Village of Lake in the Hills v. Laidlaw Waste Systems, Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 May 1986
• Docket Number: No. 2-85-0984,2-85-0984
• Citation: 97 Ill.Dec. 310,143 Ill.App.3d 285,492 N.E.2d 969
• Parties: , 97 Ill.Dec. 310 VILLAGE OF LAKE IN THE HILLS, a Municipal Corporation, and Village of Algonquin, a Municipal Corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. LAIDLAW WASTE SYSTEMS, INC., a Delaware Corporation, The County of McHenry, a local Body Politic and Corporate, The McHenry County Board, The Regional Pollution Control Board Facility Committee and Donald Doherty, not individually but in his capacity as Chairman of the Regional Pollution Control Board Facility Committee, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 969

492 N.E.2d 969

143 Ill.App.3d 285, 97 Ill.Dec. 310

VILLAGE OF LAKE IN THE HILLS, a Municipal Corporation, and Village of Algonquin, a Municipal Corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. LAIDLAW WASTE SYSTEMS, INC., a Delaware Corporation, The

County of McHenry, a local Body Politic and Corporate, The

McHenry County Board, The Regional Pollution Control Board

Facility Committee and Donald Doherty, not individually but

in his capacity as Chairman of the Regional Pollution

Control Board Facility Committee, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 2-85-0984.

Appellate Court of Illinois,

Second District.

May 5, 1986.

Bishop & Callas, James F. Bishop, Perry G. Callas, Crystal Lake, for defendants-appellants.

Zukowski Rogers & Flood, Andrew T. Freund, Richard G. Flood, Crystal Lake, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Presiding Justice NASH delivered the opinion of the court:

In this interlocutory appeal defendant, Laidlaw Waste Systems, Inc., seeks to vacate a preliminary injunction which was issued by the circuit court of McHenry County on the petition of plaintiffs, Village of Lake in the Hills and Village of Algonquin. The writ issued against Laidlaw and defendants County of McHenry, the McHenry County Board, the Regional Pollution Control Board Facility Siting Committee of the county board and its chairman, officers, agents and attorneys, enjoining them from conducting further hearings on an application made by Laidlaw to the county board for site approval of a proposed sanitary landfill.

Laidlaw contends that (1) the plaintiff villages have no right or interest in the matter which is protectable by injunction and failed to exhaust their administrative remedies; (2) the trial court erred in ruling that notice requirements of the statutory landfill siting process are jurisdictional; and (3) those notice requirements were met.

This litigation arose after Laidlaw sought approval from the county board of a site location for a solid waste landfill pursuant to the requirements of section 39.2 of the Illinois Environmental Protection Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1983, ch. 111 1/2, par. 1039.2). The site in issue is located in unincorporated territory between the Villages of Lake in the Hills and Algonquin and is not within the corporate limits of either municipality. Lake in the Hills owns property within 250 feet of the proposed site and was thereby entitled to, and did, receive notice of Laidlaw's site approval application under section 39.2(b) of the Environmental Protection Act. Algonquin owned no similarly located property.

On July 19, 1985, and other dates, Laidlaw purported to give notice by registered mail and by newspaper publications in compliance with the requirements of sections 39.2(b) and (d) of the Environmental Protection Act and, on August 5, 1985, filed its application for site approval with the county board of McHenry County. On September 11 the villages filed objections with the county board to commencement of hearings and requested that Laidlaw's application be stricken. The objections consisted of alleged defects in the notices given to property owners and others as required by section 39.2(b) and (d) of the Environmental Protection Act and was supported by a memorandum by counsel for the villages specifying the claimed deficiencies. Laidlaw filed a written response to the villages' request in which it stated, inter alia, that the villages had no protected interest in the approval of a landfill site on property owned by another and lacked standing to file pleadings or motions to dismiss at this stage. Laidlaw asserted it was for the county board to decide after the hearing whether the requirements of the statute had been met. The villages filed a reply in which they stated they had standing to object to the commencement of a hearing of the site application as their objection was based upon the jurisdictional grounds of the allegedly defective notice given of Laidlaw's application and the hearing of it by the county board. The villages did not suggest they were not given actual notice of the hearing nor did they otherwise respond to the standing issue raised by Laidlaw.

The hearing officer for the county board considered the objections and response and denied the villages' request to dismiss the application. He concluded that the county board lacked authority to stop commencement of the hearing as the statute requires that an applicant be given a hearing and decision.

