2024 IL App (1st) 230869-U
SECOND DIVISION September 30, 2024
No. 1-23-0869
NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1). ______________________________________________________________________________
IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________
JAMES J. DRURY III, as agent of the Peggy D. Drury ) Declaration of Trust U/A/D 02/04/00, JACK E. REICH, ) and JAMES T. O’DONNELL, ) ) Appeal from the Plaintiffs-Appellants, ) Circuit Court of ) Cook County v. ) ) VILLAGE OF BARRINGTON HILLS, an Illinois ) No. 15 CH 3461 Municipal Corporation, ) ) Defendant-Appellee ) Honorable ) David B. Atkins, (Benjamin B. LeCompte III, Cathleen B. LeCompte, John ) Judge Presiding J. Pappas, Sr., Barrington Hills Polo Club, Inc., and ) Victoria Kelly, ) ) Intervenors-Appellees.) ) _____________________________________________________________________________
JUSTICE ELLIS delivered the judgment of the court. Justices McBride and Howse concurred in the judgment.
ORDER
¶1 Held: Affirmed. Court applied proper standard for determining constitutionality of zoning ordinance. Court’s factual findings were not against manifest weight of evidence. Court properly denied plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment.
¶2 This decision is the latest in a decade-long feud between plaintiff James J. Drury (and his
co-plaintiff) and intervenor Dr. Benjamin LeCompte over LeCompte’s commercial horse No. 1-23-0869
boarding operation in Barrington Hills, Illinois. The complaint alleged that a Barrington Hills
zoning ordinance—Ordinance 14-19—was unconstitutional in that it was not adopted for the
public welfare but only to benefit LeCompte. LeCompte, the complaint alleged, had been
illegally boarding horses for years and used illicit campaign contributions to elect a compliant
village board to adopt an ordinance legalizing his operations and doing so retroactively, as well,
thus erasing the fines he had accrued over the years. The fact that a newly-elected village board
would repeal Ordinance 14-19 not long after its adoption, the complaint alleged, was further
evidence that it was never intended to serve the public welfare in the first place.
¶3 We previously held that the complaint stated a claim that Ordinance 14-19 violated
substantive due process. See Drury v. Village of Barrington Hills, 2018 IL App (1st) 173042
(Drury I). On remand, the parties conducted a 21-day trial with 21 witnesses.
¶4 The trial court ruled that plaintiffs had fallen far short of proving their case, that their
legal theory “collapsed entirely” at trial. The court found that Ordinance 14-19 was not so much
a battle between LeCompte alone versus the village but the product of a more heated debate
generally within the village about whether large-scale commercial horse boarding should be
permitted, with passionate advocates on each side of that debate. Thus, Ordinance 14-19 satisfied
rational-basis scrutiny—it was rationally related to the legitimate public interest of promoting
horse-boarding operations in Barrington Hills and clarifying the governing rules.
¶5 Plaintiffs appeal. They claim that the court’s findings were incorrect, and court applied
the wrong legal standard. We emphatically disagree. In a concise but comprehensive
memorandum judgment, the court made detailed findings. Under the deferential standard of
review we employ, we could not (and would not) possibly overturn the court’s findings of fact
and credibility determinations. Nor did the court fail to follow the law; the court honored the
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rational-basis test for facial challenges to zoning restrictions precisely as laid out in the law and
in our previous decision. We affirm.
¶6 BACKGROUND
¶7 Barrington Hills is a semi-rural, residential village with a long equestrian history. Since
before the village’s official incorporation, residents of the area have used its sprawling plots for
various equestrian activities. Drury and LeCompte are neighbors who each own large tracts of
land, both used for equestrian activities. This suit concerns LeCompte’s decision to operate a
commercial horse boarding operation, known as Oakwood Farms. Because we have laid out the
background facts in several different decisions, we attempt to be brief here.
¶8 I. Ordinance 06-12 and the LeCompte Lawsuits
¶9 Before 2006, the Village did not have an ordinance that directly addressed the issue of
horse boarding. On June 26, 2006, the village board adopted Ordinance 06-12, which allowed
horse boarding as a “home occupation.” Broadly speaking, the touchstone of a “home
occupation” was that the commercial aspect would not be outwardly apparent, though taking
place on one’s residence; the commercial use was subservient to the residential purpose of the
property. Among the specifics, any commercial building could not be larger than the residential
one.
