Court Opinion

ID: 9745230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:42:24.510057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:57.802149
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARING JUSTICE SEIDENFELD delivered the opinion of the court:  The village of Hanover Park in seeking a rehearing contends that the rights of the village and its citizens to litigate the issuance of landfill permits are a species of property protected by the Federal fourteenth amendment due process clause, citing Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co. (1982), 455 U.S. 422, 429, 71 L. Ed. 2d 265, 273, 102 S. Ct. 1148, 1154. They argue that the right to have an opportunity to present their case and have its merits fairly judged (Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co. (1982), 455 U.S. 422, 433, 71 L. Ed. 2d 265, 276, 102 S. Ct. 1148, 1156) may not be circumscribed by the State, and that this due process right prevails over the legislatively created necessity as stated in our opinion. Logan held that an employee’s right to a hearing under the Federal Employment Practices Act is a species of “property” which cannot be denied without due process. The analogy between a third party’s right to participate in litigating a landfill application and the cause of action which was completely cut off in Logan is not sound. First, in Logan the employee, if not given the chance to litigate, could be deprived without a hearing of a personal property right in continued employment, in that case the right not to be fired for a nonrelevant handicap. Here, the village and its citizens have no underlying property right, as we have noted in our opinion, to be protected. Second, the villagers have not been deprived of the right to litigate the matter; at most they have been forced to do so before a board which has an apparent conflict. The effect of the village’s argument is to turn all statutory rights to a hearing, or to participation in a public hearing, into constitutionally protected property interests and then to make these hearings void if conducted by biased adjudicators. This borders on a suggestion that the rule of necessity be abolished altogether, which Logan cannot be said to stand for. Moreover, the village’s argument is self-contradictory. It claims that it has a property right to use the statutory hearing procedure to contest the permit application. It must necessarily follow from the village’s argument that it is claiming that petitioners have no similar right to invoke the statutory procedure to obtain their permit. The village is asking that petitioners be denied any chance of a hearing because of bias in the tribunal designated by the legislature. Thus, in asserting a property right to an unbiased statutory hearing, the village insists that petitioners get no right to a hearing at all under the same statute. The village also asserts that it has the right to invoke the due process clause to argue that the statute is unconstitutional as applied. However, the law in Blinois is contrary. See Supervisors of the County of Boone v. Village of Rainbow Gardens (1958), 14 Ill. 2d 504, 508; Meador v. City of Salem (1972), 51 Ill. 2d 572, 578. We therefore adhere to our opinion. LINDBERG and REINHARD, JJ., concur.