining and improving such park’ are not expressed in the title of either of said acts, and therefore contrary to the provisions of section 13 of article 4 of the Constitution of this state. It is also contended that the acts are void for the reason that each is in conflict with section 22 of article 4 of the Constitution, in that each is special legislation relating and applying only to the township of West Chicago. If these acts are constitutional then the 26-cent rate on each $100 assessed value is valid, otherwise the judgment is excessive to that amount. The objection to the fourth act above enumerated is that its title expresses a double purpose, and for that reason it is void. If this act is constitutional the 8-cent rate on each $100 of assessed value is valid, otherwise the judgment is excessive to that amount. The county court held each of the four acts valid, and sustained the tax extended thereunder over the objections of the appellant, to which exceptions were taken and errors assigned in this court.

Coming to a consideration of the first objection-that is, that the three acts entitled ‘An act to authorize the corporate authorities of towns to issue bonds for the completion and improvement of public parks and boulevards, and to provide a tax for the payment of the same,’ are invalid as relates to the tax in question-we are confronted with the question whether or not said acts, and each of them, contained in the body of the acts provisions not within the scope of the titles of the acts, as required by section 13 of article 4 of the Constitution. That section provides as follows:

‘No act hereafter passed shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.’

It is objected that the provisions in section 1 of each of said three acts, that the ‘corporate authorities of any such town shall * * * levy and collect annually a tax not to exceed one and one-half mills on the dollar upon the taxable property in any such town, * * * such tax to be used and expended by such board of park commissioners in governing, maintaining and improving such parks and boulevards or pleasureways, and in paying the interest and principal of such bonds and other necessary and incidental expenses incurred in and about the management of any such parks and boulevards,’ are subjects not embraced in the titles of said acts. The Constitution does not require that the subject of an act shall be specifically and accurately expressed in the title. Any expression in the title that calls attention to the subject of the act, although in general terms, is all that is required. Ritchie v. People, 155 Ill. 98, 40 N. E. 455,29 L. R. A. 79, 46 Am. St. Rep. 315;Milne v. People, 224 Ill. 125, 79 N. E. 631. While the title of an act may be a general expression of the subject, still it must be specific enough to accomplish the purpose for which the subject is required to be expressed in the title. Sutherland on Stat. Const. § 121. The purpose of such a rule is to inform and fully apprise the people, through such publication of legislative proceedings as is usually made, of the subject of the legislation which is being considered, so that they might be heard thereon, if they so desire, by petition or remonstrance, and to prevent surprise or fraud upon the Legislature by inserting provisions into the bill of which the title gives no intimation, and which might thereby be unintentionally adopted. These reasons, together with the fact that it had been the practice in the Legislature to include in one bill legislation upon two or more subjects, and by that means secure the passage of them all, when said provisions, or at least a part of them, would fail of adoption if presented separately, caused the people to formulate the rule as expressed in section 13 of article 4. The wisdom of a rule such as that embraced in said section of the Constitution has long been recognized; and, while it is true that some well-meant enactments of the Legislature must fail because of the contravention of this rule, yet it is a rule adopted by the people in their basic law, and courts cannot decide the constitutionality of acts of the Legislature on the basis of the wisdom, or lack thereof, in any such legislative enactments, but such must be decided by the rules established by the people in their Constitution. The importance of the enforcement of the fundamental law far outweighs the injury that may come to some by reason of the failure of worthy legislation. As was said by this court in Sutter v. People's Gaslight Co., 284 Ill. 634, 120 N. E. 562:

‘Neither the motive nor the wisdom of the General Assembly is ever questioned, but where it is clear that a limitation or restriction imposed by the people in the fundamental law has been violated or disregarded by the General Assembly or any other authority whatever, it is the plain duty of the court to so declare, and that duty can neither be evaded nor neglected in the case of an act of the General Assembly, no matter how desirable or beneficial the attempted legislation may be. The Constitution is supreme, and whatever the purpose of the people may have been in imposing a restriction upon legislation it must be obeyed.’

It is contended on behalf of the appellee that the provisions in section 1 of the three acts are within the scope of the subject expressed in their titles. The rule is that if the title is general any number of provisions may be contained in the act, no matter how diverse they may be, so long as they are not inconsistent with or foreign to the general subject and may be considered in furtherance of such subject. People v. Sargent, 254 Ill. 514, 98 N. E. 959;People v. Price, 257 Ill. 587, 101 N. E. 196, Ann. Cas. 1914A, 1154; Sutter v. People's Gaslight Co., supra. As was said in the Sutter Case:

‘In considering whether all the particular provisions of an act are embraced in a single subject the word ‘germane’ has been a favorite one with the courts, and the meaning of the word was particularly defined in Dolese v. Pierce, 124 Ill. 140 , in which the court said: ‘Literally, ‘germane’ means ‘akin,’ ‘closely allied.’ It is only applicable to persons who are united to each other by the common tie of blood or marriage. When applied to inanimate things, it is, of course, used in a metaphorical sense, but still the idea of a common tie is always present. Thus, when properly applied to a legislative provision, the common tie is found in the tendency of the provision to promote the object and purpose of the act to which it belongs. Any provision not having this tendency...