delivered the opinion of the court:
Plaintiffs, the Bigelow Group, Inc. (Bigelow), et al., 1 timely appeal the trial court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of defendant, Kane County Collector David J. Rickert, on plaintiffs’ complaint, which sought an injunction against defendant’s practice of refusing to allow property tax payment by specification and a declaration that defendant’s refusal to accept payment by specification violated the Property Tax Code (Code) (35 ILCS 200/1 et seq. (West 2004)), the due process clauses of the United States and Illinois Constitutions (U.S. Const., amend. XIV; Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, §2), and the equal protection guarantees of the United States and Illinois Constitutions (U.S. Const., amend. XIV; Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, §2). For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
Though the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment include transcripts of depositions from officials involved in the tax assessment and collection process as well as other documentary evidence, the parties do not contest the relevant facts. Accordingly, only a brief recitation of those facts is necessary for an understanding of the issues presented in this appeal. Bigelow, a housebuilder that sold homes to the individual plaintiffs, was in the practice of dividing its developments into several lots (each of which received its own property index number (PIN) from the Aurora Township assessor), dividing those lots into subparcels, building a home on each subparcel, and then selling the subparcels to its customers. The assessor would assign an individual PIN to each subparcel upon recording its conveyance. The customers would later pay the full year’s property tax bill for their respective subparcel, but, at the closing of the sale of each subparcel, Bigelow would give its customers a credit for the portion of the year Bigelow had owned the property.
In Kane County, if a parcel is divided after September 10 of a given year, the new PINs for the divided parcels do not become effective for taxation purposes until the next assessment year. Normally, then, since subparcels sold by Bigelow after September 10 would not be assigned individual PINs (and, instead, the lot containing all of the subparcels would remain under one PIN), Bigelow, as owner of the lot, would have been required to pay the year’s taxes for the entire lot, including taxes for any already-sold subparcels within the lot. In previous years, defendant accommodated Bigelow by allowing tax payment by specification, a procedure by which taxpayers who own separate portions of a larger property (with a single PIN) may specify their individual tax liability for their portions of the parcel and pay their taxes separately. However, in 2004, defendant stopped accepting payment by specification. (In his deposition, which was attached to defendant’s motion for summary judgment, defendant stated that Bigelow was the only taxpayer that requested or used payment by specification prior to his decision to stop accepting it.) Thus, in 2004 and 2005, for any subparcels Bigelow sold after September 10 of the previous year, defendant sent Bigelow a bill for taxes on the undivided lots containing the subparcels. Bigelow then collected taxes from the homeowners in order to satisfy the tax liability on the property, but it did so only after several parcels were placed in a tax sale due to their tax delinquency and after interest and penalties on the delinquency had been incurred.
Plaintiffs filed a complaint seeking to recover their interest and penalty damages and also to require defendant to accept payment by specification, but, after both parties filed motions for summary judgment, the trial court entered summary judgment in favor of defendant. After the trial court denied their motion to reconsider, plaintiffs timely appealed.
All of plaintiffs’ appellate arguments are directed at the propriety of the trial court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of defendant. “Summary judgment is proper where, when viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, the pleadings, depositions, admissions, and affidavits on file reveal that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Northern Illinois Emergency Physicians v. Landau, Omahana & Kopka, Ltd.,
At the outset, we note that defendant devotes a considerable portion of his appellate brief to the argument that, regardless of the merits of plaintiffs’ contentions, we should not consider them, because plaintiffs did not follow the proper procedure under the Code for tax objections. See 35 ILCS 200/23 — 5 (West 2004) (outlining procedure for payment of taxes under protest). Plaintiffs respond that this procedure does not apply, because they are not objecting to either the imposition or the amount of taxes but rather to defendant’s method of collecting taxes. However, we do not reach this issue, because, as discussed below, even assuming this action to be a proper vehicle for plaintiffs’ complaint, we reject plaintiffs’ arguments on their merits.
Plaintiffs’ first argument is that defendant’s refusal to allow payment by specification violates his duties under the Code. Plaintiffs contend that defendant’s “utter refusal to act even on reasonable requests” is an “abdication of his duties” under the Code, because it constitutes his failure to make a policy to review requests for payment by specification. Before determining whether defendant’s actions violate the Code as plaintiffs contend, we note our disagreement with their characterization of the facts. Defendant does, in fact, have a policy regarding payment by specification: he does not allow it in any instance. Therefore, defendant is not “refusing] to act” on plaintiffs’ requests for payment by specification; rather, he is denying their requests. Likewise, defendant’s policy is not, as plaintiffs contend, a “refusal to exercise his discretion.” Defendant’s policy is an exercise of his discretion; the policy simply leads to a result plaintiffs do not favor. The question presented here is whether this policy violates the Code. That question turns on our interpretation of the relevant provision of the Code.
