Board of Education v. Bakewell

Citations

• 122 Ill. 339
• 10 N.E. 378

Syllabus

<p>1. Normal University—whether a State institution or a, private corporation. The Normal University located at Normal, in this State, is not a public State institution, but is a private eleemosynary corporation, and it can not be deprived of its property by mere legislative enactment intended to transfer the same to another without due process of law.</p> <p>2. Estoppel—of private corporation to assert its real character in that regard. Where the charter of a private corporation contemplates its establishment and maintenance by charitable donations, the acceptance of appropriations by it from the State, even though made by the State under the belief that such corporation is a State institution, will not operate to estop it from asserting its -rights of property as a private corporation.</p> <p>3. Constitutional law—“due process of law”—power to legislate the property of one into the hands of another. The phrase, “due process of law,” in the constitutional clause that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law,” means, in due course of legal proceedings according to those rules and forms which have been established for the protection of private rights. An arbitrary act of the legislature taking one person’s property and giving it to another, is not “due process of law.”</p> <p>4. Same—exercise of judicial powers by the legislature. To ascertain whether a deed is conditional, and whether there has been a breach of the condition, and to enforce forfeiture for the breach if found to have occurred, call for the exercise of judicial functions which it is not within the competency of legislative power to exercise.</p> <p>5. Corporation—franchise, how lost. A private corporation created by the legislature may lose its franchises by a mis-user or a non-user of them, and they may be resumed by the government under a judicial judgment upon a quo warranto to ascertain if there be grounds for a forfeiture, but not by mere legislative en