Citations
- 231 Ill. App. 38
Full opinion text
Mr. Justice Fitch delivered
the opinion of the court.
This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court dissolving an injunction and dismissing appellant’s bill for want of equity.
The defendant association is a corporation organized under the laws of the District of Columbia providing for the incorporation of societies for benevolent, educational or scientific purposes, or societies for mutual improvement. It has no capital stock, is not incorporated for profit, and is supported wholly by membership fees and annual dues paid by its members. Its purposes, as stated in its articles of incorporation, include the following: To bring together such certified public accountants as are engaged in the practice of professional accounting, and those who by their education, training and experience are qualified to become professional accountants; and, when its members shall have presented satisfactory evidence of knowledge in the theory and practice of accounting, and shall have satisfactorily passed the prescribed qualifying examination of the association, “to admit said members to the degree of certified public accountant, and to issue to such members the association’s formal certificate to that degree appertaining.” The defendant Carpenter is the vice president and treasurer of said association. The bill attacks the right of the defendant association to hold examinations in Illinois and to issue its certificates or degrees to residents of Illinois. It alleges that under the laws of Illinois, namely, the act of 1903, as amended in 1907, entitled: “An Act to regulate the profession of public accountants” [Cahill’s Ill. St. ch. 110a], the University of Ulinois, acting through the board of examiners provided for by that act, “is the sole authority lawfully permitted to issue degrees or certificates that the holders thereof are certified public accountants”; that the University of Illinois has issued 290 certificates entitling the holders thereof to practice the profession of public accountants in this State, and that “only the holders of such certificates lawfully outstanding are permitted to practice such profession within the State of Illinois”; that complainant is a resident of Ulinois, and (though this is not alleged in express terms, it may be assumed or inferred from the language of the bill) he is the holder of one of such certificates; that he is a member of the board of examiners appointed by the University of Ulinois; that he has built up a large practice as a certified public accountant and that a large part