¶ 10 LeCompte’s operation, with its stable of nearly 30,000 square feet, capable of stalling 60
horses, would generally appear to be more than a humble “home occupation.” On the other hand,
the language of Ordinance 06-12 arguably permitted horse-boarding operations of any size,
leaving LeCompte’s status unclear. It is fair to say, in sum, that Ordinance 06-12 was fairly
confusing and unclear with regard to the legality of commercial horse boarding.
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¶ 11 When the village (largely at the prompting of plaintiff Drury) first tried to prohibit his
operation in 2008 via a cease-and-desist order, LeCompte argued that his operation was an
“agricultural” use, involving a different set of requirements under the zoning ordinances. The
village disagreed, and LeCompte took that fight to court. A different panel of this court held that
LeCompte’s operation was not an “agricultural” use, nor was his operation otherwise permitted
under the Barrington Hills zoning ordinances in any other way. See LeCompte v. Zoning Board
of Appeals for Village of Barington Hills, 2011 IL App (1st) 100423, ¶¶ 32-33, 39. We will refer
to this decision as “LeCompte I.”
¶ 12 Meanwhile, plaintiff Drury filed a lawsuit—not this one—against LeCompte for
injunctive relief as the adjacent landowner, seeking to shut down his operation. The suit was
dismissed in the trial court, but this court reversed and reinstated the action. See Drury v.
LeCompte, 2014 IL App (1st) 121894-U. We will refer to this lawsuit as “LeCompte II” to avoid
confusion with the present lawsuit.
¶ 13 Among the contested issues in LeCompte II was whether, in LeCompte I, this court had
held only that LeCompte’s operation was not an “agricultural” use of the land, or whether this
court had gone further and ruled, as well, that LeCompte’s operation was not a “home
occupation,” either. In its decision filed in 2014, this court held that it had ruled out both uses as
claimed bases for LeCompte’s operation. See id. ¶ 39 (“A careful reading of the opinion
establishes that this court not only rejected the Lecomptes’ argument that their horse boarding
operation was a permitted agricultural use, but also accepted the Village’s argument that the
LeComptes’ use was not in compliance with the necessary code requirements concerning home
occupations as a permitted accessory use.”).
¶ 14 The 2014 LeCompte II decision, according to many observers and witnesses at trial, led
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to a fair amount of confusion as to whether and to what extent large-scale commercial horse
boarding was permitted in Barrington Hills at all. And that led to the consideration of a new
ordinance and, ultimately, the adoption of Ordinance 14-19, the constitutionality of which is
before us now.
¶ 15 II. Ordinance 14-19
¶ 16 Ordinance 14-19 amended the zoning laws to allow commercial horse boarding as an
“agricultural” use. The ordinance also contained a retroactivity provision that made this
amendment effective as of June 26, 2006—the day that Ordinance 06-12 was adopted.
¶ 17 Ordinance 14-19 was vetoed by Village President Martin McLaughlin, who believed it
was “brutally apparent” that the ordinance, in particular the retroactivity provision, was designed
to serve only one resident—LeCompte. But in February 2015, the village board voted 5-2 to
override the veto and adopted Ordinance 14-19.
¶ 18 III. This Lawsuit and the Repeal of Ordinance 14-19
¶ 19 Almost immediately, Drury filed the present lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of
the new ordinance. He sought a declaration that Ordinance 14-19 was facially unconstitutional
because it lacked a rational basis for its adoption. LeCompte and others intervened in the lawsuit.
¶ 20 But within a few months of the adoption of Ordinance 14-19 and following the April
2015 consolidated elections, the composition of the village board changed. The new board
repealed Ordinance 14-19.
¶ 21 With this change in the village’s legislative policy came a change in its litigation stance,
too. The village now agreed with Drury that Ordinance 14-19 was unconstitutional for the short
time it was in effect. The village attempted to settle this lawsuit with Drury, including in the
settlement a finding that Ordinance 14-19 was facially unconstitutional and thus void ab initio.
