Penn Mutual Life Insurance v. Heiss

31 N.E. 138, 141 Ill. 35
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedMay 9, 1892
StatusPublished
Cited by43 cases

This text of 31 N.E. 138 (Penn Mutual Life Insurance v. Heiss) 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
Penn Mutual Life Insurance v. Heiss, 31 N.E. 138, 141 Ill. 35 (Ill. 1892).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Shope

delivered the opinion of the Court:

The principal question presented in this case is, whether the judgments in favor of appellees, severally, were entitled to priority of payment out of the funds produced by the sale of the railroad in the foreclosure proceeding instituted by appellants, or was the lien of the mortgage of July 1, 1882, paramount, and entitled to priority of payment as against those judgments. The court below decreed that the judgments, aggregating $11,205, were entitled to priority, and directed the master to pay the same out of the proceeds of the sale.

The Jacksonville Southeastern Railway Company was organized under the laws of this State, to construct, build and operate a line of railway from the city of Jacksonville to the city of Centralia, in this State. It acquired title to an existing railway from Jacksonville to the town of Yirden, and thereupon issued three hundred bonds, of $1000 each, and executed a first mortgage on the road from Jacksonville to Yirden, and upon its projected line from Yirden to Litchfield, to secure the same. Subsequently, on July 1, 1882, it executed the mortgage in question upon all of its line of road then constructed and thereafter to be built from Jacksonville to Centralia, to secure eleven hundred and twenty bonds, of $1000 each, the bonds held by appellants being parcel thereof. These bonds upon their face contained a condition that the trustees therein named, or their successors in trust, might enter upon and take possession of the mortgaged road if the interest provided for therein should remain due and unpaid for six months, or the taxes on the mortgaged property should remain unpaid six months after the same became due, and might declare the principal of the bonds due and payable. By the terms of the mortgage the bonds were to be issued as the work of construction progressed, at a rate not exceeding $10,000 for each mile of completed road. The length of the proposed road was one hundred and ten miles. The road was completed to the city of Centralia from Yirden in October, 1883. By ordinance of the city of Centralia, passed January 10, 1883, the railway company was authorized to lay its tracks upon and along Chestnut street in said city, which was done. Appellees were owners, some in fee and others by leasehold interests, of lots abutting upon Chestnut street, each of.whom, with others, claims that his abutting property was damaged, and, as to appellees Heiss, Prill and Buehler, also that their business then and theretofore carried on on said street was damaged. In December, 1887, and January, 1888, suits were brought by appellees, severally, against the railroad company to recover damages therefor, which resulted in judgments for the plaintiffs. Executions issued upon these judgments, and were returned nulla bona. As will be seen from the preceding statement, these judgments were opened by the chancellor, at the instance of appellants, and such proceedings had as resulted in the several assessments, by a jury, of damages to the property of appellees, as shown by the decree. The authority of the city to authorize the laying of the railroad tracks in Chestnut street, and its use for railroad purposes, is not questioned.

The constitution of 1870, article 2, section 13, provides “that private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation. Such compensation, when not made by the State, shall be ascertained by a jury, as shall be prescribed by law.” It has, however, been repeatedly held that a railroad company acquiring the right to lay its tracks in the streets of a city is not required to institute condemnation proceedings in respect of damages which may accrue to owners of property abutting such streets, and where no part of the land of an abutting lot owner is entered upon or sought to be condemned for public use, the owner is not entitled to have proceedings instituted under the Eminent Domain law to ascertain what damage his property may sustain in consequence of the construction and operation of a railroad, (Peoria and Rock Island Railway Co. v. Schertz, 84 Ill. 135, Stetson v. Chicago and Evanston Railroad Co. 75 id, 74) but the land owner is remitted to his action at law to recover his damages. The right to recover damages for injury to private property occasioned by the occupation of a public street by a railroad, or the taking of other property for the public use, is secured to the property owner by the provision of the constitution quoted. (Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad Co. v. Ayres, 106 Ill. 511.) And the railroad company will be liable for all. direct physical damages accruing from the construction and operation of such railroad, to such contiguous or abutting owner. Stone v. Fairbury, Pontiac and Northwestern Railroad Co. 68 Ill. 394; Eberhart v. Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad Co. 70 id. 347.

We said in the Loeb case, (118 Ill. 203): “The just compensation to be made for damages to land was, in our opinion, intended as an indemnity, not for successive, constantly accruing damages recoverable as they may afterwards be suffered, but for all the damages the land owner may suffer from all the future consequences of the careful and prudent operation of a railroad, it being the immediate damage done to the land owner’s estate by changing its permanent condition and impairing its present value. The action for damages may be regarded as in the nature of one kind of condemnation pro-And-we there held, that under the clause of the constitution of 1870 restrictive of the exercise of the power of eminent domain, in that private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation, the proceedings for the recovery of damages for property damaged but not taken should be similarly regarded as the provision in regard to the taking of property, where there is but one proceeding, and an assessment of compensation for damages once for all; and that in cases where no land was taken or appropriated there should be but one proceeding for recovery of damages, “in which there should be recovery for the entire damage, past, present and future.”

The constitution of 1848 provided only that private property should not be taken for public use without just compensation, and it was held that damages were not recoverable for injury to private property not touched by the public improvement. To obviate this supposed defect, the constitution of 1870 provided that private property should not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation. Property is neither to be taken nor damaged without just compensation. Both provisions are of equal importance, and are alike restrictions upon the exercise of the power of eminent domain. It is true, when compensation is not to be made by the State it is to be ascertained by a jury as may be prescribed by law. But it can not be important that the legislature has failed to provide, in the' Eminent Domain act, for the assessment of such damages. The property owner is not thereby left remediless, but may nevertheless have his action at common law, and thereby have his compensation “ascertained by a jury,” as required by the constitution. It became necessary for the legislature, by the Eminent Domain act, to provide for the right of entry upon and possession of the private property of the citizen, and, as a necessary incident, to prescribe the mode of ascertainment of compensation in cases where the property was to be actually appropriated to the public use.

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Bluebook (online)
31 N.E. 138, 141 Ill. 35, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/penn-mutual-life-insurance-v-heiss-ill-1892.