Court Opinion

ID: 9782539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:55:58.596756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:05.307477
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CAHILL dissenting: I sympathize with the difficulty the majority faced in this case: as a matter of first impression, what to do with an attempt by a city officer to bring a declaratory judgment action against a fellow city officer who just happens to be the attorney for the City. The majority concludes that the enabling ordinance for the Inspector General of the City, while not explicitly granting him power to seek the aid of the courts to enforce his subpoenas, must of necessity, grant him that power by implication. I cannot agree and must dissent. As I read the Inspector General’s enabling ordinance, his subpoena power is administrative, and the scope is circumscribed by the plain language of the ordinance: a dispute over enforcement ultimately lands on the desk of the mayor, who must decide how to resolve it. To grant to the Inspector General the power to bypass the city’s attorney and the mayor himself and seek a declaratory judgment on the nature and extent of his power is to grant to a city officer appointed by the mayor powers the city council did not (and probably could not) delegate. The Municipal Code provides that where the legislation does not explicitly provide for enforcement, the mayor is the enforcement officer. Chicago Municipal Code §2 — 4—030 (1990). The case cited by the majority in support of its conclusion, Burnette v. Stroger, 389 Ill. App. 3d 321, 905 N.E.2d 939 (2009), in which the Cook County public defender was allowed to sue the board of commissioners, is not persuasive. Burnette relied on supreme court opinions that recognized the unique role of public defenders as independent agencies within the criminal justice system. No such pronouncement has been made in the case of Inspectors General, who remain, at the city, county and state level, offices within units of government. Although their powers are broad within the unit of which they are a part, including the power to share investigation materials with law enforcement agencies, Inspectors General do not have a legal existence independent of the unit of government of which they are a part. I would affirm the dismissal of this action on the grounds that the Inspector General of the City of Chicago is not a legal entity capable of bringing suit.