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¶ 22 Intervenor LeCompte objected, of course. The trial court swiftly rejected the attempted
settlement, noting that the village’s changed position left LeCompte as the only party willing to
defend the constitutionality of Ordinance 14-19, and LeCompte obviously did not agree to settle.
The court likewise noted that only a court can declare an ordinance unconstitutional. We
affirmed this ruling on both grounds. See Drury I, 2018 IL App (1st) 173042, ¶ 64.
¶ 23 The reason this case has continued, even though Ordinance 14-19 was repealed, is that
LeCompte has taken the position that the ordinance gave him a vested right to operate his
commercial boarding facility that could not be taken away, even by a repeal. That particular
question is part of a different lawsuit not before us. But it means that the constitutionality of
Ordinance 14-19 still matters; if Ordinance 14-19 is void and of no effect, as Drury claims, then
LeCompte’s vested-rights argument fails. So Drury is still capable of obtaining effectual relief in
this lawsuit, which is why we did not dismiss the Drury I appeal as moot. See id. ¶ 58.
¶ 24 In any event, the trial court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. We
reversed in Drury I, holding that the allegations, taken as true, could support a claim that
Ordinance 14-19 was facially unconstitutional. Id. ¶ 118. A lengthy trial followed on remand. As
noted, the trial court found the ordinance constitutional, resulting in this appeal.
¶ 25 ANALYSIS
¶ 26 Because the nominal village defendant has sided with plaintiffs here, and only
Intervenors (LeCompte and others) defended Ordinance 14-19, we will discuss the arguments
and positions of “Intervenors” rather than “defendants” in our discussion.
¶ 27 I
¶ 28 Plaintiffs’ first point of error is that the trial court failed to follow the legal test we set out
in Drury I for facial substantive due process challenges to a zoning ordinance. Plaintiffs are
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correct that whether the court followed the proper legal standard is a legal question we review de
novo. People v. Campos, 349 Ill. App. 3d 172, 176 (2004). That is as far as our agreement with
plaintiffs goes.
¶ 29 The only “test” we set out in Drury I, 2018 IL App (1st) 173042, was the long-prevailing
one for a facial substantive due process challenge to a zoning ordinance that does not involve
suspect classifications like race or gender: a municipal zoning restriction “ ‘will be upheld if it
bears a rational relationship to a legitimate legislative purpose and is neither arbitrary nor
unreasonable.’ ” Id. ¶ 77 (quoting Napleton v. Village of Hinsdale, 229 Ill. 2d 296, 319 (2008)).
We noted that earlier decisions from our supreme court (and the U.S. Supreme Court) phrased
the test slightly differently, that a zoning classification must bear a “ ‘substantial relation to the
public health, safety, morals, or general welfare.’ ” Id. ¶ 78 (quoting Village of Euclid, Ohio v.
Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 395 (1926)). But we added that our supreme court, in
Napleton, clarified that these two formulations are merely alternate statements of the same
rational-basis test. Id. (citing Napleton, 229 Ill. 2d at 315).
¶ 30 We mentioned various considerations that have entered into supreme court decisions
undertaking a rational-basis analysis for a facial challenge to zoning ordinances. One is whether
the ordinance benefitted only one person as opposed to the community at large (id. ¶ 95), though
we were quick to add that “[a] zoning restriction could be good for the public at large even if
only one person asked for it.” Id. ¶ 98. Another is the timing of the ordinance, which likewise
might suggest whether the ordinance was adopted to promote the public welfare or to favor a
particular individual. Id. ¶ 96. A third is whether the village deviated in some material way from
its standard practices and procedures when adopting the challenged zoning ordinance. Id. ¶ 100.
Yet another, particularly here, was the fact that the village repealed the ordinance less than a year
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after its adoption. Id. ¶ 110.
¶ 31 We also mentioned in a footnote that, while we principally relied on decisional law from
our supreme court, these considerations in the rational-basis analysis were “consistent with” the
U.S. Supreme Court decision in Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing
Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977), an equal-protection case alleging racial discrimination
in zoning. Drury I, 2018 IL App (1st) 173042, ¶ 111 n.2. The Supreme Court, in discussing how
to divine the motives of municipal actors, mentioned such considerations as the historical
background of the ordinance, departures from both procedural norms or substantive criteria in
adopting it, and the sequence of events leading up to the ordinance’s adoption. Id.; Arlington
Heights, 429 U.S. at 267-68.
