People ex rel. Thompson v. Chicago & N.W.R. Co.

• Court: Supreme Court of Illinois
• Citation: 397 Ill. 266,73 N.E.2d 418
• Decision Date: 22 May 1947
• Docket Number: No. 30004.,30004.
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. THOMPSON, County Collector, v. CHICAGO & N. W. R. CO.

397 Ill. 266
73 N.E.2d 418

PEOPLE ex rel. THOMPSON, County Collector,
v.
CHICAGO & N. W. R. CO.

No. 30004.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 22, 1947.

[73 N.E.2d 419]

Appeal from Bureau County Court; Horace R. Brown, Judge.

Proceeding by the People, on the relation of Clifford Thompson, County Collector, against the Chicago & North Western Railway Company for a judgment against an order for the sale of lands returned delinquent for the nonpayment of taxes for the year 1943. From a judgment overruling certain of the defendant's objections, defendant appeals.

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

See, also, 74 N.E.2d 510.

Trimble and Trimble, of Princeton, and Nelson Trottman, of Chicago, for appellant.

Joseph R. Peterson, State's Atty., of Princeton, for appellee.

WILSON, Justice.

The defendant, the Chicago and North Western Railway Company, having previously paid its taxes in full, under protest, filed numerous objections to an application of the collector of Burean county for a judgment against an order for the sale of lands returned delinquent for the nonpayment of taxes for the year 1943. Defendant's objections were sustained in part, and it prosecutes this appeal from the part of the judgment of the county court overruling certain of its objections.

The first objection charges that the item in the county corporate fund levy providing the lump sum of $10,000 for ‘Office supplies of County officers exclusive of constitutional fee officers' violates section 156 of the Revenue Act requiring the amount levied for each purpose to be separately stated. Ill.Rev.Stat.1945, chap. 120, par. 637. It is well established that the itemization rule should receive a commonsense interpretation ( People ex rel. Oller v. New York Central Railroad Co. 388 Ill. 382, 58 N.E.2d 51;People ex rel. Toman v. Estate of Otis, 376 Ill. 112, 33 N.E.2d 202); that the purpose of requiring itemization is to afford taxpayers information with respect to a particular appropriation and the levy of the tax (People ex rel. Schlaeger v. Reilly Tar & Chemical Corporation, 389 Ill. 434, 59 N.E.2d 843;People ex rel. Nash v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Co. 359 Ill. 435, 194 N.E. 560); and there can

[73 N.E.2d 420]

be no valid objection to levying a single sum for several purposes which are embraced within some general designation giving the necessary information to the taxpayer. People ex rel. Lindheimer v. Hamilton, 373 Ill. 124, 25 N.E.2d 517;People ex rel. Reynolds v. Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Co., 306 Ill. 529, 138 N.E. 135.

Defendant asserts that the item for office supplies is vague and indefinite. If this be taken to mean that each type of office supply must be itemized, defendant's position is unsupportable. A county levy for office supplies has been adjudged sufficiently specific. People ex rel. Hempen v. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. 379 Ill. 543, 42 N.E.2d 69. In the case last cited, we observed that supplies used in county offices almost defy specification. More particularly, however, defendant contends that the amount levied for the office supplies of each county officer should be separately stated since the county officers provided for perform such totally unrelated functions as judge, superintendent of schools, and superintendent of highways. In support of this contention defendant cites People ex rel. Heuer v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 377 Ill. 470, 36 N.E.2d 925, 926, and People ex rel. Ross v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Co., 381 Ill. 58, 44 N.E.2d 566, 568, neither of which are in point. In the Burlington case, the item “Supplies county offices, Legal Blanks, $2,000', ‘Record Books, $2,000’ ‘Stationery, $2,000” was held to be in violation of section 10 of article X of the constitution, Smith-Hurd Stats., because the levy did not exclude those county officers the expenses of whom are properly payable only out of fees earned and collected. Again, in the Milwaukee case, a levy for office supplies made no distinction between constitutional fee officers and other county officers. We said: ‘A statement of these items alone, clearly demonstrates their invalidity. As to the first two items (‘for record books for county officers' and ‘for printing and stationery for county officers'), the identical questions were passed upon by this court in People ex rel. Heuer v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co., 377 Ill. 470, 36 N.E.2d 925. In that cast, items included in the levy under similar general designations were held bad, under section 121 of the Revenue Act of 1872 (Citation.) This is section 156 of the Revenue Act of 1939.’ As related, the office-supplies item in the Burlington case was held void on constitutional grounds and not by reason of the Revenue Act. The application of section 156 of the Revenue Act to the Milwaukee case is limited to the extent that constitutional fee officers should have...