(Download) "City of Chicago Hts. v. Pub. Service Co." by Supreme Court of Illinois ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: City of Chicago Hts. v. Pub. Service Co.
- Author : Supreme Court of Illinois
- Release Date : January 22, 1951
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 68 KB
Description
By separate actions brought in the superior court of Cook County, the plaintiff, the city of Chicago Heights, sought an accounting from the defendants, Public Service Company of Northern Illinois and Illinois Bell Telephone Company, of the amounts due and owing to it under an ordinance of October 3, 1949, regulating the condition, location and construction of poles, wires and mains in streets and other public places and establishing license fees and penalties. Motions to strike the complaints were made and granted, and, in each case, a decree was entered dismissing the action. The trial judge has certified that the validity of a municipal ordinance is involved and that the public interest requires that the appeals be taken directly to this court. These appeals by the city followed. For the purposes of a hearing, the causes have been consolidated. This is the third time within the past year that the city has prosecuted an appeal involving the constitutionality of ordinances relating to public utilities and providing for the payment of license fees or compensation. The first case, City of Chicago Heights v. Western Union Telegraph Co. 406 Ill. 428, a consolidated appeal, involved a delayed attempt by the city to enforce a 1919 ordinance requiring all persons and corporations installing or maintaining telephone, telegraph and electric power poles and wires in the streets to file an annual statement as to the number and location of all poles and wires and imposing a license fee of five dollars for each new pole erected, in addition to annual fees of one dollar per pole and 2 1/2 cents per wire for each street crossed. This ordinance was unconstitutional for the reason that it contained no regulatory provisions and therefore amounted to a revenue measure which the city had no power to enact and, also, because the fees imposed were excessive and unreasonable as a matter of law. In November, 1948, and February, 1949, the city enacted ordinances relating, respectively, to gas mains and to telephone, telegraph and electric power poles and overhead wires, and providing for the payment by public utilities of an annual fee of four per cent of their gross receipts as compensation for the use of the streets. Decrees holding both of these ordinances unconstitutional were affirmed in City of Chicago Heights v. Public Service Company of Northern Illinois, ante, p. 310, upon authority of Village of Lombard v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co. 405 Ill. 209.