Court Opinion

ID: 9739798
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:21:03.278494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:13.978954
License: Public Domain

BURKE, P. J., dissenting: I-t is undisputed that the walls and partitions in a nursing home must have a fire resistance rating of one hour and that they must also he of noncombustible material. The building commissioner gave no consideration whatsoever to the requirement of combustibility or heat resistance and considered only the requirement of fire resistance. The requirements of the ordinance are conjunctive. The material must not only be fire resistant for one hour; it must also be noncombustible. In many types of constructions it may not be essential that both requirements be met, but in nursing homes the City Council has properly provided as a measure of protection for the aged and infirm, that both safety features be considered because of the large number of people occupying these units. To protect the numerous occupants it is not only important that the walls be merely resistant to fire, they must be resistant to heat. It is essential in a crowded building that the walls themselves not burst into flame should a fire get out of control. The requirement of noncombustibility was never considered by the building commissioner. Thus there was no administrative determination to collaterally attack. Moreover, the plaintiff has stipulated for the purposes of this appeal that the wall board which it used will ignite at temperatures below 1200° Fahrenheit, the ordinance minimum. The walls and partitions are combustible. Safety is impaired. The signs carried stated the-truth. As far as the building permit is concerned the defendants made no contentions in their signs with regard to whether or not there is or is not a valid permit. What the defendants have stated in the signs is that the building code is being violated. On that issue the cases make it clear that the existence or nonexistence of a permit is immaterial. As the building code was being violated the commissioner had no authority to permit construction of this type of building with gypsum board. A void administrative action binds no one. In Sinclair Refining Co. v. City of Chicago, 246 Ill App 152, wherein the plaintiff sued to enjoin the City from interfering with the erection of a filling station in Chicago, the plaintiff had previously sought and obtained both a permit from the City to install gasoline tanks and a permit from the Commissioner of Buildings to erect the building. Thereafter the City forbade plaintiff from building his station because of an ordinance prohibiting gas storage tanks within 200 feet of a public school, church or hospital. The court in rejecting the argument that there could be an estoppel based on the two prior permits, said (162): “To hold that merely the acts of an employee could be the basis for such an estoppel as is claimed in the instant case, would be going in the direction of suspending and repealing ordinances without any action on the part of the city council; in other words, making acts of the employees or agents, though beyond the scope of their authority, and known by the parties to be such, the equivalent of legislation;” See also Meltzer v. City of Chicago, 152 Ill App 334. The plaintiff did not construct the building in reliance upon a permit for gypsum wall board, but rather sought ex parte, ex post facto approval after it had violated the building permit calling for plaster. The following cases also hold that a permit in contravention of the city building code is a nullity: J. Burton Co. v. City of Chicago, 236 Ill 383, 86 NE 93; Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co. v. City of Chicago, 173 Ill 91, 50 NE 256, and People ex rel. Younger v. City of Chicago, 280 Ill 576, 117 NE 779. Although numerous of the criminal and stop order provisions of the ordinances refer to building without a permit, most of them broadly provide penalties for all conduct which fails to conform with the provisions of the code. Plaintiff departed from .the plans. No new permit was ever issued. No new permit could be issued as there had not been removal of material in violation of the code. Bestrictions on collateral attack are part of the doctrine of res judicata which applies only to parties and their privies, but not to strangers. Plaintiff claims that the defendants are strangers to the dispute. Defendants cannot be affeeted by an adjudication of the commissioner in a matter to which they were not parties or privy. See Hedlund v. Miner, 395 Ill 217, 69 NE2d 862. The plaintiff has admitted for the purposes of this appeal that the materials are combustible. The chancellor refused to permit the defendant to present its factual defenses. A charge of violation of the code is made on the placards. The reply filed by the plaintiff states that these signs are false and untrue. Plaintiff has put in issue the charges that the walls and partitions in the nursing home are combustible and that a building code violation exists. Plaintiff interrogated a witness to establish that the charges made on -the signs were untrue. The defendants had a clear right to refute any. charges by direct evidence and by cross-examination of witnesses. Any issue of fact could hav-e been speedily and convincingly resolved by permitting the defendant to bring in his oven and prove before the chancellor that the materials were combustible in violation of