Peisner v. City of Chicago

149 N.E. 18, 318 Ill. 131
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedJune 18, 1925
DocketNo. 16695. Reversed and remanded.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 149 N.E. 18 (Peisner v. City of Chicago) 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
Peisner v. City of Chicago, 149 N.E. 18, 318 Ill. 131 (Ill. 1925).

Opinion

Mr. Chief Justice Dunn

delivered the opinion of the court:

The appellants, who are a number of junk dealers in the city of Chicago and who sue in behalf of all similarly situated as well as themselves, filed a bill against the city, its mayor and corporation counsel, to enjoin the enforcement against them of an ordinance which the bill alleged to be unconstitutional and to have been repealed, and to enjoin the prosecution of four hundred suits begun by the city to recover penalties for violation of the ordinance. The bill was twice amended, a demurrer was sustained to the second amended bill, and the complainants having elected to stand by their bill, it was dismissed by the court for want of equity, and the complainants appealed.

It appears from the bill that the city council passed an ordinance on February 18, 1920, which appears in the municipal code of 1922 as article 3 of chapter 70, headed “Keepers of junk stores and junk yards.” This article consists of fourteen sections, numbered 3511 to 3524, inclusive, and provides for the issuing of licenses to keep junk stores or junk yards and to operate junk wagons or junk boats. Section 3511 defines the terms “junk,” “junk store,” “junk yard,” “junk wagon,” “junk boat,” “junk dealer,” “retail junk dealer,” “wholesale junk dealer.” Sections 3512-13-14 provide for the manner of applying for and issuing licenses and the fee to be paid therefor. ' Section 3515 prohibits the carrying on of the business of keeping a junk store or junk yard without having a license and the doing of certain acts in connection with the business, under penalties of a fine of from $10 to $200 for each offense. The remaining sections consist of regulations of the place and manner of conducting the business, prohibit junk dealers from receiving any license to carry on the business of a pawnbroker or receiving any article by way of pledge or pawn or loaning or advancing money on the security of any article or thing; provide for the inspection of the places of business and all the junk of every junk dealer, and impose penalties for a failure to comply with the provisions of the ordinance in respect to the conduct of the business. This ordinance is alleged to be unconstitutional as a whole, because it is claimed that it deprives persons of their constitutional right to engage' in the business of junk dealers, deprives them of their liberty of possessing, using and enjoying their property and of contracting in regard to it, and subjects them to unlawful and unreasonable searches. These constitutional questions arise upon the record, but if the ordinance in question has been repealed it is not necessary to decide the constitutional questions.

The appellants claim that the ordinance was repealed by a subsequent ordinance revising the subject of the ordinance of February 18, 1920, which was passed on March 28, 1924. This ordinance did not expressly repeal the previous ordinance. It was entitled, “An ordinance providing for the regulation and licensing of dealers engaged in the reclamation and salvaging of waste material,” and purported on its face to amend chapter 70 of the Chicago municipal code of 1922 by inserting therein after section 3524, article 3-A, consisting of eleven sections, 3524A to 3524IC, inclusive, headed, “Dealers engaged in the reclamation and salvaging of waste materials.” Section 3524A prohibits the establishment, maintenance or operation of any yard, building or other place of business for the purpose of keeping or selling or for buying or exchanging, bartering in or engaging in the reclamation or salvaging of any waste materials or waste commodities classified and known as rags, rope, iron chain and other things 'constituting the definition of “junk” as defined in section 3511, without first having obtained a license so to do. Section 3524B defines wholesale dealers in waste materials and retail dealers in waste materials, such materials being the same as are defined as junk in the first ordinance. Sections 3524C and 3524D provide for the application for an issue of license. Section 3524E prescribes the annual fee for licenses, of $250 for a retail dealer and $300 for a wholesale dealer. Section 3524F provides for the location of places of business for the purpose of engaging in the business of wholesale or retail dealers of waste materials, prohibiting such location within four hundred feet of a church, hospital or school, or in any block on which two-thirds of the' buildings on both sides of the street are used exclusively for residence purposes or residences and wholesale or retail store purposes, or used exclusively for wholesale or retail store purposes, without the written consent of a majority of the property owners on both sides of the street. This section contains other regulations in regard to the construction and location of buildings to be used for the purpose of reclamation and salvaging of waste materials. The remaining sections contain provisions regulating the conduct of persons engaged in the business and penalties for the violation of them.

This ordinance purports merely to amend the previous ordinance by the addition of further sections, but the effect of the added sections is to so modify the previous ordinance as to constitute an entire revision of the whole subject of junk and junk dealers. While the ordinance purports to deal with the subject of keeping or offering for sale, or selling, buying or exchanging, trading in, bartering in or engaging in the reclamation or salvaging of waste materials or waste commodities, these waste materials or waste commodities are specified by name as the same commodities which are defined in the previous ordinance as “junk,” of which the buying, selling, bartering, exchanging, collecting, receiving or holding- in possession for sale constitutes the person so doing a junk dealer under the terms of the previous ordinance.

Counsel for the appellees say in their brief: “The truth is, (and this fact is shown by a glance at the ordinance itself,) the reclamation and salvaging ordinance was drafted to tickle the vanity of those aristocrats of the junk business who disliked such a commonplace appellation as ‘junk dealer.’ It was manifestly designed to apply particularly to those who were engaged in the reclamation of the materials bought and sold rather than to those who gathered it. An ordinance was drafted which distinguished their business from a junk dealer’s business by wiping out the ‘old’ rope, ‘old’ iron, and changing a few other things, charging them a higher license fee, and allowing them to pose as 'salvagers and reclaimers/ graduates from the junk business, and this ordinance was specifically and by express terms added to the junk dealers’ ordinance, and it was never intended to replace the junk dealers’ ordinance.” It may be that these were the motives which influenced the city council in passing the ordinance, but we have no way of knowing the intention except from the language used. One who deals in junk is a junk dealer.

The ordinance makes no attempt at classification. It applies equally to all persons engaged in the junk business and in its provisions is so repugnant to the previous ordinance that it is impossible for both to stand. The definitions are repugnant.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

City of Chicago v. Severini
414 N.E.2d 67 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1980)
City of Chicago v. Degitis
48 N.E.2d 930 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1943)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
149 N.E. 18, 318 Ill. 131, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/peisner-v-city-of-chicago-ill-1925.