People v. Cosmopolitan Fire Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 28 October 1910
• Citation: 92 N.E. 922,246 Ill. 442
• Parties: PEOPLE v. COSMOPOLITAN FIRE INS. CO.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

246 Ill. 442

92 N.E. 922

PEOPLE

v.COSMOPOLITAN FIRE INS. CO.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 28, 1910.

Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; John H. Hume, Judge.

Action by the People against the Cosmopolitan Fire Insurance Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant brings error. Motion to transfer cause to Appellate Court denied, and judgment affirmed.Newman, Northrup, Levinson & Becker (Hiram T. Gilbert, Arthur B. Schaffner, and Chester E. Cleveland, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

Harry A. Lewis, County Atty. (Louis J. Behan, of counsel), for the People.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

The municipal court of Chicago rendered judgment against the Cosmopolitan Fire Insurance Company, plaintiff in error, for $853.54 and costs in a suit brought by the people of the state of Illinois, defendant in error, under section 230 of the revenue act, for personal property taxes for the years 1907 and 1908 (Hurd's Rev. St. 1909, c. 120). A writ of error was sued out from the Appellate Court for the First District to obtain a reversal of the judgment, and, as the cause related to the revenue and the state was interested as a party, it was transferred on motion of the defendant in error to this court. The plaintiff in error thereupon made its motion to retransfer the cause to the Appellate Court, with directions to consider the cause upon its merits.

Section 23 of the act establishing the municipal court of the city of Chicago (Hurd's Rev. St. 1909, c. 37) provides that a writ of error to review a judgment of that court shall be sued out of this court in all cases in which a franchise, a freehold, or the validity of a statute or the construction of the Constitution is involved and out of the Appellate Court in ill other cases. In several cases we have held that section to be in conflict with the Constitution and therefore void, and that writs of error in cases relating to the revenue or in which the state is interested, as a party or otherwise, must be sued out of this court under section 118 of the practice act (Laws 1907, p. 467). Clowry v. Holmes, 238 Ill. 577, 87 N. E. 303;Hosking v. Southern Pacific Co., 243 Ill. 320, 90 N. E. 669;People v. Hibernian Banking Ass'n, 245 Ill. 522, 92 N. E. 305. But counsel for plaintiff in error are of the opinion that those cases were erroneously decided, and insist that they should be overruled. A further consideration of the question in the light of the argument of the learned counsel serves to confirm us in the belief that those decisions were right. The points made in the effort to overthrow them are, first, that the Legislature may, in an act in relation to a court of original jurisdiction, designate the court or courts to which appeals or from which writs of error must be prosecuted for the review of its judgments, and prescribe the methods of procedure to be followed by the appellate tribunals in reviewing such judgments, without violating the Constitution; second, that section 23 of the municipal court act does not violate the provision of the Constitution requiring uniformity of jurisdiction, powers, proceedings, and practice of all courts of the same class or grade, because the courts therein designated and the methods of review are different from the courts designated and the methods prescribed for the review of similar judgments of other courts; third, that the municipal court of Chicago is not a city court within the meaning of the provisions of the Appellate Court act and the practice act conferring upon Appellate Courts their jurisdiction and regulating their procedure.

The first proposition is correct, and the Legislature may, in an act establishing a court, provide for a review, of its judgments, and the practice on such review, without violating section 13 of article 4 of the Constitution, providing that no act shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in the title. That was the precise question decided in Fleischman v. Walker, 91 Ill. 318, where the question was submitted to the court whether an act entitled ‘An act to amend an act entitled ‘An act in regard to practice in courts of record’' violated that provision of the Constitution. The word ‘practice’ is a general term, covering modes of trial and review of judgments and transfers from one court to another, and it was held that all such matters were embraced within the general terms of the act under consideration. Conceding that the first proposition is correct, however, does not in any way affect the question whether the Legislature, in making provisions for the review of judgments, may violate section 29 of article 6 of the Constitution. Provisions as to jurisdiction, powers, proceedings, and practice of all courts of the same class or grade must be general and of uniform operation, whether contained in one act or numerous acts.

Under the second proposition, counsel argue that the practice in the Appellate Courts of the state may be as multiform and heterogeneous as the cases to be reviewed and of as many varieties as the number of courts of original jurisdiction whose judgments are under review, provided the practice in each particular case is the same in all the Appellate Courts. It is true that appeals from justices of the peace are tried de novo in the circuit court, that chancery cases are tried differently from actions at law, and in some cases the regularity of proceedings is determined by an inspection of the record certified to the court, but the jurisdiction and practice in the different classes of cases are uniform in all courts of the same class or grade. It does not follow that the Legislature would be...