¶ 32 Plaintiffs focus in particular on our footnote citation to Arlington Heights and claim that
the trial court did not follow the specific points identified in that decision. But we emphasized in
that footnote only that our supreme court’s consideration of various factors was “consistent with”
Arlington Heights and, trying to leave no doubt on this point, added: “We base our analysis on
the Illinois Supreme Court cases we have discussed, but Arlington Heights nevertheless supports
our inquiry as well.” Drury I, 2018 IL App (1st) 173042, ¶ 111 n.2.
¶ 33 We hope we made it clear before, and we say it here again: the question, “at bottom, is
whether the ordinance is rationally related to the public welfare.” Drury I, 2018 IL App (1st)
173042, ¶ 99. That is a more zoning-specific way of articulating the general rational-basis test
and saying the very same thing: an ordinance not impacting suspect classifications like race and
gender is constitutional “ ‘if it bears a rational relationship to a legitimate legislative purpose.’ ”
Id. ¶ 77 (quoting Napleton, 229 Ill. 2d at 319). We never did or intend to suggest that there are
hard-and-fast factors tied to this test; instead, we reviewed the case law from our supreme court
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and noted various “relevant considerations” (id. ¶ 100) in that decisional law. That does not
mean they are the only considerations, nor that those particular ones will always speak to the
matter at hand.
¶ 34 So plaintiffs’ notion that the trial court was required to consider only certain factors, to
the exclusion of others, in some robotic point-by-point analysis, is meritless. Like any case,
plaintiffs will have their theory as to why a zoning ordinance is unconstitutional, and a
municipality (or here, an intervening defendant) will have its reasons why the law is rationally
tied to the public welfare. The trial court will perform its traditional fact-finding function based
on the evidence the parties present.
¶ 35 We will get into details of the court’s findings below. Suffice it for now to state that the
trial court did, in fact, consider all the factors we identified in our previous decision, if not in the
mechanical fashion plaintiffs demand. We find no error in the legal standard the court applied.
¶ 36 II
¶ 37 That brings us to plaintiffs’ challenge to the trial court’s findings. We should clarify the
standard of review. The constitutionality of an ordinance is ultimately a legal question subject to
de novo review. Wilson v. County of Cook, 2012 IL 112026, ¶ 14. When a trial court makes
findings of fact from live testimony, we ask whether the court’s findings were against the
manifest weight of the evidence. People ex rel. Hartrich v. 2010 Harley-Davidson, 2018 IL
121636, ¶ 13. That remains true in the context of factual findings as part of a constitutional
challenge, as in Hartrich. See id. Plaintiffs’ attempt to cast our review of the factual findings
here as de novo, based on a 50-year-old appellate decision that never once mentioned the
standard of review, is not serious. See Forestview Homeowners Ass’n, Inc. v. Cook County, 18
Ill. App. 3d 230, 232 (1974).
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¶ 38 The manifest-weight standard is highly deferential to the trial court’s superior view of the
conduct and demeaner of the witnesses, compared to our review of a cold appellate record. Best
v. Best, 223 Ill. 2d 342, 350 (2006). We will disturb the trial court’s factual findings only if the
opposite conclusion is clearly evident or the findings are not supported in the record. Id.
¶ 39 For this reason, we will spare the reader a blow-by-blow recount of the testimony of 21
witnesses over 21 days, a trial that filled over 4,000 pages of the appellate record. It is clear from
our review that, while there was no doubt competing testimony, the evidence fully supported the
trial court’s conclusion; we certainly could not find the opposite conclusion clearly evident.
¶ 40 In its written findings of fact, the trial court first noted that, on its face, Ordinance 14-19
“contains numerous public welfare rules surrounding horse boarding, including procedures for
manure disposal, noise/nuisance limitations, hours of operation etc., and is in all respects more
detailed than” the previously applicable ordinance, Ordinance 06-12, regarding horse boarding.
