Patteson v. City of Peoria

47 N.E.2d 867, 318 Ill. App. 245, 1943 Ill. App. LEXIS 879
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedFebruary 24, 1943
DocketGen. No. 9,845
StatusPublished

This text of 47 N.E.2d 867 (Patteson v. City of Peoria) 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
Patteson v. City of Peoria, 47 N.E.2d 867, 318 Ill. App. 245, 1943 Ill. App. LEXIS 879 (Ill. Ct. App. 1943).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Dove

delivered the opinion of the court.

Appellants, each claiming to have been a member of the regularly constituted police department of the City of Peoria, filed a complaint in the circuit court of Peoria county against appellee, seeking judgment for the difference between the amounts paid them, respectively, and the sum of $175 each, per month, subsequent to July 13, 1937, the effective date of the Policemen’s Minimum Wage Act (111. Rev. Stat. 1939, eh. 24, pars. 860a, ’860b). The defendant’s motion to strike the complaint for an alleged misjoinder and insufficiencies was overruled, an answer was filed, and a motion of the plaintiffs to strike certain portions thereof was likewise overruled. The cause was heard by the court without a jury, and at the close of the testimony for the plaintiffs the court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the suit and entered judgment in bar of the action, from which judgment the plaintiffs have prosecuted this appeal.

The act under which appellants claim, as in force during the period in controversy, provided:

‘ ‘ Section 1. The word ‘policeman’ means, any member of a regularly constituted police department of a city, village or incorporated town, sworn and commissioned to perform police duties, and includes the chief of police, assistant chief of police, chief of detectives, captains, lieutenants, sergeants, plain clothesmen and patrolmen.

Section 2. The salary to be paid a policeman in any city, village or incorporated town having a population ... of 25,000 or more but less than 150,000 inhabitants, shall be not less than one hundred seventy-five dollars ($175.00) per month. The provisions of this Act shall not apply to special policemen temporarily employed or'commis sioned as police officers.” These provisions, without substantial change, were reenacted in the 1941 revision of the Cities and Villages Act. (111. Rev. Stat. 1941, eh. 24, pars. 11 — 1, 11 — 2 [Jones 111. Stats. Ann. 21.1358, 21.135.9].) The City of Peoria is within the designated class, and each of the plaintiffs was paid less than $175 per month during the time of her employment..

The complaint consists of six counts, respectively relating to each of the plaintiffs. Each count alleges that the plaintiff named therein “was a member of the regularly constituted police department of said defendant, sworn and commissioned to perform police duties in the said City of Peoria, from the 13th day of July, 1937” to the time when such employment was ended, ranging, in the different counts, from February 15,1940, to June 9,1941.

None of the counts names any particular position claimed to have been held by any of the plaintiffs. They claim, and testified they held, during the period in controversy, the following positions, respectively: May H. Patteson and Hannah Dnnne, policewomen; Iva Hagerty, police (matron; Grace Fleming, night police matron; Elsie M. Dempsey and Irene McDonald, clerks of identification burean. Each of the plaintiffs introduced in evidence a purported commission issued to her by the board of fire and police commissioners of the city, for the position she claims to have held, and a certified copy of her bond and oath. Most of these documents were admitted in evidence over objection of the defendant.

Plaintiffs also introduced in evidence, over objection, a section of the city ordinances, which provides :

“Section 1455. Department Established. There is hereby established an executive department of municipal government of the City of Peoria, which shall be known as the ‘Police Department,’ and shall embrace one Superintendent of Police, one Captain of Police, one Lieutenant of Police in charge of Traffic, three Sergeants of Police, one Roundsman, two Police Matrons, three Patrol Operators, one Chief of Detectives, four Detectives, seventy-five Patrolmen, secretary to Superintendent of Police, Superintendent of Identification Bureau, and such other number of Detectives and Police Patrolmen as hereafter from time to time be fixed by the City Council. ’ ’

Each of the plaintiffs testified to her duties, and the activities performed by her in the discharge thereof. Without detailing them it is enough to say that the title of each position indicates its duties. It was stipulated that for each of the years 1937 to 1941, both inclusive, the appropriation ordinances of the city carried items for two policewomen and two matrons; for the first two years mentioned, appropriations for two clerks of the identification bureau; and for the last two years, appropriations for two clerks of the records ' department. Appellee preserved an objection to the appropriation ordinances as incompetent, immaterial and not tending to prove the issues. None of the amounts appropriated was equal to the amounts claimed by appellants.

Appellants claim that the definition of “policeman” in section 1 of the act embraces any member of a regularly constituted police department, commissioned and sworn, and is not restricted to the particular positions thereinafter named; that the words “and includes” are words of enlargement, used in the same sense as “and also”; and that therefore they were members of the police department within the terms of that section. They also claim, as to Iva Hagerty and Grace Fleming, that the Policemen’s Minimum Wage Act modifies, by implication, the power of the city council, under the Police Matrons Act (111. Bev. §tat. 1939, eh. ■ 24, pars. 837, 838), to fix salaries of police matrons, and that such power is subject to the limitation that such salaries cannot be fixed at less than $175 per month. Appellee takes the opposite position.

Questions which are not determinative of the scope of the statute will first be considered. Appellee urges that the complaint is insufficient in sixteen specified details, and would not sustain a judgment for appellants, had one been rendered in their favor. To set out the several denials and affirmative allegations of the answer would unnecessarily encumber "this opinion. All material issues are raised by the allegations of the complaint and answer and the law is that defects in pleadings may be aided by the pleadings of the opposite party, and are thus cured byrj intendment after verdict. (Gerke v. Fancher, 158 Ill. 375, 380, 381; Cottrell v. Gerson, 371 Ill. 174, 179.) Furthermore, appellee has not assigned any cross-error as to the denial of its motion to strike the complaint, which is a prerequisite to have that matter considered on review. (Forest Preserve Dist. of Cook County v. Chilvers, 344 Ill. 573; Morgan v. County of Du Page, 371 Ill. 53, 58.)

Nor is appellee in any position to urge its contention that there is no proof that the city ever adopted the Fire and Police Commissioners Act (111. Rev. Stat. 1939, ch. 24, par. 843, et seq.), by a referendum as specified therein, and that there is no . proof that any fire and police commissioners were ever appointed in the city. The answer to the complaint affirmatively alleges that the police department of the city consisted of ninety-one members, every one of which was duly appointed by the board of fire and police commissioners of the city, thus recognizing the legal existence of the board. As to Iva Hagerty and G-race Fleming, the answer alleges they were appointed by the then mayor of the city, pursuant to the provisions of the Police Matrons Act.

In Reed v. City of Peoria, 318 Ill. App.

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47 N.E.2d 867, 318 Ill. App. 245, 1943 Ill. App. LEXIS 879, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/patteson-v-city-of-peoria-illappct-1943.