Village of Hyde Park v. Carton

• Decision Date: 21 January 1890
• Citation: 23 N.E. 590,132 Ill. 100
• Parties: VILLAGE OF HYDE PARK v. CARTON et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

132 Ill. 100

23 N.E. 590

VILLAGE OF HYDE PARK

v.CARTON et al.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 21, 1890.

Francis E. Halligan, for appellant.

Doolittle, McKey & Tolman, R. S. Thompson, J. S. Scovell, and J. E. Cornell, for appellees.

MAGRUDER, J.

This is an appeal from an order of the county court of Cook county, sustaining certain objections to the confirmation of a special assessment for a wooden box drain in Seventy-First street, from Lake Michigan to Woodlawn avenue, in the village of Hyde Park, and refusing judgment of confirmation as to the property whose owners filed objections. The main objection is that the ordinance providing for the improvment does not specify therein ‘the nature, character, locality, and description of such improvement,’ as required by section 19, art. 9, of the city and village act, (Rev. St. c. 24.) We think that the objection was well taken, and that the county court ruled correctly in sustaining it. By the terms of the stipulation embodied in the bill of exceptions, the improvement contemplates the construction of a box drain, as described in the ordinance, from the shore of Lake Michigan, westerly along Seventy-First street, to Woodlawn avenue, a distance of about two miles; and property lying along on each side of Seventy-First street, and extending back at some points a distance of one-half mile, has been assessed various amounts along the whole distance from Lake Michigan to Woodlawn avenue, including the lands owned by the objectors. The ordinance provides that the center of the drain shall be parallel to and twenty feet south of the center line of Seventy-First street, and that the grade of the bottom thereof shall be village datum at Lake Michigan, and thence rise, at the rate of one foot to one mile, to its western terminus. After describing the manner in which the box drain shall be constructed, the ordinance further provides that the outlet of the drain shall be protected by a pier extending east into Lake Michigan fifteen feet from the water line, and ‘onto the land a distance of ten feet,’ the top of the pier, when filled and completed, to be eight feet above village datum.

The most serious objection to the ordinance is that it makes no provision for any openings in the box drain, except at its western end, and at its eastern outlet into the lake. The drain is to be two miles long, and, while lands lying west of its western terminus may be drained into it, it is difficult to see how lands lying alongside of it, and north and south of it, can be drained into it without openings between the two ends of it. The act of 1885, (3 Starr & C. Ann. St. 99,) vesting the corporate authorities of cities and villages with power to construct drains, contemplates that such drains will be constructed for the purpose of draining lands within their corporate limits. Village of Hyde Park v. Spencer, 118 Ill. 446, 8 N. E. Rep. 846. The present ordinance does...