Sobieski v. City of Chicago

241 Ill. App. 180, 1926 Ill. App. LEXIS 25
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJune 14, 1926
DocketGen. No. 30,613
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 241 Ill. App. 180 (Sobieski v. City of Chicago) 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
Sobieski v. City of Chicago, 241 Ill. App. 180, 1926 Ill. App. LEXIS 25 (Ill. Ct. App. 1926).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Johnston

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal by the City of Chicago, the respondent, from an order in a mandamus proceeding-directing the respondent to pay a judgment in the sum of $10,000 with interest, recovered against the respondent by Peter J. Sobieski, the petitioner, in an action in which the petitioner sued as “father and next friend” of Walter Sobieski.

On June 26,1925, the respondent filed a general and special demurrer to the petition. On July 2, 1925, the court entered an order sustaining the demurrer, giving the petitioner leave “kv file an amended petition,” and ordering the respondent “to plead, answer or demur to the petitioner’s amended petition.”

On July 3, 1925, on motion of the petitioner, it was ordered that the petitioner have leave to amend his petition as follows:

“1. By striking out all of Paragraph 4 of said petition and inserting in lieu thereof the following: ‘Tour petitioner further alleges that an January 25th, 1925. said City Council of Chicago passed its annual appropriation ordinance and made an appropriation of $500,000.00 for the payment of principal and costs of judgments against the City of Chicago; that said annual appropriation Ordinance was afterwards amended on March 11th, 1925; that the said fund is known and designated by the Comptroller of the City of 'Chicago as 22-V; that upwards of $75,000.00 of said fund is now in the Treasury of the City of Chicago.’

“2. By inserting at the end of Line 8 of Paragraph 7 after the word ‘failed’ the following: ‘To include this judgment in the Annual Appropriation Ordinance passed by the City Council of Chicago, on January 25, 1925, and amended by the City Council on March 11, 1925.’ ”

The order of July 3, 1925, further directed the respondent to plead, answer or demur to the petitioner’s amended petition. On July 7, 1925, assuming that the proposed amendments had been inserted in the original petition, the respondent filed a general and special demurrer. On July 10, 1925, the court overruled this demurrer. The order overruling the demurrer contained the following recital: “This cause coming on to be heard upon the respondent’s demurrer to the petition of the petitioner as amended and after arguments of counsel and due deliberation by the court said demurrer is overruled.”

It is conceded that the petitioner never actually amended the petition. The facts are, however, that the respondent treated the petition as having been amended and on that assumption filed a second demurrer which differed from the demurrer to the original petition. These facts in our opinion are important and should be given decided emphasis. The record shows that the second demurrer was materially different from the demurrer to the original petition, in that the second demurrer omitted a ground of demurrer which was contained in the demurrer to the original petition, and which ground of demurrer rendered the proposed amendments to the original petition necessary. In other words, the second demurrer was drawn on the assumption that the proposed amendments actually had been made to the original petition. That this conclusion is correct will appear from an inspection of the ground of demurrer which was contained in the demurrer to the original petition and which ground of demurrer was omitted from the second demurrer. The ground of demurrer in question is as follows: “Said petition does not state facts to show that money now held by the defendant is not otherwise appropriated, nor does it set up or name any specific fund or funds from which judgment mentioned in said petition may be paid.”

The principal assignment of error on which the respondent asks for a reversal of the order allowing the writ of mandamus is that since the order is based on an amended petition, when in fact there was no amended petition, the order is void. The respondent contends that the original petition cannot be considered as having been amended; that the leave to amend did not constitute an amendment.

It is true that the general rule is well established that leave to amend a pleading does not constitute an amendment, and that until the amendment is in fact made, the pleading will remain as if no leave to amend it had been given. Ogden v. Town of Lake View, 121 Ill. 422, 424, 425; Wisconsin Gent. R. Co. v. Wieczorek, 151 Ill. 579, 583; Condon v. Schoenfeld, 214 Ill. 226, 231; Northern Trust Co. v. Sanford, 308 Ill. 381, 392; People v. Cleveland, C., C., & St. L. R. Co., 314 Ill. 455, 457. That question, however, is not the real one that is presented on the record in the case at bar. The question in the case at bar is not whether the order granting leave to amend the petition constituted an amendment of the petition. The exact question is whether the fact that all of the parties treated the proposed amendments actually as having been made, justified the trial court in entering the order issuing the writ of mandamus on the theory that the petition had been amended as proposed. In our opinion this question should be answered in the affirmative on the authority of Hinchliffe v. Wenig Teaming Co., 274 Ill. 417, 425; and Bildhauer v. Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota, 234 Ill. App. 350, 355, which hold that where the parties treat a proposed amendment as having been made, it may be considered by the court as having been made. It has been similarly held in principle in other jurisdictions. Johnston v. Farmers’ Fire Ins. Co., 106 Mich. 96, 99; Horne v. Meakin, 115 Mass. 326, 330; Kretser v. Cary, 52 Wis. 374, 378.

Counsel for the respondent place great reliance on the case of Wisconsin Cent. R. Co. v. Wieczorek, supra, as supporting their contention that the proposed amendments can not be treated by the parties as having been made. In the case of Hinchliffe v. Wenig Teaming Co., supra, the court distinguished the case of Wisconsin Cent. R. Co. v. Wieczorek, supra, on the ground that in the latter case there was “nothing to show” that the parties proceeded as if the amendments actually had been made. The reasons for the general rule that leave to amend does not constitute an amendment are stated in the case of Wisconsin Cent. R. Co. v. Wieczorek, supra, as follows (p. 584):

“The judgment of courts of review must always be formed upon the record, and from that alone. If they should assume to cure mistakes or omissions of the parties or counsel in the court below, by supplying matters omitted, inadvertently or otherwise, from the record, they might in like manner change the record in other respects, to the detriment of parties litigant. To do so would introduce the greatest uncertainty and confusion, be the exercise of a power with which they are not vested, and destroy the security and certainty which should inhere in judicial proceedings. ’ ’

These reasons do not apply to the case at bar. The record in the case at bar contains the proposed amendments. The respondent had full knowledge of the proposed amendments and drafted the second demurrer with the proposed amendments in mind and actually as if they had been made part of the original petition. The court below did not change the record to the detriment of the parties, nor is this court changing the record to the detriment of the parties. The court below adopted the record made by the parties themselves, and that is what this court is doing.

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Bluebook (online)
241 Ill. App. 180, 1926 Ill. App. LEXIS 25, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sobieski-v-city-of-chicago-illappct-1926.