Court Opinion

ID: 9527301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:29:23.278156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:41.875093
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE SCHAEFER, with whom MR. CHIEF JUSTICE UNDERWOOD and MR. JUSTICE WARD join, dissenting: Mr. Chief Justice Underwood, Mr. Justice Ward and I are unable to agree with the opinion of the majority. As the case was presented in the trial court and in this court, the primary attack upon the validity of the statute was based upon a supposed violation of the defendant’s constitutional right of freedom of speech. The majority does not discuss that contention, which appears to have been laid to rest by the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in Rowan v. United States Post Office Department (1970), 397 U.S. 728, 25 L. Ed. 2d 736, 90 S. Ct. 1484. Instead, the court invalidates the statute upon one State constitutional ground, and gratuitously reflects doubt on its validity on another. The ground on which the statute is stricken down is based upon an obvious misreading of the statute. The opinion says: “*** by defining the ‘area’ as the entire city of Chicago a real estate broker who has never solicited the owners of residential property in that neighborhood but who has so solicited in other parts of the city would be barred from soliciting for the sale or listing of real estate in the neighborhood from which executed forms were received.” The statutory prohibition is not against soliciting in the area or the neighborhood from which the notices have been received; it is against soliciting those persons who have given notice to the solicitor, or have caused notice to be given to him through the Human Relations Commission, that they do not want to be solicited. The majority’s preoccupation with whatever ambiguity inheres in the words “area,” “known” and “believed” seems most unusual. The Commission was authorized to establish areas in order to simplify its task of record-keeping and notice-giving, and not, as the majority implies, a means of deciding “what the law shall be and to whom it shall apply.” Without the power to designate areas in order to facilitate its task, the Commission would indeed have to resort, in the language of the court’s opinion, to “the simple practice of sending copies of the lists to all those who are licensed by the State of Illinois to engage in those occupations [as brokers or salesmen]. ” The Rowan case makes it clear that the “simple practice” to which the majority refers would violate no one’s constitutional rights, but we find nothing in the Constitution that compels the Commission to waste public money in sending notices to brokers or salesmen whom it knows or believes are no t soliciting in the area from which a notice or notices have come. While the legislature has used the term “area” in this statute as a means of assisting the Commission in discharging its clearinghouse duties under the statute, it has also used the term “area” in other contexts which involve much more significant delgations of authority. For example, the Forest Fire Protection District Act confers the following authority upon the Director of the Department of Conservation: “Whenever, as ascertained from investigation, hearing or otherwise, the Director determines that certain geographic areas of contiguous territory in the State are in need of special protection from forest fires, the Director may designate and establish one or more intensive forest fire protection districts, consisting of one or more counties or portions thereof, in such area. The boundaries of éach district so established shall be defined in the order of the Director ***.” That act authorizes the Director to require a burning permit in such areas and provides criminal penalties for burning without a required permit within the area designated as a district by the Director. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1971, ch. 57V2, pars. 72, 73, 78. If we were to apply the reasoning of the majority to this simple legislative delegation, we would have to say, paraphrasing the language of the majority: “We must assume that the statute vests in the Director [Commission] the absolute and arbitrary power to divide the State of Illinois or portions thereof into ‘areas. ’ The statute establishes no guidelines or standards for the Director [Commission] to follow in designating an ‘area,’ leaving it entirely to the whim of the Director [Commission] what part of the State shall be encompassed within an ‘area,’ and to a great extent who shall be prohibited” from burning. This court has not heretofore adopted such a hostile attitude toward legislative enactments. Instead it has held that legislatively conferred discretion “is not to be construed as being uncontrolled,” but is to be exercised only within limits that are relevant to the legislative purpose. Brown v. City of Chicago (1969), 42 Ill.2d 501, 506. In our opinion the majority’s hostile attitude toward the legislature’s use of the words “known” and “believed” is unwarranted. Of course those words have a subjective content, but that has not