Section 20 — 210 of the Code, which governs payment by specification, provides as follows:
“Taxes payable in installments; payment under specification. Except as otherwise provided in Section 21 — 30, current taxes shall be payable in 2 equal installments. *** The collector may receive taxes on part of any property charged with taxes when a particular specification of the part is furnished. If the tax on the remainder of the property remains unpaid, the collector shall enter that specification in his or her return, so that the part on which the tax remains unpaid may be clearly known. The tax may be paid on an undivided share of property. In that case, the collector shall designate on his or her record upon whose undivided share the tax has been paid.” (Emphasis added.) 35 ILCS 200/20 — 210 (West 2004).
The cardinal rule of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and give effect to the legislative intent, and the best indication of the legislative intent is the language used in the statute. In re Application of the County Treasurer,
Further, even if the above statutory language were ambiguous, and we were forced to consult extrinsic aids to construction such as legislative history and debate, we would reach the same result. See Advincula v. United Blood Services,
Regarding the legislative history, “[w]here the legislature has made a material change in a statute, *** the presumption is that ‘the amendment was intended to change the law.’ ” Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University v. Department of Human Rights,
The legislative debate surrounding Public Act 93 — 366 supports our view. Senator Jacobs, the sponsor of the bill that led to the above amendment, described the bill as follows just before the Senate voted to pass it into law:
“[This bill] is an initiative of the Illinois County Treasurers’ Association. The bill resolves problems encountered by county treasurers when, for an example, a property owner grants an interest in a property and then presents that specification to the treasurer and requests the property tax bill be broken up amongst all those with interest in the property. Currently a county treasurer must allocate the tax bill amongst the interest-holders. This places an administrative burden on some of those municipalities in preparing multiple tax bills for the same property, and this will leave it to a decision of the county treasurer’s discretion.” 93d Ill. Gen. Assem., Senate Proceedings, May 6, 2003, at 178 (statements of Senator Jacobs).
Based on the above, we conclude that section 20 — 210 of the Code grants collectors discretion as to whether to allow payment by specification. Thus, a policy of refusing such payment is not by itself a violation of a collector’s duties under the statute.
Plaintiffs’ second argument on appeal is that defendant’s policy of refusing to accept payment by specification constitutes an abuse of his official discretion, justifying judicial intervention. Based on their premise that courts may overturn an official decision where it constitutes an abuse of discretion, plaintiffs then contest the validity of several of defendant’s justifications for his policy of refusing payment by specification, and they urge us to reverse defendant’s decision based on the purported flaws in defendant’s rationale. We decline to do so. For the reasons we discuss below, addressing plaintiffs’ arguments on the validity of defendant’s reasoning would take us down a path we cannot, and should not, travel.
Illinois law, as it is commonly expressed, gives superficial credence to plaintiffs’ proposed approach. A typical case, Arnold v. Engelbrecht,
“Normally, discretionary acts of a public official in exercising his duties are not subject to review by the judiciary in an injunction action. An exception to this rule arises in a case when the public official’s acts are arbitrary and capricious and he thus abuses his discretion. [Citation.] Additionally, injunctive relief will lie to control discretionary actions of public officials if fraud, corruption or gross injustice is shown.” Arnold,164 Ill. App. 3d at 707 .
See also, e.g., Local 1894 v. Holsapple,
Initially, we must differentiate between two types of judicial review: judicial review of a quasi-judicial administrative act, and judicial review of a discretionary official act. Though cases reviewing acts of official discretion often intermingle the standards for both (see, e.g., Dorfman v. Gerber,
We trace the “arbitrary and capricious” language in the above cases to our supreme court’s decision in People ex rel. Woll v. Graber,
“The general doctrine is well established that an officer to whom public duties are confided by law is not subject to the control of the courts in the exercise of the judgment and discretion which the law gives to him as a part of his official functions; the reason for this being that the law reposes this discretion in him for that occasion and not in the courts. [Citations.] Where a statute gives a discretionary power to an officer, upon his own opinion of certain facts, it is a sound rule of construction that he is the sole and exclusive judge of the existence of those facts. [Citations.] The courts are careful of encroaching upon the discretionary power of a public officer, and if reasonable doubt exists as to the question of discretion or want of it, the courts will hesitate to interfere, preferring rather to extend the benefit of the doubt in favor of the officer. [Citation.] The courts do not sit in judgment upon questions of administrative discretion. A court cannot substitute its discretion for that of executive officers in matters belonging to the proper jurisdiction of the officers. [Citation.] It cannot, under the guise of exerting judicial power, assume to exercise the discretion which the people, acting through their representatives in Congress, have lodged in administrative officers and agents. The powers of government, both National and State, are divided into three departments — legislative, executive and judicial. Neither of these departments is subordinate to or can assume overlordship of either of the others. The domain of the judiciary is in the field of the administration of justice under the law. It interprets, construes and applies the law, but it does not interfere with the conduct of government by entering into a field of conflict for the control of executive discretion by judicial action. It does not intermeddle with the execution of discretionary powers vested in the executive or administrative officers, in the absence of abuse or arbitrary or capricious exercise of such power on the part of the officers.” Graber,394 Ill. at 370-71 .
