City of Chicago v. Bullis

138 Ill. App. 297, 1908 Ill. App. LEXIS 734
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJanuary 13, 1908
DocketGen. No. 18,589
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 138 Ill. App. 297 (City of Chicago v. Bullis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Chicago v. Bullis, 138 Ill. App. 297, 1908 Ill. App. LEXIS 734 (Ill. Ct. App. 1908).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Brown

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Cook county against the city of Chicago in favor of Walter Bullís, the appellee, for $2,660.20, which was an amount sued for and recovered by Bullís as pay or salary as a patrolman of the city of Chicago, which had not been paid him. Bullís, it is admitted, held the position of patrolman in the police department of the city of Chicago, under the classified civil service from April 14, 1898, to November 1, 1903. On this last date he was suspended by the head of the. police department. After a hearing on charges brought against him before the Civil Service Commissioners he was found guilty by the Police Trial Board and his dismissal from the police department ordered. This finding and decision was approved by the Civil Service Commission. Bullís secured a writ of certiorari from the Superior Court of Cook county to the Civil Service Commissioners, and the Superior Court on the return of the Civil Service Commissioners quashed the same and ordered that the proceedings of the Police Trial Board and the Civil Service Commissioners in and about the discharge be held for naught. The Civil Service Commissioners and the city of Chicago appealed to this court, where the judgment of-the Superior Court was affirmed. City of Chicago v. Bullis, 124 Ill. App. 7. In the opinion in that case the court says (quoting from People v. Kipley, 171 Ill. 44): “ ‘An office is a mere right to exercise a public function or employment.’ Such is the very right involved in this case. * * * A patrolman legally in office has the right to remain in it while it exists so long as he conducts himself properly and is capable of discharging and does discharge efficiently and faithfully the duties of the office and until he arrives at the age limit, if there be one, and while he so remains he is entitled to the salary attached to the office. ‘Offices, which are a right to exercise a public or private employment and to take the fees and emoluments thereunto belonging, ’ etc. 2 Blackstone’s Com. 36.” The court upholds the decision of the Superior Court on the ground that no notice was shown by the return to have been given appellee of the time and place of trial, and that whether or not Bullís could have been legally tried without such notice, in the absence of a rule of the Civil Service Commission requiring it, he could not be so tried in the face of the valid rule which existed and did require it.

From the decision of this court the Civil Service Commissioners and the city of Chicago appealed to the Supreme Court, which again affirmed the judgment. Powell et al. v. Bullis, 221 Ill. 379. The Supreme Court noticed the contention that as the “right of Bullís to hold the office of policeman” was not a property hut a personal right, the Superior Court had no right to issue the writ and rejected it as untenable. It sustained the judgment of the Superior Court on the same ground taken by the Appellate Court.

June 1, 1906, Bullís was restored to duty. Charges under date of July 24, 1906, were again made against him before the Civil Service Commission, by the Chief of Police, who had been changed since the charges of 1903.

This suit was brought June 19, 1906, before the said charges of 1906 were filed, but at the time of the trial of this cause in the Superior Court in January, 1907, they were pending and undisposed of before the Civil Service Commission.

The present suit was for the salary of Bullís as patrolman of the city of Chicago from November 1, 1903, to June 1, 1906, which had not been paid him on account of his attempted discharge.

The cause was submitted to the court without a jury, and the court found in favor of the plaintiff for $2,660.20. From that judgment this appeal was taken, and it is here assigned for error that the court below erred in refusing a motion made during the trial to dismiss the action as prematurely brought, on the ground that the charges of-1903 against the plaintiff had never been disposed of before the Civil Service Commission, and having been refiled with additional specifications in 1906, were pending and undisposed of when the present suit was tried. It was contended that if thereafter plaintiff should be ordered discharged by the Civil Service Commission, such discharge would date back to the time of his first suspension in 1903. The denial of another motion to continue the trial of the present cause for the same reason was also denied, and this also is claimed to he erroneous. The view of the law by the trial judge which resulted in his denial of these motions also caused him to exclude from evidence the said charges and proceedings of 1906, and to refuse to hold as a proposition of law applicable to this case that “If the charges preferred against the plaintiffs by the general superintendent of police are still pending and undetermined, and have been partially heard by the Civil Service Commission, then this action has been prematurely brought.” These rulings, therefore, are also charged to be erroneous.

It is also, under the assignments of error, argued by the appellant that the position of police patrolman is not an office and a patrolman is not an officer, but that the position is a mere employment, and the person holding it a mere employe, and that consequently he is not entitled to his salary while unemployed for the city, or that at least the court erred in so applying the rule of law that the title to an office carries with it the right to the salary, as to exclude as im- . material and not tending to reduce the damages, evidence that during the time of his enforced separation from his duties as a policeman the plaintiff received from other employers compensation for- services.

It is also argued that even if the position of police patrolman is an office and not a mere employment, it was incumbent on the plaintiff, before he could recover in this case, strictly to prove that he was an occupant of the office de jure and not merely de facto, and that this he failed to do. He did not show by the proof offered, it is said, either that the office filled by him had been legally created, or that he had been legally appointed thereto. Moreover, various parts of the documentary proof that was offered and admitted in evidence, it is insisted, were improperly admitted. It is claimed that they wanted the necessary authentication. It is further urged that the judgment is excessive by the amount of one month’s pay.

This last objection to the judgment is plainly based on a misapprehension or misconception. There is no denial that the pay for thirty-one months was withheld from Bullís, nor that the salary attached to the office was at the rate of $91.66 a month. Computation shows that even if, as contended by the appellant, one month’s pay was in any event, through an authorized suspension of thirty days, forfeited by appellee, which it is not necessary for us to decide, the finding is below the salary unpaid him.

Nor do we think that the position in regard to the dismissal or continuance of the suit taken by the appellant is tenable.

The charges of 1903 against Bullís were carried to their full conclusion by the Civil Service Commission, and the entire proceedings, including the order of discharge, were quashed and held for naught by the Superior Court by a judgment afterward affirmed by the Appellate and Supreme Courts. That ended those proceedings altogether.

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Bluebook (online)
138 Ill. App. 297, 1908 Ill. App. LEXIS 734, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-chicago-v-bullis-illappct-1908.