Indeed, Intervenors put on witness testimony, via John J. Pappas, Sr. (another intervenor) and
Kurt Anderson (a zoning board member), that one of the purposes of Ordinance 14-19 was to
resolve ambiguities in the previous ordinance.
¶ 41 Plaintiffs, however, claimed that any superficial general-welfare provisions were
subterfuge, that the true purpose was merely to assist one man—LeCompte. The trial court aptly
summarized plaintiffs’ theory of the case as follows:
“LeCompte orchestrated efforts to absolve himself and Oakwood Farms of responsibility
under the 2008 cease and desist letter (which had not been issued against any other
property), through illegal campaign contributions to trustees that later voted for 14-19;
that he sought and obtained a letter in 2011 from the Village finding he already was in
compliance; that he rushed the eventual proposal through the Village Board in meetings
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with improper notice, and that he eventually accomplished his goal via 14-19, which
contains a provision retroactively absolving any prior violations of 06-12 going back to
its adoption.”
¶ 42 The court found that plaintiffs failed to prove this theory at trial. Consider first the claim
that LeCompte packed the village board with allies via “illegal campaign contributions” to get
his favored ordinance passed. The court relied on multiple facts to reject this theory.
¶ 43 First, while LeCompte did offer one version of Ordinance 14-19 for the board’s
consideration, the board adopted a different version, drafted by a trustee (Anderson) to
synthesize the various competing proposals. Second, LeCompte’s donations were made for the
2011 trustee elections, yet the board did not adopt Ordinance 14-19 until 2014, after concern
over the fate of large-scale horse boarding in the village spawned by the 2014 appellate
LeCompte II decision.
¶ 44 Third, three of the trustee candidates in 2011 (Meroni, Selman, and Messer) were running
on a slate called “Save Five Acres,” dedicated not to horse boarding but to preserving the
village’s five-acre minimum for property ownership. The court found each of them credible in
testifying that LeCompte’s $5,000 donations had no impact on their vote, three years later, on
Ordinance 14-19. Fourth, one candidate who likewise received a donation from LeCompte
(Steiper) voted against Ordinance 14-19, while a trustee who received no donation from
LeCompte (Harrington) voted for it.
¶ 45 As for the “illegality,” the court found no connection whatsoever to LeCompte or
anything diabolical in nature. LeCompte’s donation was perfectly legitimate; the candidates on
the “Save Five Acres” slate improperly signed over their contribution checks to a political action
committee of the same name, a technical violation of a rule promulgated by the State Board of
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Elections, which chalked up their mistake to inexperience, not willfulness.
¶ 46 To be sure, plaintiffs offered testimony that the ordinance had been adopted solely for
LeCompte, principally via testimony of plaintiff Drury, board member Stieper, and former
Village President McLaughlin, who vetoed Ordinance 14-19 (though the veto was overridden).
McLaughlin said so explicitly at the time; Drury and Stieper opined that the village board
seemed to leap into action whenever LeCompte received an adverse decision from a court or the
village.
¶ 47 But the court weighed the evidence and found that “[p]laintiffs’ theory that LeCompte in
any way improperly influenced the passage of 14-19 was certainly not supported by the evidence
at trial.” The court was “particularly unpersuaded” by the statements of then-President
McLaughlin, who opined when vetoing Ordinance 14-19 that certain trustees were “conflicted”
because of the donations from LeCompte. The court noted that McLaughlin “offered no further
evidence” for this claim, which was “more akin to argument” than a factual assertion.
¶ 48 Then there was plaintiffs’ complaint of procedural irregularities in the adoption of the
Ordinance 14-19, that it was “rammed” through by LeCompte’s allies on the board without
proper notice. The court found from the evidence that the desire for legislation was spawned not
solely by LeCompte but more generally from this court’s 2014 ruling in LeCompte II, which put
into serious jeopardy the fate of horse boarding—a topic that, according to the president of the
local riding club, Jason Elder, was important to “a lot of members.” Indeed, four different
individuals submitted zoning proposals in the wake of LeCompte II, including LeCompte
himself, plaintiff Drury, Elder, and a gentleman named Hammond.
¶ 49 The zoning board heard all four of these proposals in a series of meetings between July
and September 2014. As noted earlier, board member Anderson attempted to synthesize these
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four proposals with one of his own, in part at the request of member Harrington.
