Sturges v. City of Chicago

• Decision Date: 15 December 1908
• Citation: 86 N.E. 683,237 Ill. 46
• Parties: STURGES v. CITY OF CHICAGO.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

237 Ill. 46

86 N.E. 683

STURGES

v.CITY OF CHICAGO.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 15, 1908.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; S. C. Stough, Judge.

Action by Frank Sturges against the City of Chicago. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Edward J. Brundage, Corp. Counsel, Robert N. Holt, and Clyde L. Day, for appellant.

Bulkley, Gray & More, for appellee.

HAND, J.

This was an action on the case commenced by Frank Sturges, the appellee, against the city of Chicago, the appellant, in the circuit court of Cook county, to recover damages for an injury to the property of the appellee caused by a mob or riot in the city of Chicago on the 16th day of July, 1903. A jury was waived, and the cause, by agreement of the parties, was tried by the court, and resulted in a finding and judgment in favor of the plaintiff for the sum of $702, and the city has prosecuted this appeal.

The declaration contained one count, and alleged that the plaintiff was the owner of a six-story brick building located at the corner of Green and Congress streets, in the city of Chicago; that on the 16th day of July, 1903, during a strike, a large mob or riot of more than 12 persons assembled in the vicinity of said building, and with stones, brickbats, and other missiles broke and destroyed a large quantity of plate glass in the said building, of the value of $1,048; that the destruction and injury to said plate glass and said building were not occasioned by the negligence or wrongful act of the plaintiff or his tenant; that the plaintiff used all diligence to protect his property from being destroyed or injured, and averred that notice of the injury to his property was given to the city on the 3d day of August, 1903. The general issue was filed, and on the trial defendant submitted certain propositions, in writing, which challenged the constitutionality of the said statute on the ground that it was in conflict with the state and federal Constitutions, and particularly in conflict with section 22 of article 4, and sections 2 and 11 of article 2, of the state Constitution, and in conflict with the provisions of the fifth amendment, and the first section of the fourteenth amendment, to the Constitution of the United States, which propositions were all marked ‘refused’ by the court.

The suit is based upon an act of the Legislature of this state entitled ‘An act to indemnify the owners of property for damages occasioned by mobs and riots,’ approved June 15, 1887, in force July 1, 1887 (Laws 1887, p. 237), and it is conceded by the appellant, if said act is constitutional, appellee was entitled to recover in the court below, and the judgment of that court should be affirmed.

Section 1 of the act of 1887 reads as follows: ‘Be it enacted by the people of the state of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: That whenever any building or other real or personal property, except property in transit, shall be destroyed or injured in consequence of any mob or riot composed of twelve or more persons, the city, or if not in a city then the county in which such property was destroyed, shall be liable to an action by or in behalf of the party whose property was thus destroyed or injured, for three-fourths of the damages sustained by reason thereof.’

The constitutionality of this act was before this court in City of Chicago v. Manhattan Cement Co., 178 Ill. 372, 53 N. E. 68,45 L. R. A. 848, 69 Am. St. Rep. 321, and in Dawson Soap Co. v. City of Chicago, 234 Ill. 314, 84 N. E. 920, and it was there sustained. It is, however, contended by appellant that the act should be held unconstitutional in this case upon grounds other than those upon which it is said the former decisions of this court were based, and for reasons which were not then presented to the court either in the briefs filed by counsel or upon oral argument. Counsel for the appellant now contend that said act is unconstitutional for the following reasons: First, because the act makes the location of the property destroyed or injured, and not the place where the mob assembled or the riot occurred, the criterion as to who should be punished; and, second, because the act makes the liability of the city or county conclusive from the fact, alone, that the property was destroyed or injured within the limits of the city or county, and wholly regardless of the fact whether the city or county, or its officers, were guilty of negligence or had the power to disperse the mob or suppress the riot.

To emphasize the first position of the appellant, it is said, in the brief filed by counsel on its behalf, a mob may assemble or a riot occur in one city or county, or even in a foreign state, and by the use of dynamite or cannon destroy or injure property in another city or county or in this state, and that the city or county ‘in which such property was destroyed or injured’ may be held liable under the statute although the city or county where the destruction or injury to the property occurred was powerless to disperse the mob or suppress the riot, as the mob or rioters were beyond the limits of the city or county. Whether a city or county in which a mob assembled or a riot occurred would be liable for property destroyed or injured in an adjoining city or county, under the circumstances suggested by counsel for appellant, need not now be discussed or decided, as that sort of a case is not now before the court, and the law is well settled that courts do not entertain objections to the constitutionality of a statute unless the objection is made by one whose rights have been in some way affected. Neifing v. Town of Pontiac, 56 Ill. 172;People v. McBride, 234 Ill. 146, 84 N. E. 865. The case here made by the declaration and by the proofs by the appellee brings the case clearly within the provisions of the statute; that is, the property in question was destroyed or injured by a mob or riot in the city where the mob assembled or the riot occurred.

It is fundamental that the courts will not construe a statute so as to make it unconstitutional if any other reasonable construction can be placed upon it which will make it effectual. Newland v. Marsh, 19 Ill. 376;People v. Peacock, 98 Ill. 172. To hold that the statute in question should be so construed as to make a city or county liable for the destruction or injury of property caused by a mob or a riot outside of the limits of the city or county, would be to attribute to the Legislature the doing of an unreasonable and absurd thing, and something which the Legislature clearly could not have contemplated. This the courts will never do, unless the language of the statute is so clear and certain in its terms that no other reasonable conclusion from the reading thereof can be reached. And even when the literal enforcement of a statute will result in inconvenience and great hardship and lead to consequences which are absurd, the...