People ex rel. Webster v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 13 December 1922
• Docket Number: No. 14662.,14662.
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. WEBSTER et al. v. JACKSON et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

305 Ill. 385

137 N.E. 237

PEOPLE ex rel. WEBSTER et al.

v.JACKSON et al.

No. 14662.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 21, 1922.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 13, 1922.

Petition by the People, on the relation of James D. Webster and others, against L. T. Jackson and others, for leave to file an information in the nature of quo warranto. Leave was denied, and the petition dismissed, and petitioner appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Stark County; John M. Niehaus, judge.

Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen. (John W. Fling, Jr., of Wyoming, Ill., Barnes, Magoon & Black, of Peoria, and Clarence N. Boord, of Springfield, of counsel), for appellant.

J. H. Rennick, of Toulon, for appellees.

DUNN, J.

The circuit court of Stark county, at its February term, 1922, denied on the ground of laches a petition of the Attorney General, on the relation of many individuals, for leave to file an information in the nature of quo warranto against L. T. Jackson and six others, charging them with unlawfully holding and executing without warrant, lawful right, or authority the offices of president and members of the board of education of Toulon township high school district No. 4, which was alleged to be a pretended district whose organization was illegal and void. The people appealed from the order denying leave and dismissing the petition, and filed a bill of exceptions, containing the petition, exhibits, and affidavits upon which the court acted in denying the petition.

The district was organized in 1912 as the result of an election held on July 30, and has ever since maintained a high school. The district was 16 miles long north and south, and 8 miles wide east and west. It contained 97 sections of land, and comprised more than one-third of the area of Stark county. Measured on section lines, the extreme corner of the district was 12 miles from Toulon, where the school was held. In 1916 the law under which it was organized was held unconstitutional in People v. Weis, 275 Ill. 581. In 1917 an act was passed to legalize the organization of high school districts (Laws of 1917, p. 744), which was held in People v. Madison, 280 Ill. 96, to be effective for that purpose. It applied, however, only to cases where the territory involved was compact and contiguous, and it is argued by the appellants that the territory in this case is not compact. The circuit court did not decide this question, but denied leave to file the petition in the exercise of its discretionary power to refuse such leave, even though the respondents have no legal defense which they can plead in bar of the writ of quo warranto. The petition in this case was not filed until nearly 10 years after the organization of the district, which had during those years maintained a...