Thompson v. City of Highland Park

187 Ill. 265
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 19, 1900
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 187 Ill. 265 (Thompson v. City of Highland Park) 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
Thompson v. City of Highland Park, 187 Ill. 265 (Ill. 1900).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Hand

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the county court of Lake county confirming a special assessment for the improvement of St. John’s avenue, in the city of Highland Park, from the southerly line of Laurel avenue to its intersection with the southerly line of Sheridan road. St. John’s avenue runs north and south. The ordinance provides for macadamizing two roadways, each eighteen feet in width, on each side of the center line of the avenue, the center of the easterly roadway to be twelve feet east of the center line of St. John’s avenue and the center of the westerly roadway to be twenty-six feet west of the center line of St. John’s avenue. The ordinance also provides for a center parkway between the two roadways, to be planted with trees fifty feet apart, graded, leveled, covered with loam and seeded with grass seed. The ordinance alsb provides that the space between the lot line and the outer line of the gutter, called “outer parkway,” shall be graded so as to have a gradual slope from the lot line down to the outer edge of the gutter. Provisions are made for drain-tile, catch-basins and gutters, so that when completed, beginning with the east side of the street, the improvement will be as follows: First, a parkway eighteen feet wide; second, a gutter two feet wide; third, a macadamized roadway eighteen feet wide; fourth, a parkway eighteen feet wide, planted with trees; fifth, a macadamized roadway eighteen feet wide; sixth, a gutter two feet wide; seventh, a parkway four feet wide.

Appellants contend that the ordinance does not authorize the assessment as made, because the caption of the ordinance does not specify anything in reference to parkways. The caption of the ordinance is as follows: “An ordinance providing for the grading, draining, paving and otherwise improving of St. John’s avenue, from the southerly line of Laurel avenue to its intersection with the southerly line of Sheridan road.” The phrase “otherwise improving” is a broad and comprehensive phrase, sufficient to include almost any improvement of the street. “Otherwise” is defined by the Standard Dictionary as meaning “in a different manner;” “in another way;” “differently;” “in other respects.” By Webster, “in a different manner;” “in different respects;” and by the Century Dictionary, “in a different manner or way;” “differently;” “in other respects.” • So the entitlement does, in fact, fully cover, by its wording, everything provided for by this ordinance. “If the title fairly gives notice of the subject of the act, so as reasonably to lead to an inquiry into the body of the ordinance, it is all that is necessary.” (17 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law,-—1st ed.—p. 245.) “An ordinance of a city entitled ‘An ordinance to regulate and prohibit the running at large of animals, ’ and containing therein provisions for taking up and impounding cattle running at large within the corporate limits of the city, contains a title sufficiently extended to embrace also a section prohibiting any person from breaking open the enclosure used by the city as a pound and forbidding the unlawful taking and driving therefrom of animals impounded therein.” (Smith v. City of Emporia, 27 Kan. 528.) We held in the case of Village of Hinsdale v. Shannon, 182 Ill. 312 (on p. 315): “No provision of the statute requires a description of the nature, character and locality of the improvement to be stated in the caption of the ordinance.” The ordinance is clearly sufficient, and is not rendered uncertain by reason of the caption failing to state that its purpose was, in part, to provide for a parkway.

It is next objected that the city council exceeded its powers in attempting to levy a special assessment to pay for grading, sodding and treeing a park in the middle of the street. The proposed improvement provides for two roadways, each eighteen feet wide,—not counting the gutters, which add two feet more to each roadway,—with a strip of grass-land between said roadways eighteen feet wide, which is to be planted with trees at intervals of fifty feet. It is not an unbroken strip, but has two wide openings through it at the junction of intersecting streets, so as to connect the two roadways and permit access from one to the other as well as to adjoining streets. St. John’s avenue is eighty feet wide and is a main thoroughfare through Highland Park. The control of the streets in cities and villages, and the power to improve the same, are by the statute placed under the supervision and control of the city council in cities and the board of trustees in villages, and in the exercise of such powers the manner of improvement must, of necessity, to a large extent be left to the discretion of these bodies.

In Murphy v. City of Peoria, 119 Ill. 509, the ordinance provided that the street should be graded and graveled; that twenty-four feet in width in the center of the street should be graded and sodded with good sod. After reviewing the provisions of the special charter of the city of Peoria giving" the city council control over its streets, and which are substantially the same as are conferred upon, cities and villages under the City and Village act, we say (p. 511): “It is obvious * * * that the control of the streets, and the power to improve, is placed in the hands of the city council, and in the exercise of these powers the manner of the improvement must, of necessity, to a large extent be left to the discretion of that body. It is true that the charter does not, in express words, declare that the city - council may grade and sod a portion of the Street; but we think it is manifest that such power is included under the general authority to control and improve, conferred on the city council by the charter. Where a street is of such a width that the entire street is not needed for the public travel, and the city council deem it wise to sod a portion thereof instead of graveling the entire street, we see no good reason why they may not properly, under the general power to control and improve, adopt that method of improvement.” Under the authority of this case we do not think the city council exceeded its powers in providing for the improvement of the parkway in question and for the payment of the same by special assessment.

The improvement ordinance was passed on the 25th day of February, 1896. The commissioners appointed by the city council to make an estimate of the cost of said improvement made their report on the 3d day of March, 1896. The petition for the levying of the assessment was filed on the 9th day of March, 1896. On the 12th day of March, 1896, an order was entered by the court appointing commissioners to make the assessment. On the 26th day of March, 1896, the commissioners filed the assessment roll, and on the 12th day of May, 1896, the re-cast assessment roll, and on the 28th day of November, 1899, the assessment was confirmed. On the 25th day of Januuary, 1897, the city council of Highland Park passed another ordinance, which was subsequently amended, granting a city railway company, and its successors, a franchise to construct a street railway through the city and over the street in question. Said railway was completed on the street in question about the first day of May, 1898, and now occupies with its double tracks the entire west roadway proposed to be macadamized. The ordinance also provided that said street railway company should pave, and keep paved, at its own expense, such portion of said street as is occupied by its tracks, with the same material as that with which adjacent portions thereof shall from time to time be paved or improved.

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187 Ill. 265, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thompson-v-city-of-highland-park-ill-1900.