Cahn v. City of Highland Park ( 2021 )

2021 IL App (2d) 191092-UNo. 2-19-1092
Order filed March 29, 2021
NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23(b) and is not precedent
except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
______________________________________________________________________________
IN THE
APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS
SECOND DISTRICT
____________________________________________________________________________
JOEL M. CAHN, ) Appeal from the Circuit Court
) of Lake County.
Plaintiff-Appellant, )
)
v. ) No. 18-MR-1122
)
THE CITY OF HIGHLAND PARK and )
ROBERT RITHOLZ, ) Honorable
) Jorge L. Ortiz,
Defendants-Appellees. ) Judge, Presiding.
_____________________________________________________________________________
JUSTICE HUDSON delivered the judgment of the court.
Justices Schostok and Birkett concurred in the judgment.
ORDER
¶1 Held: Trial court properly dismissed complaint seeking administrative review by
certiorari of a legislative body’s enactment of an ordinance.
¶2 I. INTRODUCTION
¶3 Plaintiff, Joel M. Cahn, appeals an order of the circuit court of Lake County dismissing his
three-count complaint against defendants, the City of Highland Park and Robert Ritholz. The trial
court dismissed plaintiff’s claim with prejudice, finding that an ordinance passed by the Highland
Park City Council was not subject to administrative review. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
¶4 II. BACKGROUND
2021 IL App (2d) 191092-U¶5 The facts pertinent to this appeal are brief and straightforward. Ritholz and Cahn own land
in close proximity to each other. Ritholz sought a permit to build a revetment 1 from the City of
Highland Park. A proceeding was held before the City Council of Highland Park. Cahn opposed
Ritholz’s request for a permit, and he participated in the proceeding, though he asserts that he was
not permitted to participate. Cahn alleged that the revetment would cause flooding on his property
and diminish its value.
¶6 Pursuant to a Highland Park ordinance, before the City Council can act on the application
for such a permit, the request must be referred to the Highland Park Natural Resources Commission
(Commission). Notice was given to proximate landowners. Cahn presented evidence to the
Commission, including an opinion letter issued by a coastal engineer. The Commission limited
the time allowed for Cahn to make his presentation, and, as a result, Cahn asserts, he was not able
to make his full presentation. Subsequently, the City Council held a public meeting on the matter.
Cahn asserts that he again was not permitted to make a full presentation. The City Council voted
to approve the permit; however, the matter was remanded back to the Commission so that it could
secure a third-party review of the request. After the review was complete, the Commission, and
then the City Council, voted to approve the request. On July 23, 2018, the City Council approved
an ordinance granting Ritholz a “Lake Michigan Protection Zone Building Permit.”
¶7 On August 29, 2018, Cahn filed a complaint seeking administrative review, arguing that
the City Council’s decision was contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. Defendants
moved to dismiss. They asserted that the permit was granted when the City Council of Highland
1
A “revetment” is “a facing of stone, concrete, fascines, or other material to sustain an
embankment.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1944 (2002).
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2021 IL App (2d) 191092-UPark adopted an ordinance. Because the adoption of an ordinance is a legislative act, they
reasoned, it is not subject to administrative review. The trial court dismissed plaintiff’s complaint
without prejudice.
¶8 Plaintiff filed an amended complaint and then amended it a second time. The dismissal
(with prejudice) of the second-amendment complaint is at issue in this appeal. In it, plaintiff set
forth three counts. The first count is titled “Complaint For Common Law Writ of Certiorari.” The
second count alleges an equal-protection violation, and the third a deprivation of due process. A
fourth count alleging a taking was voluntarily dismissed by plaintiff. The trial court dismissed this
complaint because, it explained, “The Court finds that administrative review of the City's decision
to approve the ordinance granting a zoning permit is not subject to administrative review.” It
added: “The Court further finds that common law writs of certiorari do not apply here, do not lie
here. They are only available theoretically for review of administrative actions.” It then declined
to address the underlying merits of the second and third counts as there was “no administrative
review that lies here.” This appeal followed.
¶9 III. ANALYSIS
¶ 10 This case comes to us following a dismissal in accordance with section 2-615 of the Civil
Practice Law (735 ILCS 5/2-615 (West 2018)). Accordingly, review is de novo. Solaia
Technology, LLC v. Specialty Publishing Co., 221 Ill. 2d 558, 578-79 (2006). In ruling on a motion
to dismiss pursuant to section 2-615, a court must accept all well-pleaded facts as true and view
the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Reynolds v. Jimmy John’s Enterprises,
LLC, 2013 IL App (4th) 120139, ¶ 25.
