Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. R. v. Town of Lake

Citations

• 71 Ill. 333

Syllabus

<p>1-. Eminent domain—necessity or propriety of exercising the right, can not be inquired into by the courts. Courts have the right to determine whether the use private property proposed to be taken and appropriated to is public in its nature or not, but when the use is public, the judiciary can not inquire into the necessity or propriety of exercising the right of eminent domain; that right is political in its nature, and to determine when it shall be exercised belongs exclusively .to the legislative branch of the government.</p> <p>3. If the use for which private property is proposed to be taken is public, or if it be so doubtful that the courts can not pronounce it not to be such as to justify the compulsory taking, the decision of the legislature, embodied in the enactment giving the power, that a necessity exists to take the property, is final and conclusive.</p> <p>3. Where the case is such that it is proper to delegate to individuals or to a corporation the power to appropriate private property', it is also competent to delegate the authority to decide upon the necessity of taking.</p> <p>4. Same—right to take property of a corporation. The fact that property sought to be taken for a public street, by a town authorized to do so, belongs to a corporation, which acquired its title by the exercise of the right of eminent domain, does not affect the right to take it. There can be no distinction in the exercise of this right between the property of individuals and of chartered corporations, nor between rights acquired to land by a corporation and title held by the citizen under letters patent from the government. The same great law of public necessity applies to all.</p>