Northwestern Fertilizing Co. v. Village of Hyde Park

Citations

• 70 Ill. 634

Syllabus

<p>1. Construction—of legislative grants. All grants by the legislature must, in eases of doubt, be construed most favorably to the government.</p> <p>3. When an enactment will bear two constructions, one injurious to the public and the other not, the courts must adopt that which will not work injury.</p> <p>3.. There is always an implication connected with grants to corporations, that, in performing their functions and exercising their powers, they shall only employ lawful and honest means.</p> <p>4. When a grant of power is conferred on such bodies, and the means of its exercise are not specified, they may employ the most natural and appropriate legal means to accomplish the end; but they are not thereby authorized to employ any means they choose, without regard to the rights of others, the interests of individuals, or the welfare of communities. The means adopted must be suitable to the end, and in conformity with the maxim, sic utere tuo ut dlienum. non Irndas.</p> <p>5. Police power of the State—who subject thereto. All persons possess their rights, whether to things tangible or intangible, subject to the general police power of the State; and corporate bodies are not, nor can they be, a privileged class in this regard.</p> <p>6. The exemption of an individual or a class of individuals from punishment for crimes and misdemeanors, by an act of the General Assembly, would not prevent that body from the repeal of such law, and bringing them under the general law punishing crimes and misdemeanors; and the same rule applies to a body corporate.</p> <p>7. The charter of the village of Hyde Park authorized the town authorities to determine what were nuisances, and to abate the same, with a proviso that nothing therein contained should authorize the town or its officers to prohibit, interfere with, hinder or obstruct parties engaged in carrying offal from the city of Chicago to a designated point in the town, and from manufacturing the same into an agricultural fertili