the ordinance. It is the law of this state that where it appears that a plaintiff cannot have the ultimate relief he seeks, the application for a preliminary injunction should be denied. Biehn v. Tess, 340 Ill App 140, 91 NE2d 160; Tidd v. General Printing Co., 257 Ill App 596. It is well settled that equity will not enjoin -a libel nor impose an order of restraint on freedom of speech. Montgomery Ward & Co. v. United Retail, Wholesale & Dept. Store Employees of America, C.I.O., 330 Ill App 49, 70 NE2d 75, affd 400 Ill 38, 79 NE2d 46. The Supreme Court there pointed out that there are exceptions to the rule relating to prior restraints on freedom of speech. None of these restraints is applicable to the case at bar. It is undisputed that the picketing has been peaceful. The Montgomery Ward case is the most recent expression of the law of Illinois respecting restraints of freedom of speech. The leading case in the U. S. Supreme Court concerning peaceful picketing is Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 US 88. In that ease the court struck down an Alabama statute that made it unlawful for any person to picket the works or place of business of persons, firms, corporations or associations of persons for the purpose of hindering, delaying or interfering with or injuring any lawful business or enterprise of another. In Thornhill the eourt said that the freedom of speech and of the press guaranteed by the Constitution embraces “at least the liberty to discuss publicly and truthfully all matters of public concern without previous restraint or fear of subsequent punishment.” In A.F. of L. v. Swing, 312 US 321, the court held that the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech was infringed by an Illinois common law poliey limiting peaceful picketing to cases of a labor controversy between an employer and its own employees. In Hughes v. Superior Court of California, 339 US 460, a Negro group demanded that the store owner hire Negro help in proportion to the Negro trade and, when the demand was refused, the Negroes began picketing the store. The Federal Supreme Court said (p 467) that “California chose to strike at the discrimination inherent in the quota system by means of the equitable remedy of injunction to protect against unwilling submission to such a system,” and that “it is not for this Court to deny to California that choice from among all ‘the various weapons in the armory of the law.’ ” The Federal Court in affirming the decree in the Hughes case decided not to interfere with the carrying out of the public policy of California. The opinion concluded (p 469) that “The injunction here was drawn to meet what California deemed the evil of picketing to bring about proportional hiring. We do not go beyond the circumstances of the case. Generalizations are treacherous in the application of large constitutional concepts.” The Hughes case cannot give any comfort to the plaintiff. All that case did was to affirm the public policy of California against segregation. In the case at bar the injunction violates the public policy of Illinois expressed in well considered opinions, that peaceful picketing when asserting the truth is valid. The court cannot enjoin the telling of the truth. Defendants have a legitimate grievance with the building commissioner for failing to enforce the building code in this instance. They have a separate grievance against the plaintiff who put up the building in violation of the code. They have a right to publicize these grievances in a peaceful and truthful manner. The City Council’s determination that only noncombustible materials may enter into construction of nursing homes merits the concern of all citizens. Any citizen has the right to peacefully manifest that concern. The cases cited by plaintiff relate to picketing for an unlawful purpose. Plaintiff has failed to show an unlawful purpose in the picketing of its building. Plaintiff makes the contention that in .some way liberty of speech and the right of assembly and to petition for a redress of grievances, are geographically limited to the Court House Square because, he says defendant’s sole dispute is with the building commissioner. Were such a proposition correct, there would be very little left of the constitutional freedom of speech and of the right to petition for a redress of grievances. The injunction not only requires the removal of the person or persons with placards, denominated “pickets,” hut it bars defendants from communicating in any way with any person who might become an oeeupant of the home and telling him of the dispute raised by plaintiff’s law suit. Defendant union and the individuals enjoined are actively engaged in the construction industry and in the building trades. Defendants are at the scene of building. Their opportunity to observe violations as shown here are unequalled. Their right to organize to protect effectively the endangering of life and health and the lowering of standards is the right enjoyed by all business, trade and professional groups within our society. Plaintiffs have failed to make out a ease for relief. The injunction shields a law violator from just criticism. Illinois law does not permit a court of chancery to do this. The ease- is not returned to the trial court. The case has been in the trial court and the hearing may proceed when issue is joined. This is an appeal from an interlocutory order. The order granting the injunction should be reversed.