Though much of the above excerpt leads us to believe that courts may not, in almost all circumstances, interfere with official discretion, the last quoted sentence, which would allow judicial interference in cases of arbitrary or capricious use of official power, seems at first blush to contravene most of the principles that precede it. Given this apparent contradiction, we must focus on the principles underlying judicial review of official discretionary action to determine precisely what the supreme court meant when it indicated, in the above context, that such action may be questioned by the judiciary where it is arbitrary or capricious.
The power of the judiciary to review the discretionary decision at issue here turns on principles of separation of the powers of the three branches of government. Under the Illinois Constitution, “[t]he legislative, executive and judicial branches are separate” and “[n]o branch shall exercise powers properly belonging to another.” Ill. Const. 1970, art. II, §1. The constitution provides the legislature “the exclusive power to raise revenue by law” (Ill. Const. 1970, art. IX, §1), and the legislature, in turn, imposed on the county collector the power and duty to collect property taxes as part of the property tax execution scheme (see 35 ILCS 200/20 — 5 (West 2006) (“[e]very *** collector *** shall prepare tax bills”); see also Town of the City of Peoria v. O’Connor,
Where the legislature leaves a matter to executive discretion, which, as discussed above, the legislature did here when it adopted the amended version of section 20 — 210 of the Code, the judiciary may not interfere with such discretion under normal circumstances without offending the principle of separation of powers. See People v. Sales,
Though an act of official discretion is subject to some judicial review, a court exercising such review must heed the line separating the powers of the judiciary from the powers of the remaining branches of government. The role of the judiciary is limited to construing the constitution and determining whether its provisions have been disregarded by any of the branches of government (Rock v. Thompson,
The “arbitrary or capricious” standard must be applied in light of the limited purview prescribed the judiciary by the separation of powers doctrine — the judiciary must limit itself to infringing on official discretion only where that discretion can be shown to have violated the law. See In re Application of Texas Co.,
When reviewing an act of official discretion for abuse, without direction from the legislature to examine the decision more closely, a court may overturn the decision only where it does not comport with the law because it contravenes a statute or constitution (or does not comport with the relevant enabling statute). Absent some evidence of illegality, a court will be satisfied that an executive decision was not arbitrary or capricious, and it will not inquire further into the propriety of the reasoning behind the decision (so long as the reasoning and decision are not, themselves, illegal). In this sense, our supreme court’s statement that abuse of discretion “is the most deferential standard of review — next to no review at all” (In re D.T.,
Our view is consistent with the supreme court’s decision in Greer v. Illinois Housing Development Authority,
The supreme court, which was called upon to review an administrative decision (rather than an act of pure official discretion, as is at issue here), noted the distinction between reviewability, or the area of judicial review, and standard of review, or the level of judicial involvement in that area. Greer,
The express language and legislative history behind section 20— 210 of the Code are both discussed above, and they indicate the legislature’s intent to leave to the discretion of a collector the decision as to whether to accept payment by specification. The Code provides no standards, goals, or criteria by which to evaluate a collector’s decision in this regard. Further, this is not the type of agency determination reviewed in Greer, rather, the issue in this case is review of an official’s discretionary decision as to how to perform his duties. We conclude, then, that, under Greer, defendant’s application of discretion here is not reviewable for the purpose of determining whether his purported reasoning is sound or wise. Of course, as noted above, even where the legislature does not provide for any judicial review, courts must intercede in cases of illegality.
