People v. Kelly

• Decision Date: 11 October 1934
• Docket Number: No. 22600.,22600.
• Citation: 357 Ill. 408,192 N.E. 372
• Parties: PEOPLE v. KELLY, Mayor, et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

357 Ill. 408

192 N.E. 372

PEOPLE

v.KELLY, Mayor, et al.

No. 22600.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Aug. 23, 1934.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Oct. 11, 1934.

Quo warranto proceedings by the People against Edward J. Kelly, mayor of the city of Chicago, and others. Judgment for defendants, and the people appeal.

Affirmed.

STONE, DE YOUNG, and HERRICK, JJ., dissenting.Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; George Fred Rush, judge.

Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., William J. Tuohy, and Jacob Shamberg, all of Chicago (Poppenhusen, Johnston, Thompson & Cole, Floyd E. Thompson, and Albert E. Jenner, Jr., all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

William H. Sexton, Corp. Counsel, Winston, Strawn & Shaw, and John L. McInerney, all of Chicago (Ralph M. Shaw, Walter H. Jacobs and James H. Cartwright, all of Chicago, of counsel), for appellees.

ORR, Justice.

Quo warranto proceedings were instituted in the circuit court of Cook county to test the constitutionality of the Chicago Park District Act (Smith-Hurd Ann. St., c. 105, § 333.1 et seq.) and to test the regularity of the election by which it was adopted. The action sought to oust the appellees, Robert J. Dunham, Harry Joseph, Martin H. Kennelly, B. C. O'Neill, and John R. Nash, who had been appointed commissioners of the Chicago Park district by appellee Edward J. Kelly, mayor of Chicago, acting under authority conferred upon him by the act. The circuit court upheld the constitutionality of the act and the regularity of the election and dismissed the information as to all defendants. From that judgment, the present appeal was taken.

The facts are stipulated substantially as follows: Under the provisions of the act the question of its adoption was submitted to the electors of the entire area of the new district described, at an election held, pursuant to due notice, on April 10, 1934. The ballots used were in the form provided by the act. No separate election was held in any of the different park districts. The balloting was simultaneous over the entire area of the prospective Chicago Park district, which included twenty-two small and large districts, together with about twelve square miles of ‘unorganized territory’ in Cook county. Of these twenty-two districts, nineteen are commonly referred to as ‘small park districts' and were organized by petition and referendum pursuant to a general act approved June 24, 1895 (see Smith-Hurd Ann. St., c. 105, § 256 et seq.). The remaining three districts, commonly known as ‘large park districts,’ were organized by special acts passed in 1869. Four of the nineteen small park districts, viz., Calumet, Sauganash, West Pullman, and North Shore, lay partly within and partly without the city of Chicago, although adjacent and contiguous thereto. The polling places were the ordinary and regular polling places established for all city and county elections, although they were not in each instance located within the limits of the respective park districts, due, principally, to the fact that the balloting was general over the entire area. Within the city of Chicago there were eleven areas not included in any of the twenty-two park districts. The electorate of these eleven areas, including several ‘split’ precincts, also cast ballots on the question of the adoption of the act. The total vote cast in the entire Chicago Park District on the proposition of adopting the act was 682,486, of which 507,955 voted ‘yes' and 174,631 voted ‘no.’ A majority of the voters in nine park districts, including the three large ones, together with the eleven unorganized areas, voted for the adoption of the act, while a majority in each of fourteen small districts, aggregating about one-fourteenth of the total vote, voted in opposition. On May 1, 1934, the above-named commissioners took their required oaths, filed their duly approved bonds, and entered upon their official duties. Since that time, they have assumed the management and control of all the properties, assets, moneys, and records of the twenty-two park districts consolidated within the Chicago Park district. It is agreed by the parties that if the Chicago Park District act, as amended, is valid, and if the election held on April 10, 1934, is valid, then the Chicago Park district is a municipal corporation duly organized and existing under the laws of Illinois and that appellee commissioners were duly appointed and entitled, as such, to hold office.

