Wider v. the City of East St. Louis

• Decision Date: 30 September 1870
• Citation: 1870 WL 6390,55 Ill. 133
• Parties: ERNEST W. WIDER et al.v.THE CITY OF EAST ST. LOUIS et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

55 Ill. 133

1870 WL 6390 (Ill.)

ERNEST W. WIDER et al.

v.THE CITY OF EAST ST. LOUIS et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

September Term, 1870.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of St. Clair county; the Hon. JOSEPH GILLESPIE, Judge, presiding.

The opinion states the case.

Messrs. G. & G. A. KŒRNER, for the appellants. Mr. W. H. UNDERWOOD and Mr. L. H. HITE, for the appellees.

Mr. JUSTICE WALKER delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was a bill in equity, filed by appellants in the St. Clair circuit court against appellees, to enjoin the city from appointing policemen, or from paying them, or granting to them orders on the city treasurer for pay for such services. The bill alleges that, on the twenty-second day of February, 1867, the general assembly adopted an act for the purpose of organizing a city police, and that complainants were appointed in pursuance of that act, and were acting as such police commissioners under it and an amendatory act adopted on the twenty-seventh day of March, 1869; that these acts gave to them the sole power and control over the police of the city, and prohibited the city from appointing a police force, or paying any other policemen, than those appointed by appellants; that they had appointed a proper police force in accordance with the law; that the city, through the mayor and city council, on the first day of July, 1870, passed an ordinance, authorizing the mayor to appoint officers, policemen and agents; that the mayor had appointed a number of persons policemen, under the title of deputy marshals; that they are informed that other persons were about to be appointed, and would be paid by the city council for performing police duty; that the city will not pay the regular police force appointed by complainants under the act of February, 1867. They claim to be entitled to receive all the public funds to be used in the payment of the police force, and make the city and its officers defendants, and pray process and an injunction.

The city filed an answer, admitting that the complainants had acted as a board of police commissioners, under the acts referred to, and that the acts attempted to confer upon them the sole control over the police of the city, and that the sixteenth section of the act of February, 1867, declares that the city shall have no power to collect any money for the payment of a police force, other than that to be appointed by complainants, and prohibits any officer of the city from disbursing any money to pay such a force, unless it should be those appointed by complainants, but they deny that the act repeals the police power of the city. They deny that complainants have any right to act as police commissioners, and say that the act under which complainants claim to act has been declared unconstitutional by this court.

They admit that the mayor was, on the first day of July, 1870, authorized by ordinance to appoint deputy marshals, as alleged, and charge that complainants had disbanded their force. They set up and rely upon the act of the twenty-sixth of March, 1869, reducing the charter of the city, and the several amendments thereto, into one act, as conferring all the corporate powers of the city upon the mayor and common council. Defendant Canty filed a demurrer to the bill, and a replication was filed to the answer of the city.

The demurrer was argued and sustained to the bill, the injunction dissolved and the bill dismissed, and a decree rendered against complainants for costs. An appeal was prayed and allowed, and the record is brought to this court, and errors are assigned, questioning the decree of the court below.

We are urged to review the grounds of the decision in the case of Lovingston v. Wider, 53 Ill. 302. After a careful examination of the arguments, and upon mature reflection, we are impelled to adhere to the grounds upon which that decision was placed. It was based upon a number of previous decisions, in which it was held, that the legislature ordinarily has no power to impose a debt or levy a tax upon a municipal corporation without its assent, or to authorize persons not corporate officers to, either directly or indirectly, create a debt or levy a tax, without the consent of those to be affected by it, or by their municipal authorities. These commissioners are not corporate authorities, or, if they could be so considered, the people of the city, or the municipal authorities, have never consented that they shall create a debt for any purpose against the city. They, then, can have no claim to...