People ex rel. Houren v. Board of Trustees

228 Ill. App. 481, 1923 Ill. App. LEXIS 247
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedApril 11, 1923
DocketGen. No. 27,591
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 228 Ill. App. 481 (People ex rel. Houren v. Board of Trustees) 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
People ex rel. Houren v. Board of Trustees, 228 Ill. App. 481, 1923 Ill. App. LEXIS 247 (Ill. Ct. App. 1923).

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Thomson

delivered the opinion of the court.

The relator, George M. Honren, on January 24,1919, filed a petition for a writ of mandamus, praying that the respondents, the Board of Trustees of the Firemen’s Pension Fund of the Village of Oak Park, he directed to enroll him, as one of the benefactors of the firemen’s pension fund, and pay him an amount equal to one-half of the salary he was receiving at the time he ceased being an active member of the fire department. The demurrer of the relator to the amended answer of the respondents was sustained and the respondents elected to stand upon their answer, the writ prayed for was awarded, from which order the respondents perfected their appeal to this court. The mandamus order thus appealed from was reversed and the cause was remanded. People ex rel. Houren v. Board of Trustees, 220 Ill. App. 242.

In that former decision this court held that by his petition the relator had established that he was entitled to the relief prayed for, and to receive a pension, under the Firemen’s Pension Fund Act of 1917, and that the matters set up by the answers demurred to were insufficient to bar such right and that the relator’s demurrer to the answers was properly sustained. After this court had accordingly affirmed the order of the circuit court, appealed from, it was pointed out, on petition for rehearing, that since the relator had filed his petition, and the order appealed from had been entered, the legislature had passed a new Firemen’s Pension Fund Act, which went into effect July 11, 1919 [Cahill’s Ill. St. ch. 24, ¶ 928 et seq.]; that this act repealed the act of 1917; that the act of 1919 provided that, in order to be entitled to a pension, the fireman must have served as such for a period of twenty years, the last five of which must have been continuous service, whereas the act of 1917 merely provided that the last two of the twenty years must have been a continuous service, and, further, that the act of 1919 provided that a fireman would not be entitled to be paid a pension until he reached the age of fifty years. It was then held by this court that the rights of the relator to a pension must be determined under the provisions of the new act. It was alleged by the relator in his petition that the relator at the time he filed his petition had been in continuous service as a fireman for twenty-three years. There was some question, under the pleadings on the former appeal, on the question of whether the period of the service of the relator as a fireman in the Town of Cicero, prior to its annexation to the Village of Oak Park, should be taken into consideration in this connection, and on the former decision this court determined that proposition adversely to the respondents. This court then reversed the order appealed from and remanded the cause, “that the relator may have leave to amend his petition, so that he may therein set forth and at a new trial prove that he is fifty years of age, as made necessary by the Firemen’s Pension Fund Act of 1919.”

The Firemen’s Pension Fund Act of 1919 provides that any fireman who has served twenty years as such, of which the last five years shall be continuous, may retire from active service, and when such retired fireman shall have reached the age of fifty (50) years, the pension board shall order and direct that he be paid a monthly pension, equal to one-half the amount of the monthly salary attached to the rank which the fireman held in the service at the time of his retirement, provided he “has remained in good, standing, by paying to the treasurer of the board, his monthly contributions from the time of his retirement until he shall reach the age of fifty (50) years, as required by this Act.” [Cahill’s Ill. St. ch. 24, ¶ 934.]

After the former decision of this case in this court, it was redocketed in the circuit court. Thereupon, the relator filed an amendment to his petition, adding a paragraph, in which he set up that he reached the age of fifty years on August 15,1920, and in which he further alleged that he had tendered and offered to pay the treasurer of the pension board, the sum of $144.38, the same being five per centum of an amount equal to the monthly salary of the relator, at the time he left the service, from such time up to August 15,1920, and that the treasurer had refused to accept it. Demurrers were filed to the petition as amended and these were overruled. Thereupon, the respondents filed certain pleas to the petition as amended, and later an additional plea was filed, to all of which pleas the relator demurred. Upon a hearing of the issues thus presented the trial court sustained the demurrer of the relator to all of the respondents’ pleas. The respondents .elected to stand by their pleas, whereupon, the court ordered that the writ of mandamus, prayed for, issue. To reverse that order the respondents have perfected this appeal.

In support of the appeal the respondents urge, first, that the petition does not state a cause of action as it is based on the Firemen’s Pension Fund Act of 1917, which has been repealed. The petition, as amended, makes a reference to the act of 1917, but only for the purpose of alleging that the relator was a “fireman” within the meaning of that word as used in the act of 1917. In this respect the act of 1919 is exactly like the former act. We consider the petition, as amended following the order of this court remanding the cause to the circuit court, as one in which the relator claims to be entitled to a pension under the provisions of the act of 1919.

The respondents next urge that the rights of the relator must be determined according to the situation existing at the time he filed his petition, which was January 24, 1919; that' at that time, according to the relator’s owm allegations, he had not reached the age of fifty years and that therefore he cannot be held to have been entitled to a pension because, at that time, he could not fulfill the conditions entitling him to a pension under the present act. In our opinion, this contention is not tenable. At the time the relator filed his petition, the Pension Act of 1917 was in effect. On our former decision in this case we held, as above stated, that by his petition the relator had set forth facts which entitled him to a pension under the act of 1917, and that the allegations contained in the answers of the respondents were not suEcient to show that he was not entitled to a pension under that act. In reaching that conclusion we noted certain facts which were pertinent, the existence of which had been assumed by the parties as indicated by their respective briefs filed in this court. The provisions of the act of 1919 are, in nearly all respects, the same as those of the act of 1917. The provisions of the act of 1919, so far as they are the same as the act of 1917, must be considered as a continuation of such prior provisions, and not as a new enactment. Ill. Sts. 131, Sec. 2 (J. & A.) par. 11103. It having been decided that the relator was entitled to a pension, under the provisions of the act of 1917, he may not be deprived of that right, or of any benefit which he might have been entitled to, under the act of 1917, by reason of the passage of the act of 1919 [Cahill’s Ill. St. ch. 24, ¶ 928 et seq.], unless such result becomes necessary under some one of the provisions of the new act, which were not included in the provisions of the old act, or which altered or changed the provisions of that act. Such, undoubtedly, was the intention of the legislature in passing the new act, as was held by this court in construing a prior act. Smith v.

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Bluebook (online)
228 Ill. App. 481, 1923 Ill. App. LEXIS 247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-ex-rel-houren-v-board-of-trustees-illappct-1923.