¶ 50 In what the court described as “the only procedural irregularity in the passage of
[Ordinance] 14-19,” the village scheduled hearings on November 10 and 12 but failed to give
proper notice of those hearings. The village thus cancelled them, as required by open-meeting
laws, and rescheduled them for December 2 with proper notice. In the court’s view, absolutely
no prejudice befell plaintiffs or the general public for this error, which was swiftly corrected.
¶ 51 Indeed, at the properly scheduled December 2 hearing, the board heard such voluminous
and extensive testimony (both from experts and members of the public) that the meeting had to
be continued into the next day. The transcript from this hearing exceeded 300 pages. The court
disagreed with plaintiffs that these “back-to-back” hearings were a second example of a
procedural irregularity, likening it to a witness’s testimony spilling over onto a second day of
trial. The court summarized the hearings of December 2 and 3 as follows:
“Based on the transcript of this meeting and the testimony regarding the same it was
anything but a secretive, rushed attempt to sneak in an amendment, and was instead a
lengthy and thoroughly public hearing featuring passionate argument on both sides of the
issue by various members of the community.”
¶ 52 Finally, the court considered the ordinance’s retroactivity provision, which the court
deemed plaintiffs’ “strongest argument,” in that it exonerated LeCompte for past fines incurred
for violating Ordinance 06-12—and the provision was originally LeCompte’s idea. Yet the court
made several findings that supported its conclusion that “the Village had genuine and rational
bases for adopting it.”
¶ 53 Several witnesses, including board members Messer and Meroni, testified that the
original Ordinance 06-12 lacked clarity on the subject of horse boarding, leaving in limbo a
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number of village residents who had been boarding horses for several years, at least arguably in
violation of that ordinance. The court heard evidence that as many as a dozen other large barns
besides LeCompte boarded horses. Indeed, the evidence showed that another boarding operation,
Deerwood Farms, had also been issued a stop-work order by the village. As Messer put it at trial,
it “was important that properties that be—that have been used for boarding know that they were
secure, that their historic use of the property was legal.”
¶ 54 In other words, the court found that the retroactivity provision was beneficial to a number
of horse boarders besides LeCompte, not to mention that having the law clearly settled was a
benefit to everyone in the village. And that was one reason why board member Anderson, the
drafter of the version that ultimately became Ordinance 14-19, and who initially resisted a
retroactivity provision, decided that it was proper to include retroactivity. Far from a sudden
about-face caused by allegiance to LeCompte, the trial court found Anderson credible in
explaining that he was not influenced in the least by LeCompte and genuinely believed that other
horse boarders in the village, and the public at large, would benefit from the certainty provided
by a retroactivity provision.
¶ 55 Finally on this subject, plaintiffs also complain that the retroactivity provision was a
substantive departure from the norm in that it contradicted another village ordinance, section 1-2-
3, which prohibits retroactive application of any ordinance that undermines a fine or penalty
pursuant to a previous ordinance. However one might harmonize these two ordinances is not a
question before us; for our purposes, the only question is whether this supposed substantive
departure demonstrates that the retroactivity provision was adopted solely for LeCompte or more
generally for the public welfare. The evidence, as we have described, supports the trial court’s
conclusion that Ordinance 14-19, including its retroactivity provision, was adopted for the public
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welfare and not solely for LeCompte.
¶ 56 In the end, in finding that plaintiffs failed to meet their burden, the court wholly rejected
the notion that Ordinance 14-19 was adopted for LeCompte alone, as the question of commercial
horse boarding “was a hotly debated and bitterly divided issue among many residents,” who
disagreed both on what the previous Ordinance 06-12 allowed and what, going forward, the
village should allow. “That sharp divide,” wrote the court, “revealed the true nature of the
dispute: rather than being LeCompte vs. the rest of the Village, it would be more accurately
described as being the equestrian vs. the less-equestrian residents thereof.” (Emphasis added.)
Thus, the court ruled, the village had a rational basis for adopting Ordinance 14-19.