¶ 11 Before this court, plaintiff presses his argument that the City Council’s enactment of an
ordinance granting Ritholz permission to build a revetment is subject to administrative review. He
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2021 IL App (2d) 191092-Ureasons that the City’s action was essentially the grant of a building permit (as opposed to a zoning
action) and therefore it is administrative rather than legislative in nature. The parties spend a
certain amount of time arguing over whether the City Council’s actions constituted an act of
zoning. Whether the City Council’s actions constitute zoning is not relevant here.
¶ 12 Quite simply, the City Council’s actions were legislative in nature because they were
accomplished by the enactment of an ordinance. See Hawthorne v. Village of Olympia Fields, 204
Ill. 2d 243, 253 (2003) (“The enactment of an ordinance is a legislative act.”); Ashley Libertyville,
LLC v. Village of Libertyville, 378 Ill. App. 3d 661, 664 (2008) (“Enacting or rejecting an
ordinance is a legislative act.”). Our supreme court has held, ““The Administrative Review Law
does not apply to the legislative acts of legislative bodies.” Hawthorne, 204 Ill. 2d at 274.
Moreover, “[E]ven where an act would be otherwise administrative (such as if it had been done by
a zoning board of appeals), it is legislative and outside the scope of the Administrative Review
Law if it is accomplished through the enactment of an ordinance (or if its rejection entails rejecting
an ordinance).” Ashley, 378 Ill. App. 3d at 664.
¶ 13 Plaintiff attempts to distinguish Hawthorne and Ashley on the ground that they involve
zoning issues and the instant case involves a building permit. We, however, see nothing in the text
of either case evincing an intent to limit them in such a manner. The language of both cases is
sweeping. See Hawthorne, 204 Ill. 2d at 253 (“The enactment of an ordinance is a legislative
act.”); Ashley, 378 Ill. App. 3d at 664 (“Enacting or rejecting an ordinance is a legislative act.”).
Moreover, plaintiff identifies no underlying policy that such a distinction would serve. Generally,
the concerns emanating from the different manners in which courts review legislative and
administrative decisions involve separation-of-powers considerations. See Conaghan v. City of
Harvard, 2016 IL App (2d) 151034, ¶ 53. It is not apparent how such concerns would be alleviated
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2021 IL App (2d) 191092-Uif an ordinance concerned a building permit as opposed to a zoning issue. That is, we perceive no
reason, and plaintiff does not identify any, a court’s invasion of the prerogatives of another branch
of government would be less problematic in the area of a building permit rather than where a
zoning decision is involved.
¶ 14 Plaintiff also places extensive reliance on People ex rel. Klaeren v. Village of Lisle, 202
Ill. 2d 164 (2002). In that case, our supreme court considered “whether a landowner whose
property abuts a parcel subject to a proposed annexation, special use, and rezoning petition can be
wholly denied the right to cross-examine witnesses at a public hearing regarding the petition.” Id.
at 167. It ultimately held that “because the joint hearing included a special use petition, due process
required that interested parties be afforded the right to cross-examine witnesses.” Id. When acting
on a special-use petition, the Klaeren court stated, “municipal bodies act in administrative or quasi-
judicial capacities.” However, Klaeren concerned the process an interested party was due in such
a proceeding, not the manner in which such a decision could be reviewed. Ashley, 378 Ill. App.
3d at 663. Indeed, “neither Klaeren itself nor the appellate court opinion in the matter mentions
the Administrative Review Law.” Id. In fact, Klaeren was an action for an injunction rather than
an action for administrative review. Klaeren, 202 Ill. 2d at 177.
