Thillens, Inc. v. Department of Financial Institutions

• Decision Date: 23 January 1962
• Docket Number: No. 36486,36486
• Citation: 180 N.E.2d 494,24 Ill.2d 110
• Parties: THILLENS, INC., Appellant, v. The DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS et al., Appellees.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 494

180 N.E.2d 494

24 Ill.2d 110

THILLENS, INC., Appellant, v. The DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS et al., Appellees.

No. 36486.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 23, 1962.

Rehearing Denied March 22, 1962.

Tenney, Sherman, Bentley & Guthrie, of Chicago, and Brunsman & Giffin, Springfield (John E. Baker, Jr., Chicago, William M. Giffin, and Clell L. Woods, Springfield, of counsel), for appellant.

William G. Clark, Atty. Gen. (William C. Wines, Raymond S. Sarnow, A. Zola Groves, and Aubrey Kaplan, Chicago, for defendant-appellee.

William A. Cunnea, Chicago, and Conrad Noll, Jr., Springfield, for intervenors-appellees.

DAILY, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the circuit court of Sangamon County affirming certain administrative decisions of the Director of the Department of Financial Institutions whereby 41 applications for ambulatory currency exchange licenses filed by plaintiff, Thillens, Inc., were denied. We have jurisdiction on direct appeal under authority of section 22.02 of the Community Currency Exchanges Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1961, chap. 16 1/2, par. 52.2) and plaintiff assigns as error (1) that the Director acted in an arbitrary, improper and capricious manner, and (2) that the findings upon which the orders of denial were based are either unsupported by substantial evidence or against the manifest weight of the evidence.

Plaintiff is in the business of operating an ambulatory currency exchange which normally consists of transporting currency belonging to plaintiff to the premises of business establishments, usually pursuant to contract, and the cashing of payroll checks of employees on the premises of the employer. In some instances, we gather from the record, plaintiff cashes one large check for the employer and the latter pays his employees in cash. This business, as well as that of operating nonambulatory currency exchanges, is regulated and controlled by the Community Currency Exchanges Act, hereinafter referred to as the act, wherein the legislature has 'found and declares' that 'the number of community currency exchanges should be limited in accordance with the needs of the communities they are to serve,' and that 'it is in the public interest to promote and foster the community currency exchange business and to assure the financial stability thereof.' Ill.Rev.Stat.1961, chap. 16 1/2, par. 30.

Pursuant to the provisions of section 2 of the act, which directs that an ambulatory currency exchange shall secure a license for the conduct of its business at each and every location served (See: Ill.Rev.Stats.1957, 1959, chap. 16 1/2, par. 32) plaintiff, during the years 1958 and 1959, made a series of applications for licenses at various locations in Chicago and Cook County. Some applications were allowed but we are concerned here with 41 such applications which were denied. And while the defendants-appellees assign as error that the 41 causes of action were improperly joined in the one proceeding for review, a contention unsuccessfully raised below, this issue, and others raised by defendants, are not properly before as inasmuch as no cross appeal was taken so as to preserve and present them for review.

Each of the applications filed by plaintiff set forth the location and the name and address of the employer to be served. Upon receipt thereof, and as commanded by section 4.3 of the act (Ill.Rev.Stats.1957, 1959, chap. 16 1/2, par. 34.3), the Director caused an investigation to be made of the need of the community for the establishment of an ambulatory community currency exchange business at each location. Investigator's reports were filed in each instance. But what those reports contained, other than the proximity of existing community currency exchanges to the locations for which licenses were sought, does not appear in the abstract of record presented to us.

The applications, investigator's reports, written objections, requests for plaintiff's service, letters for and against the issuance of licenses and any other relevant information at hand was then presented to the Department's supervisor of currency exchanges who concluded in each of the 41 cases that the need of the community for ambulatory currency exchange service at the locations applied for had not been established, and that the matters should be set down for hearing for the purpose of final determination. Thereafter, hearings were held by the Department, to which plaintiff was a party, and at their conclusion the hearing officer in each case prepared and submitted to the Director an abstract of the testimony heard, a summary of the documentary evidence, his findings and recommendations, and the reasons supporting his conclusion that the particular application should be denied.

The Director adopted the findings, recommendations and conclusions of the hearing officer in each of the 41 cases and entered final administrative orders denying plaintiff's applications. In due time, plaintiff instituted the proceeding for judicial review from which this appeal arises. The court below permitted the operators of 12 community currency exchanges (who do business in proximity to some of the sites for which location licenses were sought) to intervene, and such intervenors have likewise filed a brief in this court in support of the judgment which affirmed the director's decisions. The appeal, already unique in that it presents 41 final administrative decisions for review, is further complicated by the presentation of an abstract which abstracts none of the testimony or exhibits upon which the respective decisions were based, and sets forth the substance of only one of the decisions sought to be reviewed.

As grounds for its first attack on the Director's decisions plaintiff contends that the Department has adopted an arbitrary and capricious rule of thumb whereby plaintiff's applications for licenses are denied if the particular license site is situated within one-half mile of a community currency exchange. Nothing in the record supports this charge and its logical extension to the present appeal is that the administrative hearings were a sham and that the Director, in all 41 cases, disregarded the other evidence and predicated his denials of the applications solely upon the supposed rule of thumb. But, as we have stated, plaintiff has not abstracted the evidence upon which the Director's decisions were based, thus precluding a determination of whether those decisions had basis in the evidence or were in fact the product of an arbitrary rule. Rule 38 of this court provides that a party prosecuting an appeal shall present an abstract sufficient to present fully every error relied upon for reversal (Ill.Rev.Stat.1961, chap. 110, par. 101.38) a dity which extends to the inclusion of evidence essential to the disposition of the contentions urged. (People ex rel. Rose v. Craig, 404 Ill. 505, 89 N.E.2d 409; People ex rel. Oller v. New York Central Railroad Co., 388 Ill. 382, 58 N.E.2d 51.) This court will not search the record for the purpose of overcoming deficiencies in the abstract but, instead, everything necessary to decide the questions raised on...