Snowball v. People ex rel. Grupe

Citations

• 147 Ill. 260
• 35 N.E. 538

Syllabus

<p>1. Contested elections—jurisdiction of county court on contest of election of school officers. The county court has jurisdiction to hear and determine contested elections of all school officers.</p> <p>2. Quo wabbanto—jurisdiction of circuit courts. By the constitution (sec. 12, art. 6,) the circuit courts are vested with the power, among others, to hear and determine informations in the nature of quo warranto, they being proceedings at law.</p> <p>3. The right to-inquire into the authority by which any person assumes to exercise the functions of a public office or franchise belongs to the people, as a part of their sovereignty.</p> <p>4. Because the statute provides a mode of contesting elections in the county court, it does not follow that the people, in their sovereign capacity, are thereby precluded from inquiring by quo warranto into usurpations of office. The two remedies are distinct, the one belonging to the elector, in his individual capacity, as a power granted, and the other to the people, in the right of their sovereignty.</p> <p>5. This right of the people is not in any manner impaired by statutes granting to electors, in their private capacity as citizens, the right to contest the election of any person assuming to exercise the functions of an office.</p> <p>• 6. The rule that when a new right and a remedy for its invasion are conferred by the same statute, parties injured are confined to the statutory redress, does not apply to the people.</p> <p>7. In the absence of any controlling constitutional restrictions upon the subject, the jurisdiction of the circuit court to proceed by information in the nature of quo warranto', is not taken away by a statute which prescribes a special proceeding, unless there are express words in the statute itself taking away such jurisdiction, or unless it appears to be the manifest intention of the legislature to confine the remedy to the prescribed proceeding and to the designated tribunal.</p> <p>8. Same—distinguish