People ex rel. Coultas v. Wabash Railway Co.

117 N.E. 1018, 281 Ill. 311
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 19, 1917
DocketNo. 11725
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 117 N.E. 1018 (People ex rel. Coultas v. Wabash Railway Co.) 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
People ex rel. Coultas v. Wabash Railway Co., 117 N.E. 1018, 281 Ill. 311 (Ill. 1917).

Opinions

Mr. Justice Farmer

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the county court of Scott county overruling appellant’s objections to certain taxes and rendering judgment against appellant’s property for said taxes.

The first objection is to a part of the county tax. Scott county is not under township organization. The county commissioners levied a tax of $3500 to pay the salaries of county officers whose salaries are required by law to be paid by the county. It was conceded that $1800 was properly levied to pay the -salaries of the county judge and the State’s attorney, and the objection was to $1700 of that levy. It is now conceded that $1200 of the amount objected to was properly levied to pay the salary of the county superintendent of highways, and it is claimed that the excess of the levy was $500. That sum appears to have been levied to pay the salary of the county assessor, and, as we understand it, the levy was sustained upon the theory the levy for that purpose was valid. Paragraph 295 of chapter 120 (Hurd’s Stat. 1916, p. 2214,) provides that in counties not under township organization the county treasurer shall be ex-officio county assessor, and in counties of the population of Scott county shall receive as compensation for his services as county assessor $500 per annum. Paragraph 296 of said chapter 120 provides that in counties under township organization of less than 45,000 inhabitants the county treasurer shall be ex-officio supervisor of assessments and shall receive as compensation for his services as supervisor of assessments $500 per annum. We held in Allen v. United States Fidelity Co. 269 Ill. 234, and cases cited in the opinion in that case, that making the county treasurer ex-officio supervisor of assessments did not create a new office but only added new duties to the office of county treasurer, and that the compensation of the county treasurer fixed by the county board included payment for his services as ex-officio supervisor of assessments. If that is correct as to counties under township organization it would seem to necessarily follow that it must be the same with county treasurers who are ex-officio county assessors in counties not under township organization. To the extent, therefore, of $500 the levy to pay the salaries of county officers was invalid, and the court should have sustained appellant’s objection to that portion of the tax extended against its property.

One objection which applied to all the road and bridge taxes in districts 6, 7, 8 and 9 was, that the county board of commissioners did not approve the levy made for road and bridge purposes at its September, 1916, meeting. Appellant offered in evidence the record of the meeting of the board held in September, 1916, which nowhere showed any action of the board with reference to the presentation or approval of the tax levy certificates of the various road districts in the county. Appellee offered in evidence the record of a resolution adopted by the board of county commissioners at a meeting in May, 1917, which recited that at the September meeting, 1916, of said board certificates of tax levies of all the road districts in the county (specifying them by numbers and the amount levied in each district and which had been filed with the county clerk) were presented to the board of county commissioners for approval; that they were examined and found correct, approved by the board and the clerk ordered to extend the tax according to the certificates in the respective road districts. The resolution further stated that the county clerk' had omitted to show on his record that the certificates had been presented to and approved by the board at its September, 19x6, meeting, “and it is now shown to said board of county commissioners that such action was then had and taken at said September, 1916, meeting by the county commissioners of said county,” and it was therefore resolved that the record of the September, 1916, meeting of the board be amended to show said action was then taken by said board.

A daughter of the county clerk, called by appellee, testified she was deputy county clerk. She was shown a paper marked Exhibit x, which is in words and figures as follows:

“Ordered by the county board of county commissioners of Scott county and State of Illinois, that the highway commissioners’ certificate of road and bridge tax in the different road districts in' the county of Scott be and the sanie is hereby approved by the county commissioners of Scott county as they appear on file in the county clerk’s office.
“Filed September 22, A. D. 1916.”

She testified the paper was written by her but that she could not state when; that it must have been on the date of the filing; that she must have written it in the office for the commissioners to sign; she thought Mr. Watt, the chairman, saw it; that her father had her write it; that she did not attend the meeting of the board in September, 1916, nor make up the record of that meeting; that she did not deliver the certificates filed by the highway commissioners and knew nothing about that. The paper above set out was prepared by her at the instance of her father. No member of the county board said anything to her about it. She could not remember the date it was prepared. The file-mark on the paper was in her handwriting and was September 22, 1916. The witness copied the paper from a slip handed her by her father. It was not signed by anybody. The original paper was thrown in the waste basket. It was not shown when it was made further than may be inferred from the file-mark, what it was made for or that it was made by authority of the county commissioners. The deputy county clerk testified she made it by direction of her father, who was county clerk.

The county clerk testified, on direct examination, that he presented the certificates of levy to the county board at its 1916 meeting, and that they were considered and approved. On cross-examination he testified that there was no resolution passed on the subject that he knew of; that he presented the certificates of levy and certificates of levy of other taxes by various municipalities, and the certificates of levies for other than road and bridge taxes were approved over the certificate of the chairman of the board. None of the road district levies bore any indorsement of presentation and approval by the chairman or any other member of the board. The witness said he did not know how the paper offered in evidence as Exhibit i came to be prepared; that he could not say whether it was prepared from a paper adopted at a prior meeting so that he could have it to present at the September meeting; that he thought there was no resolution approving the road tax levies at the September meeting. He testified the chairman of the board “just shoved them [the certificates] back and said, ‘There ain’t no room on there,’ and just shoved them back and said, ‘Go on and extend the levies; they are all rightthat was all there was to it.”

At the time the resolution amending the record of the September, 19x6, meeting was adopted, May 26, 1917, only one member of the board of county commissioners was a-member of the board who was a member at the time of the September, 1916, meeting. The resolution recites that the president of the board, who was not a member in May, 1917, and Charles E.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
117 N.E. 1018, 281 Ill. 311, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-ex-rel-coultas-v-wabash-railway-co-ill-1917.