Court Opinion

ID: 9534497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:40:21.272563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:55.364876
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE WARD, dissenting: I dissent. Although the language of the majority’s opinion is couched in terms of the police power, I find it more appropriate in considering this question of compulsion to identify the problem as one of due process, as it was in City of Chicago v. O’Brien (1884), 111 Ill. 532, 537. The majority’s opinion, by speaking only in terms of police power, tends to mute the issue of due process, which is stated very strongly and explicitly in O’Brien. With regard to a snow-removal ordinance of the city of Chicago, the court in O’Brien made this observation: “The lot owner is held responsible solely and simply for the accident of. owning property near the nuisance. He may have no more actual control of the street, or necessity to use it, than if his property were miles away; still, he is held responsible for a result he could not control, and to the production of which he did not even theoretically contribute. The gist of the whole argument is merely that it is convenient to hold him responsible. It is not perceived why it would not be equally convenient to hold him responsible for the entire police government of so much of the street.” 111 Ill. 532, 537. The majority refers to Petterson v. City of Naperville (1956), 9 Ill. 2d 233, and Krughoff v. City of Naperville (1977), 68 Ill. 2d 352, as supporting its position. In those cases a developer was required to construct facilities or to contribute land or money to alleviate conditions created by his proposed development. The abutting owner is not in that position. In some cases, though by no means all, the owner may use the sidewalk in front of his property more frequently than do members of the general public, but he has, of course, no right to its exclusive use, and unlike the subdivider he has not created the situation which he is called upon to correct. In Lansing v. County of McLean (1978), 69 Ill. 2d 562, this court recently reaffirmed the doctrine of Strappelli v. City of Chicago (1939), 371 Ill. 72, that a municipality is not liable in tort for injuries arising out of the failure of the municipality to remove a natural accumulation of snow from the street or sidewalk. We noted in McLean that a landowner enjoys the same freedom from liability with respect to his own property. (69 Ill. 2d 562, 569-72.) The majority decision here results in an anomalous situation in that it approves the imposition of a duty upon the abutting owner with respect to the municipality’s property, that is, the sidewalk, to which the municipality itself is not subject. Further, and oddly, it imposes upon the owner a twofold liability: if, on the one hand, he fails to remove the snow, then in addition to suffering a fine, he may be exposed to a suit for civil damages, since violation of an ordinance may be regarded as creating a cause of action in tort. If, on the other hand, the owner does attempt to comply with the ordinance, he is exposed to the possibility of an action charging him with having negligently created a condition, such as ice on a cleared walk or a pile of snow, which injured the plaintiff. Cf. Riccitelli v. Sternfeld (1953), 1 Ill. 2d 133. To be valid, a regulation made under the police power must be “reasonable and adapted to the scope and object sought to be accomplished.” (Sherman-Reynolds, Inc. v. Mahin (1970), 47 Ill. 2d 323, 328.) If, as the majority now holds, an ordinance requiring an owner to remove snow from the sidewalk is not invalid per se, it will still be necessary, of course, that the provisions of such an ordinance be reasonable. The majority’s opinion does no more than to state simply and generally the conclusion that the ordinance here is not an unconstitutional exercise of the police power. I consider the provision requiring the owner or other person to clear a 30-inch path within 24 hours “after the cessation of any fall of snow, sleet or freezing rain” to be, in the weather area involved here, uncertain, vague, and not reasonably susceptible to determination by the persons affected. An ordinance or statute of this character must of course be clear and definite in the obligation that it imposes, and reasonably capable of being observed. The ordinance here cannot be said to satisfy that requirement, especially when the consequence of a violation may be the creation of a civil cause of action against the landowner. MR. JUSTICE CLARK joins in this dissent.