East St. Louis Board of Trade v. People ex rel. McCormick (105 Ill. 382, 1883)

Mr. Justice Craig

delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was a proceeding by quo warranto, instituted in the St. Clair circuit court, at the September term, 1882. The first count of the information charges, in substance, that appellant, a corporation, etc., on the 20th day of June, 1882, at East St. Louis, in St. Clair county, did unlawfully usurp, and hitherto has continued to and does now unlawfully usurp, the following liberties, privileges and franchises not conferred upon it by law, viz: the power and exclusive right to appoint and maintain legal inspectors to inspect and establish grades of all grain to be received into warehouses and elevators classed “B” under the law, in the city of East St. Louis, and to charge and collect from the owners, not being members of said corporation, nor requiring or assenting to the employment of such inspectors, fees for such inspection. To this information appellant pleaded in justification, in substance, that it is a ’corporation organized and existing under an act of the General Assembly, .entitled “An act to incorporate the East St. Louis Board of Trade, ” approved February 21, 1867, which act conferred upon it all the powers and privileges, and subjected it to all the restrictions, of the Chicago Board of Trade, as then created by ah act entitled “An act to incorporate the Chicago Board of Trade, ” approved February 18, 1859, which appellant claims confers upon it the powers and privileges mentioned in the first count of the information. To this plea the People interposed a demurrer, which was sustained by the court, and appellant declining to plead further, a judgment of ouster was entered. From this judgment appellant prosecutes this appeal.

The tenth section of the act to incorporate the Chicago Board of Trade, which is the section relied upon, declares: “Said corporation shall have the power to appoint■ one or more persons, as they may see fit, to examine, weigh, measure, guage or inspect flour, grain, provisions, liquors, lumber, or any other article of produce or traffic commonly dealt in by the members of said corporation; and the certificate of such person or inspector as to the quality or quantity of any such article, or their brand or mark upon it, or upon any package containing such article, shall be evidence between buyer and seller of the quantity, grade or quality of the same, and shall be binding upon the members of said corporation, or others interested, and requiring or assenting to the employment of such weighers, measurers, gaugers or inspectors. Nothing herein contained, however, shall compel the employment by any one of any such appointee. ”

Section 19 of the public act to regulate public warehouses, etc., in force July 1, 1871, (Rev. Stat. 1874, p. 826,) provides: “In all places where there are legally appointed inspectors of grain, no proprietor or manager of a public warehouse of class