Court Opinion

ID: 9738179
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:44:04.758758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:04.193402
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting: Defendant Daniel Cassidy has since 1986 been engaged in the occupation of installing lawn sprinkling systems. The Illinois Department of Public Health now seeks to enjoin him from pursuing his occupation because the Illinois Plumbing License Law (225 ILCS 320/0.01 (West 1992)) requires that only licensed plumbers install such systems. Because I agree with the trial court’s conclusion that this requirement is unconstitutional, I respectfully dissent from this court’s opinion reversing the trial judge. In Scully v. Hallihan, 365 Ill. 185 (1936), this court held unconstitutional a statute which provided that only licensed plumbers could lay and connect tile, concrete, and other norimetallic piping for drainage systems and sewers, an activity known as “drain-laying.” The court noted that little of the traditional skills or training of a plumber was required to perform drain-laying safely and effectively. Scully, 365 Ill. at 192. We therefore held the statutory requirement to be an unreasonable exercise of the state’s police power and a violation of a citizen’s “inalienable right to follow any legitimate trade, occupation or business which he sees fit.” Scully, 365 Ill. at 191. This same rationale applies to the instant case. As defendant notes, installing a lawn sprinkling system requires few of the skills for which plumbers are trained and licensed. The job is not much more difficult than running a hose across a lawn after connecting it to a faucet. There is thus no reasonable justification for requiring sprinkler installers such as defendant to undergo the extensive training and certification process required of plumbers. The State argues that contamination of potable water may occur through “backflow” at the site of a sprinkling system’s connection to the main water source. Defendant does not contest, however, the State’s authority to regulate this legitimate health concern through its existing requirement that a plumber install an approved backflow prevention device at the sprinkling system’s origination point. See 77 Ill. Adm. Code § 890.1140 (1996). Defendant argues only that there is no rational reason to require that plumbers perform the separate task of laying the sprinkling system itself. The State also argues that employing licensed plumbers to perform the entire operation may help prevent leaks in the sprinkling system, and will make it easier for customers to seek recourse against plumbers who have installed a sprinkling system unsatisfactorily, since the state maintains current addresses of all licensees. These groping speculations are insufficient, however, to justify depriving an individual of his livelihood when no clear threat to the public welfare is evident. “No citizen should be legislated out of his trade and have it awarded to another craft under the garb of a health measure where [the statute] is not definitely related to such measure.” Scully, 365 Ill. at 192. For these reasons, I would affirm the circuit court’s judgment. JUSTICE NICKELS joins in this dissent.