¶ 57 We have reviewed the entire trial record and appreciate the trial court’s succinct but
comprehensive review of the evidence. The court’s written findings were well reasoned and
thorough. And though plaintiffs certainly marshalled evidence in support of their position, we
could not possibly find that the trial court’s findings were unsupported by the record, or that the
opposite conclusion is clearly evident.
¶ 58 As we adopt the trial court’s findings of fact, we likewise agree with its legal conclusion
that Ordinance 14-19 was rationally related to a legitimate public-welfare purpose of endorsing
the large-scale commercial boarding of horses in Barrington Hills and in clarifying the governing
rules for that activity.
¶ 59 III
¶ 60 The final issue is whether the court erred in denying partial summary judgment on the
question of whether Ordinance 14-19’s retroactivity clause, specifically, was unconstitutional.
Our review is de novo. Seymour v. Collins, 2015 IL 118432, ¶ 42.
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¶ 61 The entirety of plaintiffs’ argument relies on a single Illinois Supreme Court case,
Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Will County Collector, 196 Ill. 2d 27 (2001), which in turn
adopted the Supreme Court’s holding in Landgraf v. USI Film Product, 511 U.S. 244 (1994).
Intervenors argue that we should ignore this claim as in violation of Rule 341(h)(7) (eff. Oct. 1,
2020), which requires that a party’s argument contains citations to authority and the relevant
pages of the record. Intervenors make a fair point. Plaintiffs provide not a single pin citation to
Commonwealth Edison, never cite any other Illinois decision, and never cite to the record in this
argument.
¶ 62 But we will say this much. The lesson of Landraf and Commonwealth Edison is, first and
foremost, that if the legislative body has clearly indicated whether a statute is retroactive or
prospective, then the court will give effect to that intent. Commonwealth Edison, 196 Ill. 2d at
38; Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280. That, of course, is the case here with Ordinance 14-19; it
explicitly has retroactive effect. Plaintiffs do not argue otherwise.
¶ 63 The only exception to this rule is if a retroactive application would violate the
constitution in some way—that is, if it would retroactively punish or harm someone for conduct
that was legal at the time. Commonwealth Edison, 196 Ill. 2d at 38; Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280.
The problem is that here, as the circuit court recognized in denying summary judgment, the
person whose rights would be impacted by a retroactive application of Ordinance 14-19 is
LeCompte, who would see his previous fines erased (at least arguably) by adoption of this
ordinance, not to mention other horse boarders in Barrington Hills, who could gain some comfort
in knowing that their past activity was now validated by the new ordinance.
¶ 64 In other words, this retroactive application positively impacted these individuals; it did
not strip any vested rights from them or from anyone else. It did not force them to pay a fine for
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something that was legal at the time. It did not outlaw post facto something previously allowed.
It did the very opposite. It removed burdens. It legalized activity that, at least arguably, was
previously illegal. The constitution protects individuals from ex post facto punishment; it
generally prevents the government from going back in time to outlaw something previously
legal; but it is not offended when the government retroactively removes burdens on private
rights, arguably legalizing activity previously deemed illegal. Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 270-71, 280.
¶ 65 Plaintiff Drury may not like seeing LeCompte absolved of paying past fines (if, in fact,
that was the effect of Ordinance 14-19, as appears to be the case), but he does not identify any
basis in the law by which he can claim that an ordinance is unconstitutional in part because its
retroactive application removed legal burdens on someone else’s private rights. Indeed, he has
cited no authority at all in this argument other than Commonwealth Edison and Landgraf, neither
of which remotely suggest that he has a basis for lodging this constitutional challenge.
¶ 66 If plaintiffs cited some authority for the novel proposition that the constitution forbids the
government from retroactively relieving people of legal burdens on their private rights, we would
have considered it. But an appellant must do more than cite a single case, applicable only in the
most generic way, and expect us to conduct the research for him and extend the law to a place
that, as far as we can tell, we are not allowed to travel. See McCann v. Dart, 2015 IL App (1st)
141291, ¶ 18 (“The appellate court is ‘not a depository in which the burden of argument
and research may be dumped.”) (quotation marks omitted). Plaintiffs have given us no basis to
overturn the denial of partial summary judgment on this ground. We thus affirm it.
¶ 67 CONCLUSION
¶ 68 The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed in all respects.
¶ 69 Affirmed.
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