People ex rel. Peoria & Rock Island R. R. v. Cline

Citations

• 63 Ill. 394

Syllabus

<p>1. ' Municipal aid to bailbo ad—fraud and illégality in the call and election. Where the charter of a railroad company authorized the call of a township election to determine whether the town should subscribe a certain sum to the capital stock of the company upon the petition of ten legal voters of the town, and it appeared that there were but ten names signed to such call, and that three of them were aliens and not voters, and that, at the election held under such call, three votes were cast in favor of the subscription by persons not entitled to vote, without which there was a majority of one vote against the proposition, and that these facts were known to the railroad company when they procured the supervisor to make the subscription and issue a part of the bonds of the town: Held, on application for a mandamus to compel the supervisor to issue and deliver the remaining bonds, the facts being admitted by demurrer to the return to the writ, that, on account of the fraud and illegality in the call and election, and the subscription, the company was not entitled to have the bonds issued and delivered, it being a party to the fraud.</p> <p>3. Same—estoppel to question election. In such a case, the township is not estopped by the act of its officers in canvassing the votes and declaring the result in favor of the subscription, and making the subscription and issuing a part of the bonds, to question the legality of the call or the result of the election, for the reason that the company had notice of the fraud before it complied with the conditions of the subscription or incurred liabilities on the faith of it.</p> <p>3. Same. Had the bonds been issued under such an election, and subscription had passed into the hands of an innocent holder, or had the subscription been made to the company, and it had no notice of the fraud, and it had incurred liability on the faith that the bonds would be issued, it may be that the township would have been estopped from impeaching t