Court Opinion

ID: 9518554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:55:47.305292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:32.682627
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION UPON DENIAL OF REHEARING JUSTICE LINDBERG delivered the opinion of the court: While we are satisfied that our opinion fully addresses most of the arguments raised by defendant Woodbury in her petition for rehearing, there are two additional points that we should discuss.  Woodbury contends that the statutory “workfare” provision (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 23, par. 6 — 1.7) is the sole method by which a nonmedical GA award may be recovered. This provision became effective November 26, 1979, shortly before Woodbury applied to the township for GA benefits. As with the other statutory recovery procedures in the Illinois Public Aid Code, its existence may imply the exclusion of any other statutory rights of public aid recovery, but it implies nothing regarding the legislature’s intent to permit or to bar the creation of a governmental unit’s contractual right to recovery. We continue to interpret the Illinois Public Aid Code to permit a contract of the type at issue here.  Woodbury criticizes our reliance upon the general corporate powers of the township (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 139, par. 38) as authority for the supervisor’s power to contract for the township’s lien here. While we recognize that a township supervisor is generally not authorized to exercise the corporate contracting power by himself (see Gregg v. Town of Bourbonnais (1945), 327 Ill. App. 253, 64 N.E.2d 106), we believe that the Illinois Public Aid Code provides such authority in this case. Townships are charged with the responsibility of providing funds for and administering GA programs. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 23, par. 12 — 3.) In contrast to the former statute which subjected the supervisor in Gregg to “such restrictions and regulations as may be prescribed by the *** board of town auditors” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1945, ch. 107, par. 20, quoted in Gregg v. Town of Bourbonnais (1945), 327 Ill. App. 253, 262, 64 N.E.2d 106, 110), administration of GA programs for the townships is now entrusted to township supervisors unhampered by the rules and regulations of the boards of town trustees (formerly, “boards of town auditors”). Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 23, pars. 12 — 21, 12 — 21.2, 12 — 21.8; Johnson v. Town of the City of Evanston (1976), 39 Ill. App. 3d 419, 350 N.E.2d 70.  Even if the supervisor did not have authority to contract for a township lien, his action has been ratified. A township may ratify the unauthorized contracts of its agents or officers which are within its corporate powers; ratification may frequently be inferred from acquiescence after knowledge of all the material facts, or from acts inconsistent with any other supposition. (Town of Bruce v. Dickey (1886), 116 Ill. 527.) Here, the fact that the present suit to enforce the contract and the lien it created was filed by the township is a clear sign of ratification by the governmental unit of its supervisor’s conduct. We therefore adhere to our opinion. UNVERZAGT, J., concurs.