Carter v. City of Chicago

Citations

• 57 Ill. 283

Syllabus

<p>1. Cities—highways—power of a city to abolish sidewallcs upon a street. The owner of a tract of land, laid the same out into blocks and lots, as an addition to the city of Chicago, dedicating a strip of ground in front of the lots to the public, for the purposes of a street, reserving, however, a space between the lots and the street so dedicated, for the purposes of court yards only: Seld, the city authorities had no power to appropriate such portion of the space so dedicated as a street, to the purpose of a roadway merely, as would deprive the owners of lots on one side of the street and fronting thereon, of a sidewalk between the court yards thus reserved and the roadway proper.</p> <p>2. Chakceby—jurisdiction to enjoin a city from an abuse of power in respect to the use of its streets. Where the authorities of a city undertake, by ordinance, from fraudulent and malicious motives, to appropriate so much of one side of a street to the purposes of a roadway, as will deprive the adjacent property owners of any sidewalk, a court of chancery has jurisdiction to interpose by injunction, at the instance of the property owners, to restrain the city from the execution of such an ordinance.</p> <p>3. A city holds the fee of its streets in trust for the benefit of all the corporators, and in case of a violation of such trust by an excess or abuse of power, and in bad faith, by public officers, as in such a case, which would result in an injury to the rights and property of an individual, the court has jurisdiction, and will not inquire whether the injury will be irreparable.* </p>