Though the above conception of judicial review of official discretion is rarely if ever explicitly articulated in Illinois case law, it is often implicitly observed. For example, in Arnold, the court stated that an official decision may be reversed where “the public official’s acts are arbitrary and capricious and he thus abuses his discretion.” Arnold,
Two cases upon which plaintiffs rely, both in their written briefs and at oral argument, also implicitly observe the above principles. In Howell v. Snyder,
Though plaintiffs here seize on and analogize the language from Howell that a policy may give rise to a claim where “it amounts to a refusal to exercise discretion,” a full reading of Howell demonstrates that it allowed judicial interference with the Director’s policy because the policy violated the relevant enabling statute. This is consistent with the approach we detail above. Further, the court in Howell expressly disavowed plaintiffs’ argument when it reasoned that “the application of a policy ‘across the board’ does not transform it into a nondiscretionary policy.” Howell,
The second case upon which plaintiffs rely, Guzzo v. Snyder,
We limit our review of defendant’s discretion in accordance with the above-discussed principles. Defendant has offered several reasoned bases for his decision, including administrative efficiency. Plaintiffs do not assert that those bases made his decision illegal or that they were pretext for actual bases that made his decision illegal. Plaintiffs question the wisdom of his decision and argue that his bases were incorrect. But regardless whether defendant’s decision was wise or his bases correct, defendant has within his discretion the power to accept or decline payment by specification as long as he does not violate the law. Plaintiffs have not conjured any allegation of illegality attending defendant’s exercise of discretion here, and without such an allegation (and proof thereof), plaintiffs’ challenge to that exercise of discretion must fail. 4
Based on the above discussion, we reject plaintiffs’ argument that defendant’s decision not to accept payment by specification must be reversed on the basis that it constituted an abuse of his official discretion.
For the same reason, we reject plaintiffs’ argument that summary judgment was inappropriate because there was at least a question of fact as to the viability of defendant’s rationale for denying payment by specification. The above principles dictate that defendant’s decision need only be legal. Thus, any purported question of fact as to the viability of defendant’s reasoning is irrelevant. In short, in order to precipitate judicial review of defendant’s discretionary act, plaintiffs would have to assert more than that they disagree with defendant’s decision; they must assert that it is unlawful and thus exceeds his discretion. They have not done so here.
Plaintiffs’ third argument on appeal is that defendant fundamentally misunderstands payment by specification because he equates it with a partial payment. Even assuming such a misunderstanding could amount to grounds to interfere with defendant’s policy, we would reject plaintiffs’ argument. Plaintiffs insist that payment by specification is “not simply a partial payment,” as defendant suggests. However, we agree with defendant’s description of payment by specification. As plaintiffs note, section 20 — 210, quoted above, describes payment by specification as “taxes on part of any property charged with taxes when a particular specification of the part is furnished.” (Emphasis added.) 35 ILCS 200/20 — 210 (West 2004). By definition, payment by specification entails payment on a portion of a particular property, and, therefore, it entails a partial payment of the tax on the property. Plaintiffs urge that payment by specification requires payment of “the full amount of taxes attributable to [a] Sub-parcel.” However, the subparcels are not divided for tax purposes, and, therefore, a full payment on a subparcel is a payment of the tax for only part of a property, or, put another way, is only a partial payment.
Finally, plaintiffs assert that defendant’s policy of refusing payment by specification violates guarantees of due process and equal protection provided by the United States and Illinois Constitutions. The essence of plaintiffs’ due process argument is that defendant’s refusal to accept payment by specification bears no rational relationship to the state interest in collecting property taxes. See Crocker v. Finley,
As for plaintiffs’ equal protection argument, “[t]he threshold inquiry in equal protection analysis is whether similarly situated persons are treated dissimilarly.” Brazas v. Property Tax Appeal Board,
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Affirmed.
CALLUM and ZENOFF, JJ., concur.
Notes
Bigelow-Aurora, LLC, John Prusko, Darren J. and April K. Finnegan, Michael Pfile and Heather Spring, Michael and Kirsten Hammond, Verdie Samko, Peter N. Rosch, Angela Kokkinos, Kristi and Ryan Stone, Dekalvin and Charlene Epps, Michael Sanders and Jana Blumberg, Keith P. and Nicole Campbell, Bryan and J. Sirota, Nick and Lauren Marasco, and Sherman and Marsha Carter.
Defendant testified in his deposition that the decision to stop allowing payment by specification was a reaction to this statutory amendment.
Here, our review is even more limited (if that is possible) than that which the supreme court described in D.T., because we do not have oversight of applications of official discretion in the same way we have oversight of lower courts’ applications of judicial discretion. The discussion of Greer below illustrates this difference.
Because plaintiffs do not challenge defendant’s decision as illegal, we do not consider what happens when an executive offers no explanation in the face of a legal challenge to his or her exercise of discretion.
Nicholas interpreted the United States Constitution, not the Illinois Constitution. However, plaintiffs draw no distinction between the substantive due process rights they create, and we therefore consider them in tandem. See People v. Kizer,