The people particularly stress the point that the act violates section 13 of article 4 of the state Constitution in that the subject is not expressed in its title, which is, ‘An Act in relation to the creation, maintenance, operation and improvement of the Chicago Park District.’ Laws 1933, p. 725 (Smith-Hurd Ann. St., c. 105, § 333.1 et seq.). In this connection it is argued that the title is defective in failing to note the existence or dissolution of the twenty-two other park districts, although the act itself provides how such dissolution shall become effective upon its adoption. The dissolution of the twenty-two scattered park districts followed the adoption of the act by the express terms thereof-one necessarily followed the other. The primary purpose of the act was the creation and operation of one great park system in place of twenty-two smaller and disconnected districts, and the fact that these smaller units must cease to legally exist after the adoption of the act was only incidental to its chief objective. The title of the act is sufficiently comprehensive, as it not only relates to the ‘creation’ of the new district, but it also has to do with its ‘maintenance, operation and improvement.’ Obviously, the Chicago Park district could not maintain, operate, and improve the park property within its confines if the twenty-two pre-existing park districts continued to function, as the new and old districts could not have jurisdiction and control at one time of the same territory for the same purpose. People v. Bowman, 247 Ill. 276, 93 N. E. 244. The Legislature is not only presumed to know the existence of its own legislation respecting the various parks authorized by the act to be consolidated within the Chicago Park District, but it also has power to abolish municipal corporations, with or without the consent of the people, in the locality to be affected. Bush v. Shipman, 4 Scam. 186;County of Richland v. County of Lawrence, 12 Ill. 1;Trustees of Schools v. Tatman, 13 Ill. 27;Wilson v. Board of Trustees, 133 Ill. 443, 27 N. E. 203; People v. Bowman, supra. The abolition of the former districts is necessarily the implied result of language used in the title relating to the ‘creation, maintenance, operation and improvement’ of the new and co-extensive Chicago Park district. The provision for dissolution of the existing park districts upon the adoption of the act tends to promote the object and purpose of the act as expressed in the title. Kasch v. Anders, 318 Ill. 272, 149 N. E. 275.

We have examined the various authorities cited by the people in support of their position, particularly People v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co., 290 Ill. 327, 125 N. E. 310, and Rouse v. Thompson, 228 Ill. 522, 81 N. E. 1109, but cannot apply the same reasoning used to construe the more limited and restricted titles reviewed in these authorities to the broad general language used in the title here. The title of an act is not defective because it is broad and general. Hagler v. Small, 307 Ill. 460, 138 N. E. 849;People v. Hoffman, 322 Ill. 174, 152 N. E. 597. It is the general subject, and not the subject-matter that is to be expressed in the title. Riggs v. Jennings, 248 Ill. 584, 94 N. E. 32;People v. Huff, 249 Ill. 164, 94 N. E. 61. The title of an act need not be an abstract synopsis or index of its contents (People v. McBride, 234 Ill. 146, 84 N. E. 865,123 Am. St. Rep. 82,14 Ann. Cas. 994;Perkins v. Cook County Com'rs, 271 Ill. 449, 111 N. E. 580, Ann.Cas. 1917A, 27), and a title which is sufficient to embrace a particular subject-matter of legislation includes by implication matters incidental thereto (West Chicago Park Com'rs v. Sweet, 167 Ill. 326, 47 N. E. 728;Boehm v. Hertz, 182 Ill. 154, 54 N. E. 973,48 L. R. A. 575). The existence and dissolution of the various districts consolidated into the Chicago Park district was necessarily incidental to the creation and maintenance of the new district, and the title of the act was sufficiently broad in its scope to include by implication such matters as the dissolution of the smaller units. Once the act is adopted, such dissolution is an inevitable consequence.

Ineffective is the argument of the people that the use of the term ‘Chicago Park District’ in the title of the act contravenes section 13 of article 4 of the Constitution by improperly describing the limits fixed in the body of the act. As previously stated, the new district includes four park districts which are partly within and partly without the city of Chicago, but neither the title nor the body of the act limits the new district to an area exclusively ‘in Chicago,’ as was true in the case principally relied upon by the people. People v. Institution of Protestant Deaconesses, 71 Ill. 229. In the absence of any clearly restrictive words, the general term ‘Chicago,’ used in connection with ‘Park District’ in the title, is to be regarded as general and descriptive rather than limiting or restrictive in character. This court has often held that section 13 of article 4 of the Constitution is to be construed liberally in favor of the validity of an act. People v. Newcom, 318 Ill. 188, 149 N. E. 269, and cases cited.

For many of the same reasons advanced with reference to their first contention, that the subject is not expressed in the title of the act, the people further claim that the title is defective because it ‘does not express certain subjects under which certain powers are granted the appellees as commissioners,’...