Meredith v. Aurora, Elgin & Chicago Railroad

142 Ill. App. 475
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedAugust 10, 1908
DocketGen. No. 5,052
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 142 Ill. App. 475 (Meredith v. Aurora, Elgin & Chicago Railroad) 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
Meredith v. Aurora, Elgin & Chicago Railroad, 142 Ill. App. 475 (Ill. Ct. App. 1908).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Dibell

delivered the opinion of the court.

On April 8, 1908, appellee filed a bill in equity against Bittenhouse & Embree Company, the Aurora, Elgin & Chicago Bailway Company, and the Illinois & Fox Biver Central Bailway Company, and upon said bill, without notice, had an order for an injunction, and an injunction against appellant, restraining it from removing, using, selling, encumbering, etc., certain railroad iron or steel, consisting of ties, rails, spikes and fishplates. On May 7, 1908, appellant filed with the clerk of said court a bond for an appeal from said injunction order, which bond was approved by the clerk of the court. A transcript of the record was filed in this court while our April term was still in session. Appellee appeared and moved to dismiss the appeal. That motion was taken with the case. The case was submitted upon briefs filed by each party and was taken at that term. Section 123 of the Practice Act of 1907 allows such an appeal from an order granting1: an injunction, and requires this court to docket the case at once and to give it precedence over other cases in this court.

The motion by appellee to dismiss the appeal is based upon the alleged fact that the order granting the injunction was not an order of the court, but an order of the judge, and it is claimed that no appeal lies from such an order. The original transcript filed herein and certified by the clerk to be “a true, correct and complete transcript of the record in said court,” etc., recites that on April 8, 1908, “one of the days of the March A. D. 1908 term of said court, the following among other proceedings were had and entered of record in said court,” and then sets out the order for an injunction. Appellee obtained leave to file an amended record certified in the same manner by the clerk of the court, which shows such order for an injunction indorsed upon the bill of complaint, and does hot show any. other order for the injunction. Appellee also filed, in support of its motion to dismiss, the affidavit of the clerk of the court below to tlie effect that said order was attached to the bill or complaint, and that when said clerk filed said bill he copied said order into a minute book kept by him, “which minute book was not a book of judgments, orders or decrees, either interlocutory or final, of said city court,” and that he so copied said order so that he would have a record of the same in case the bill of complaint was lost or mislaid; that neither the judge of the court nor the court itself ordered him to make said copy in said minute book, and that the order which he inserted in the original transcript he took from said minute book, and that there was no other order for said injunction. Appellant thereupon filed an additional record, showing an order of said court in 1892, establishing the terms of said city court and fixing the fourth Monday of March for the first day of the March term thereof. Appellant also filed a certified copy of entries in the judge’s docket of said court, showing that in said court at said March term, 1908, the trial of a certain cause by jury began on April 8, and continued on April 9, 10, 11 and 13. Accompanying this was the affidavit of said clerk showing that, on each of said days, court was in open session and hearing said jury cause from 10 a. m. to about 4:30 o ’clock p. m. Affidavits cannot be received in this court either to contradict or support the record certified to us from the court below. Each party has resorted to such affidavits, but we fail to see that the affidavits materially change the situation disclosed by the several certified records filed here. It does not lie with the clerk to say that a minute book kept by him in his office, in which he records orders of court and from which he transcribes such orders into a record certified by him to be true, correct and complete, is not a book of judgments, orders and decrees of said city court, and that he kept such minute book merely for his own convenience. The cases relied upon by appellee were where- a judge made an order in vacation, granting an injunction, and it was held that the statute did not authorize an appeal from an order made by a judge in vacation. This order was made in term time and should have been entered by the cleric upon the record of the court. The statute gives an appeal from orders in term time granting an injunction, and the right to an appeal cannot be defeated by the act of the clerk in copying the order into a minute book, instead of into what he regarded as the regular book for the entry of such orders. Nor can the right of appeal be defeated by the failure or delay of the clerk in copying such order into the records of the court, as held in Schlesinger v. Allen, 69 Ill. App. 137, and Smith v. Nelson, 131 Ill. App. 145. This order was made on April 8, 1908. The supplemental record filed here shows that on that day the city court was duly in session holding the March term and trying a cause by jury. There is nothing to show that this order was not made between the hour of convening and the hour of adjourning of court on that day. The point urged by appellee that appellant should have moved to dissolve the injunction is decided contrary to that contention in Henderson v. Flanagan, 75 Ill. App. 283. The motion to dismiss the appeal is denied.

The meritorious question is whether the allegations of the bill justified the injunction against appellant. The record shows that before this appeal was perfected by filing the bond with the clerk, the Bittern house & Embree Company had demurred to the bill of - complaint and that demurrer had been sustained and as to that company the injunction had been dissolved and the bill dismissed and Meredith had prayed an appeal to this court, which his counsel say will be before this court at the next term. We therefore consider it our duty to refrain as far as possible from discussing the equities of the case as between Meredith and thó defendants other than appellant. The bill alleges that one S. W.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
142 Ill. App. 475, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/meredith-v-aurora-elgin-chicago-railroad-illappct-1908.