The County of Hardin v. Mcfarlan
| Decision Date | 30 June 1876 |
| Parties | THE COUNTY OF HARDINv.JAMES MCFARLAN. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
WRIT OF ERROR to the Circuit Court of Hardin county; the Hon. DAVID J. BAKER, Judge, presiding.
Mr. W. S. MORRIS, for the plaintiff in error.
Messrs. GREEN & GILBERT, for the defendant in error.
This was assumpsit, in the Hardin circuit court, by James McFarlan, plaintiff, against the county of Hardin, to recover interest money on certain bonds, of different denominations, issued by the county in 1869.
The question raised was upon demurrer to the declaration, and which went to the power of the county court to issue the bonds.
The court, in overruling the demurrer, decided the county court had the power, and gave judgment for the plaintiff, and the county brings the record here by writ of error.
The action was brought for the interest, at ten per centum per annum, on nine bonds.
The question raised by the demurrer is not difficult of solution.
It will not be denied, the county courts in the several counties in the State can only exercise such powers as have been conferred upon them by express law, or are necessary to be exercised in order to carry into effect such granted powers. When these bonds were issued, admitting they were so issued as evidence of indebtedness by the county, the law provided the means, and the only means, by which such indebtedness could be discharged; and it is a familiar principle, where a statute points out a particular course to be pursued to effect a particular purpose, no other course can be lawfully pursued.
The law in force when these bonds were issued bears this title: “An act to enable counties owing debts to liquidate the same,” and it provides, that the county courts for county business, in counties without township organization, and the board of supervisors of counties under township organization, in such counties as may be owing debts which their current revenue, under existing laws, is not sufficient to pay, may, if deemed advisable, levy a special tax, not to exceed, in any one year, one per cent on the taxable property of any such county, to be assessed and collected in the same manner and at the same time and rate of compensation, as other county taxes, and, when collected, to be kept as a separate fund in the county treasury, and to be expended under the direction of the said county court, or board of supervisors, as the case may be, in liquidation of such indebtedness. Session Laws 1863, p. 41.
This statute provides, fully, the mode, and the only mode, by which the debts of a county can be paid. Public municipal corporations, as counties are, must, like private corporations, act within the grant of their powers and not beyond. The legislature, well knowing the condition of the several counties in the State, and that they might be involved in debt to a greater or less extent, provided, in their wisdom, ample means by which their debts could be paid, and to those means must they be confined. To suffer them to devise other means might, in many instances, be destructive of the best interests of the people.
It is not a question of advantage which the tax-payers may derive from the exercise of the power claimed, but it is a question of the right to exercise the power. Defendant in error relies on what was said by this court in ...
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West v. Town of Lake Placid
...an expressly authorized floating debt incurred in furtherance of a permissible and expressly authorized municipal project. See Hardin v. McFarlan, 82 Ill. 138, and Commissioners v. Newell, 80 Ill. 587, modifying City of Galena v. Corwith, 48 Ill. 423, 95 Am. Dec. 557. It seems to be the wei......
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State ex rel. St. Charles County v. Smith
... ... should not be considered by the court. The question is the ... right to exercise the power. County of Hardin v ... McFarlan, 82 Ill. 138. (2) The toll bridge revenue bonds ... now outstanding are payable solely from the revenues derived ... from the ... ...
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Town of Worland v. Odell & Johnson
... ... Trentman v. City and County of Denver, Colorado, D.C.Colo., 129 F.Supp. 624, affirmed 10 Cir., 236 [79 Wyo. 13] F.2d 951, ... County of Hardin v. McFarlan, supra [82 Ill. 138].' ... And recovery on the theory of benefits ... ...
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