been thought to bar their use in legislation. It is sufficient to say, we think, that if the concepts of “knowledge” and “belief” are to be discarded because of their subjective quality, wholesale revisions of legal doctrines, both civil and criminal, will be required. We are also unable to agree with the majority’s dictum that the statute as amended in 1969 is invalid under section 13 of article IV of the Constitution of 1870. The statute is entitled: “An Act to prohibit the solicitation or inducement of sale or purchase of real estate on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin or ancestry.” It was enacted in 1967. Paragraph (a) of section 1 makes it unlawful to knowingly “solicit for sale, lease, listing or purchase any residential real estate within the State of Illinois, on the grounds of loss of value due to the present or prospective entry into the vicinity of the property involved of any person or persons of any particular race, color, religion or national origin or ancestry.” Paragraph (b) malees it unlawful to knowingly “distribute or cause to be distributed written material or statements designed to induce any owner of residential real estate in the State of Illinois to sell or lease his property because of any present or prospective changes in the race, color, religion or national origin or ancestry, of residents in the vicinity of the property involved.” Paragraph (c) makes it unlawful to intentionally “create alarm, among residents of any community by transmitting in any manner, including a telephone call whether or not conversation thereby ensues, with a design to induce any owner of residential real estate in the State of Illinois to sell or lease his property because of any present or prospective entry into the vicinity of the property involved of any person or persons of any particular race, color, religion or national origin or ancestry.” Ill. Rev. Stat. 1969, ch. 38, par. 70—51. In 1969 the General Assembly added paragraph (d), which is set forth in the majority opinion. At the same time it added section 4.1 also set forth in the majority opinion, to the Human Relations Commission Act. Although the entire act which the defendant is charged with violating is aimed at solicitation based upon considerations of race, color, religion or national origin or ancestry, the majority engages in a lengthy discussion of the validity of the Act on the hypothetical assumption that the added paragraph was intended to introduce into the Act an entirely different purpose: the protection of “a person’s right of privacy; that is, his right not to be solicited to sell or list for sale his real estate if he does not desire to be so solicited.” The majority treats this assumed purpose as though it existed entirely apart from the considerations of race, color, religion or national origin or ancestry that permeate the statute. We do not agree that it is appropriate to discuss the validity of the provision as if it were designed to protect privacy for its own sake. No such issue was briefed or argued. In any event, to assume a construction which would render a statute invalid as beyond the scope of its title runs counter to our earlier decisions, which have held that: “It is a principle of construction often announced, that the intention of the law-makers is to be found and given effect, and where the language of the act is obscure or its meaning doubtful, resort may be had to the title thereof to enable the court to discover the intent and make certain what is otherwise uncertain or ambiguous. (Cohn v. People, 149 Ill. 486; United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. [16 U.S. at] 631. The legislative intent must be gathered from the entire act rather than from one clause, sentence or section thereof, and courts may not confine their attention to the one part or section to be construed. (People v. Giles, 268 Ill. 406; Warner v. King, 267 id. 82.) * * * *** Where a statute is susceptible of two constructions, one of which would render it unconstitutional and the other protect its validity, the latter construction is to be adopted if such can reasonably be done. (People v. James, 328 Ill. 262; People v. Shader, 326 id. 145.)” Illinois Bell Telephone Co. v. Ames (1936), 364 Ill. 362, 365-66, 369. The primary fault that we see in the majority’s reasoning lies in its fixation upon certain of the statutory terms — “area,” “known,” “believed” — in isolation, without reference to the statutory context as a whole or to the evil at which the statute is directed. Such a narrow and intense focus upon almost any word or phrase will eventually reveal layer upon layer of ambiguity. Only if courts examine statutes from a broader perspective can the General Assembly legislate effectively. As we have indicated, we think the First Amendment arguments advanced by the appellant were answered by Rowan v. United States Post Office Department (1970), 397 U.S. 728, 25 L. Ed. 2d 736, 90 S. Ct. 1484. Finally, the court’s analysis of the question whether the title of the statute accurately reflects its content seems to us unnecessary, and its conclusion, that it does not, wrong.