Broder v. Krenn

165 N.E. 602, 334 Ill. 256
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 20, 1929
DocketNo. 19297. Reversed and remanded.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 165 N.E. 602 (Broder v. Krenn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Broder v. Krenn, 165 N.E. 602, 334 Ill. 256 (Ill. 1929).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Stone

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal seeking reversal of a judgment of the municipal court of Chicago against appellants, Edwin D. Krenn and Edward A. Dato, in the sum of $5000. Appellee, Samuel Broder, on February 7, 1924, filed a suit of the first class against appellants and Edith Rockefeller McCormick, individually and as trustees of the common law trust known as the Edith Rockefeller McCormick Trust. The purpose of the suit was to recover for services alleged to be due to appellee in organizing said common law trust. The appearance of those made defendants to the suit was filed on February 16, 1924. On February 21, 1924, the court ordered that leave be given plaintiff to file a demand for a jury trial. On October 28, 1925, a trial was commenced before the court and a jury. A verdict was rendered finding the issues for the plaintiff and assessing his damages at $5000. The cause was appealed to the Appellate court for the First District, where the judgment was reversed and the cause remanded for re-trial. Plaintiff on December 11, 1926, filed the mandate of the Appellate Court in the municipal court, and defendants filed a motion for trial without a jury. Plaintiff objected, and the motion for a trial without a jury was on January 27, 1927, denied and the cause transferred to the chief justice of that court for re-assignment for trial with a jury. Defendants excepted and were given thirty days in which.to file a bill of exceptions. On February 3, 1927, the bill of exceptions was filed and approved. It recites that on December 11, 1926, the matter coming on to be heard on the motion of plaintiff to file the mandate of the Appellate Court, the same was filed, and plaintiff by his counsel moved for a trial before the court with a jury, to which defendants objected, and thereupon moved the court that the cause be set for trial without a jury for the following reasons:

(1) Plaintiff, at the time he commenced the suit, did not file with the cleric a demand in writing for a trial by jury, and therefore, pursuant to section 30 of an act entitled, “An act in relation to a municipal court in the city of Chicago,” the cause should be tried by the court without a jury.

(2) The attempted amendment in 1921 of section 56 of said act was held ineffective, unconstitutional and void by the Supreme Court of Illinois in the case of People v. City of Chicago, 310 Ill. 534.

(3) The attempted amendment is unconstitutional and void in that (a) the legislature, in violation of section 34 of article 4 of the constitution, failed to provide for its submission to a vote of the people; (&) it violates the provisions of section 13 of article 4 in that (1) it embraces within its terms a subject not expressed in its title; and (2) it amends section 30 of said act without inserting section 30 at length in the new act.

(4) Section 56 as so amended, if constitutional, cannot apply to a cause pending at the time it went into effect.

The bill of exceptions also recites the order of the court on these motions and the denial of the defendants’ motion to set the cause for a hearing without a jury.

On March 21, 1928, the trial of the cause was begun before the court with a jury. On March 22, 1928, plaintiff obtained leave to file an amended statement of claim. It was thereupon ordered that defendants file an affidavit of merits thereto in five days and that a juror in the cause be withdrawn and the jury discharged from further consideration of the cause. The amended affidavit of claim is predicated on an express contract with Krenn and Dato and the suit was thereafter against them alone. On July 10, 1927, the municipal court entered an order again reciting the motion of defendants to try the cause without a jury and overruling the same, and the trial of the cause was begun before the court with a jury. The jury on this trial returned a verdict for $5000 on behalf of the plaintiff and against Krenn and Dato. Motion for a new trial and in arrest of judgment was overruled, and on August 16 an appeal to this court, was allowed on filing bond for $7500.

Appellants’ first assignment of error is, that section 56 of the Municipal Court act, as amended in 1921, is unconstitutional and void for the reasons, first, that it was held ineffective by this court in People v. City of Chicago, supra, for the reason that it had not been submitted to a vote of the people, as required by section 34 of article 4 of the constitution; second, that it violates section 13 of article 4 of the constitution, in that it purports to amend section 30 of the Municipal Court act without inserting that section at length in the new act; and third, that section 56 as amended is void for the further reason that it failed to provide for its submission to a vote of the people.

Section 56 as amended was submitted to a vote of the people of Chicago on April 8, 1924, after the suit in this cause was started, but it contains no provision for a referendum. That section 56 as amended should itself have provided for a referendum is argued with much force, but we will consider first the objection that it violates section 13 of article 4 of the constitution in that it amends section 30 of the Municipal Court act without inserting that section at length in the new act.

This is a case of the first class. Section 30 of the Municipal Court act, as amended in 1907 and adopted by vote on September 17, 1907, (Smith’s Stat. 1927, p. 897,) provides as follows: “That every suit at law in the municipal court other than a case of the second class, or a case of the third class, or a case of the fifth class, or a bastardy case, mentioned in section 2 of this act, shall be tried by the court without a jury unless the plaintiff, at the time he commences his suit, or the defendant at the time he enters his appearance, shall file with the clerk a demand in writing of a trial by jury, which demand, however, may be withdrawn by the party filing the same at any time before the trial. Every civil suit at law of the second class shall be tried by the court without a jury unless the respective parties, or one of them, shall, at the time of entering their or his appearance in the municipal court, file with the clerk a demand in writing of a trial by jury. Every person desirous of suffering a non-suit on trial shall be barred therefrom unless he do so before the jury retire from the bar, or before the court, in case the trial is by the court without a jury, states its finding.” This provision has been in force since the time of its enactment unless legally changed by subsequent enactments.

Section 56 of the Municipal Court act as amended in 1907, which section was adopted at an election held September 17, 1907,,consisted of ten paragraphs, relating exclusively to costs. Prior to the amendment of section 56 in 1921 section 30 was the only section of said act governing the right of trial by jury or the right to a non-suit. The only reference to jury trials in section 56 as then in force had to do with the amount of fees to be paid where a jury trial had been demanded. The legislature by an act approved June 27, 1921, (Laws of 1921, p. 393,) purported to amend section 56.

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Bluebook (online)
165 N.E. 602, 334 Ill. 256, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/broder-v-krenn-ill-1929.