City of Chicago v. Stuart

Citations

• 53 Ill. 83

Syllabus

<p>1. Contracts—mode of payment. The city of Chicago contracted with certain parties to grade, pave, &c., a portion of a street, the contract providing that the parties doing the work should not only have a specific sum therefor, to be paid out of the special assessment levied for that purpose, and to which they exclusively looked for their pay, but the city “ further agreed to pay said parties such additional sums of money as said city might collect as damages on the assessment levied, or any assessment which might be thereafter levied for such improvementHeld, the parties doing the work were entitled, not only to the damages collected upon a judgment against delinquents, but also such as might be paid voluntarily to the collector before he applied for judgment.</p> <p>3. And quere, whether the city might not be compelled to pay over to the contractors such damages as were collected by the collector before judgment, even though the parties paying them could have recovered them back from the city.</p> <p>3. Voluntary payment—can not be recovered back. But where such damages were voluntarily paid to the collector by delinquents, they could not be recovered back from the city, although, at the time of their payment, the collector had no lawful authority to collect them, not having yet applied for judgment.</p>