23 N.E.2d 32 | Ill. | 1939
The plaintiff, the E.L. Mansure Company, brought an action in the superior court of Cook county against the defendant, the city of Chicago, to recover interest on a condemnation judgment rendered in a proceeding under the Local Improvement act. By its action, instituted August 25, 1933, plaintiff sought the payment of interest on the full amount awarded it from February 28, 1927, the date of rendition of the judgment, to April 7, 1928, the time of payment. March 10, 1939, defendant interposed a plea averring that plaintiff's claim was barred by the five-years' Statute of Limitations. By replication to this plea plaintiff alleged that application of the decision in Blakeslee's Storage Warehouses v.City of Chicago,
Disposition of defendant's motion to transfer the cause to the Appellate Court for the First District requires consideration. The facts here are parallel to the factual situation inBlakeslee's Storage Warehouses v. City of Chicago, supra. In consonance with repeated decisions of this court *158
we there stated that authority for the recovery of interest in Illinois is of purely statutory origin; that section 3 of the Interest act contemplates two classes of interest, namely, interest which accrues prior to judgment and, secondly, interest which accrues after judgment is entered; that interest is not a part of a judgment under section 3 unless it accrues before the entry of the judgment, and that an action to recover interest on a judgment is included under section 15 of the Statute of Limitations among "all civil actions not otherwise provided for" which must be commenced within five years. Plaintiff's contention that the decision in the Blakeslee case, when applied to its claim for interest, contravenes constitutional guaranties of due process is predicated upon the premise that our decision impliedly reversed Prince v. Lamb, Breese 378, and Epling v.Dickson,
The same purported constitutional issue was presented for decision in No. 25085, Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett Co. v. Cityof Chicago, where the circuit court of Cook county held the five-years' Statute of Limitations a bar to the plaintiff's action for interest on a judgment recovered in a condemnation proceeding and owing at the time of payment of the judgment. Following the oral argument on February 22, 1939, we transferred the cause on our own motion to the Appellate Court for the First District for want of jurisdiction, it appearing that no debatable constitutional question was involved. The contention, among others, that enforcement of the judgment would deprive the plaintiff of its property without due process of law presented the question merely of the validity of the judgment. (EconomyDairy Co. v. Kerner,
Defendant's motion to transfer the cause is allowed, and it will be transferred to the Appellate Court for the First District.
Cause transferred. *160