Hearings on Laidlaw's application commenced on November 6, 1985, before the Regional Pollution Control Board Facility Siting Committee of the county board and were conducted at continued dates for approximately eight days. On November 27, before conclusion of the hearings or decision by the county board, plaintiff villages commenced this action in the circuit court for declaratory judgment, mandamus and injunctive relief against Laidlaw and the other defendants on grounds the notice and publication requirements of the statute were jurisdictional and were not met in certain specified particulars. Plaintiffs sought declaration the hearings being conducted by the county board committee were void for lack of jurisdiction and should be enjoined. In their complaint, plaintiffs alleged that both villages were located within 1 1/2 miles of the proposed landfill site and that Lake in the Hills owned property within 250 feet of it. Plaintiff villages further alleged, in requesting injunctive relief, that they would suffer irreparable harm by further participation in the allegedly void hearings as that would cause plaintiffs to lose substantial sums of money in protecting their rights. The nature of the villages' rights in this matter were not described in the complaint. Plaintiffs also alleged that they were without adequate remedy at law as no measure of damages could compensate for the monies spent by having to participate in void hearings. For relief by mandamus, plaintiffs sought orders, on the same grounds, directing the county board to stop the hearing of Laidlaw's application for site approval and dismiss it for lack of jurisdiction because of the alleged defects in the notice given.

Defendant Laidlaw responded in an Answer which, inter alia, denied the notice given was defective, as alleged by plaintiffs, or that the county board lacked jurisdiction to consider the landfill application. Defendant also requested that plaintiffs' prayer for injunctive relief be denied, alleging that plaintiffs had an adequate remedy at law through appeal of any county board decision to the Pollution Control Board and have thus failed to exhaust their administrative remedies. Defendant further denied that plaintiffs would suffer immediate and irreparable harm as a result of the hearings in progress or lose sums of money by participation in the hearings as plaintiffs had failed to identify a property right entitling them to injunctive relief. Defendant characterized the villages as unnecessary parties to the proceedings before the county board and as voluntary participants therein. In further response to plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order, Laidlaw alleged, inter alia, that plaintiffs did not have a right to injunctive protection and, in a supporting memorandum, argued that the question of site approval of a proposed landfill which is neither on property owned by a village or within its corporate limits does not give rise to a constitutionally protected interest of the villages in the approval of the site for a landfill.

At a hearing of plaintiffs' petition for preliminary injunction, the parties stipulated to facts relating to notices given and publications made by Laidlaw prior to commencement of the hearings before the county board committee and heard testimony from the president of the Village of Lake in the Hills. She stated that the village was participating in the site approval hearing before the county board and had employed attorneys and expert witnesses for that purpose. The witness estimated the cost of such participation to be $90,000, which was being shared by a coalition with the Village of Algonquin composed of a group of people in the area. In argument, Laidlaw's attorney asserted the villages had no standing in this case, and we do not find in the record of that hearing any responsive argument by the attorney for the villages directed to that issue. After arguments by counsel, the trial court, without specifying its nature, found that the villages of Lake in the Hills and Algonquin had a right to be protected and that participation in a void proceeding could cause irreparable harm without an adequate remedy at law. The court also made findings that due process required that actual notice be given to property owners as set forth in section 39.2(b) of the Environmental Protection Act; that the notice provisions of the Act are jurisdictional and plaintiffs need not exhaust their administrative remedies; that plaintiffs had shown a substantial likelihood of success on final hearing of thismatter, and have otherwise met the criteria for a preliminary injunction. The preliminary injunction issued and Laidlaw brings this interlocutory appeal pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 307(a)(1) (87 Ill.2d R. 307(a)(1)).

In its brief in this court Laidlaw contends, inter alia, that the plaintiff villages have no protected interest in the approval of this landfill site by the county board requiring injunctive relief, citing E & E Hauling, Inc. v. Pollution Control Board (1983), 116 Ill.App.3d 586, 71 Ill.Dec. 587, 451 N.E.2d 555, aff'd (1985), 107 Ill.2d 33, 89 Ill.Dec. 821, 481 N.E.2d 664, and Village of South Elgin v. Waste Management of Illinois (1978), 62 Ill.App.3d 815, 19 Ill.Dec. 685, 379 N.E.2d 349, appeal denied. Laidlaw argues that the process for siting, permitting and regulating a landfill is provided for in a comprehensive statutory plan within the Environmental Protection Act of which site approval by the county board is but the...