¶ 15 Furthermore, even if we were to assume that Klaeren had some application here and
determined the procedural rights to which plaintiff was entitled in the proceedings before the City
Council and the Commission, it does not follow that the Council’s decision was subject to
administrative review. In Ashley, 378 Ill. App. 3d at 664 we noted that “[a]cting administratively
is necessary, but not sufficient, to trigger administrative review.” Similarly, in Chicago Title Land
Trust Co. v. Board of Trustees of the Village of Barrington, 376 Ill. App. 3d 494, 498 (2007), the
First District observed “that the Administrative Review Law does not apply to all administrative
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2021 IL App (2d) 191092-Uacts.” In fact, section 11-13-25 of the Illinois Municipal Code (65 ILCS 5/11-13-25 (West 1998)),
a statute relied on by the trial court in rejecting plaintiff’s reliance on Klaeren, states, “Any
decision by the corporate authorities of any municipality, home rule or non-home rule, in regard
to any petition or application for a special use, variance, rezoning, or other amendment to a zoning
ordinance shall be subject to de novo judicial review as a legislative decision, regardless of whether
the process in relation thereto is considered administrative for other purposes.” (Emphasis
added.) Thus, the legislature has recognized that a municipal action may be considered
administrative for some purposes (such as due process) and legislative for others (such as the
nature of judicial review). Parenthetically, we note that, as was the case in Ashley, 378 Ill. App.
3d at 666, section 11-13-25 is not relevant to this case because the City Council’s enactment of an
ordinance was a legislative act from the outset.
¶ 16 Plaintiff’s reliance on City of Chicago Heights v. Living Word Outreach Full Gospel
Church & Ministries, Inc., 196 Ill. 2d 1, 16 (2001), is not particularly persuasive in light of the fact
that it did not actually resolve whether the denial of a special use permit was a legislative or
administrative act: “However, we need not decide, in this case, whether the city council’s decision
to deny Living Word’s application for a special use permit was an administrative or legislative
act.” We also note that the material plaintiff relies on in Ward v. Village of Skokie, 26 Ill. 2d Ill.
2d 415 (1962), appears in a special concurrence and therefore does not constitute binding authority
(Majid v. Retirement Board of the Policemen’s Annuity & Benefit Fund of the City of Chicago,
2015 IL App (1st) 132182, ¶ 27).
¶ 17 Plaintiff complains that “the conversion of administrative acts into legislative acts by the
use of ordinances would deny citizens Illinois Constitutional Right to Remedy and Justice.” See
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2021 IL App (2d) 191092-UIll. Const. 1970, art. 1, § 12. He further cites Justice Klingbiel’s special concurrence in Ward, 26
Ill. 2d at 424:
“It is not a part of the legislative function to grant permits, make special exceptions, or
decide particular cases. Such activities are not legislative but administrative, quasijudicial,
or judicial in character. To place them in the hands of legislative bodies, whose acts as such
are not judicially reviewable, is to open the door completely to arbitrary government. I
need not dwell at length on the obvious opportunity this affords for special privilege, for
the granting of favors to political friends or financial benefactors, for the withholding of
permits from those not in the good graces of the authorities, and so on. The rule is familiar
enough that courts may not inquire into the motives or reasons on which the legislative
body acted.”
However, legislative acts are not immune from judicial oversight. Legislative acts are subject to
de novo judicial review. Ashley, 378 Ill. App. 3d at 666 (“De novo judicial review is required
because the enactment or rejection of an ordinance is a legislative act.”). In Millineum
Maintenance Management, Inc. v. County of Lake, 384 Ill. App. 3d 638, 643 (2008) (quoting
Living Word Outreach Full Gospel Church & Ministries, Inc., 196 Ill. 2d at 14), we explained,
“Conversely, ‘[w]hen a legislative body acts in a legislative capacity in ruling on a permit
application, its decision is not subject to principles of administrative review.’ ” We continued,
“ ‘Instead, the legislative body’s decision is reviewed for arbitrariness as a matter of substantive
due process under the six-part test set forth in La Salle National Bank v. County of Cook, 12 Ill.
2d 40 (1957).’ ” Hence, an avenue remains open to a party to challenge such a decision effectuated
by an ordinance.
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2021 IL App (2d) 191092-U¶ 18 Reframing the action as one for a writ of certiorari does not help plaintiff. It is true that
“when the Administrative Review Law is not available, a plaintiff may seek review of an
administrative act through the common law writ of certiorari.” Chicago Title Land Trust Co., 376
Ill. App. 3d at 500-01. However, as explained above, enacting an ordinance is a legislative rather
than administrative action. “As a general rule, certiorari will not lie to review acts which are
ministerial, executive or legislative in nature.” City of Highwood v. Obenberger, 238 Ill. App. 3d
1066, 1075 (1992).
¶ 19 In sum, the trial court properly determined that the action of the City Council was
legislative because it was effectuated through the enactment of an ordinance. Attempting to
challenge the decision by administrative review “is a nullity.” Ashley, 378 Ill. App. 3d at 665(quoting Hawthorne, 204 Ill. 2d at 274). As such, administrative review was not the proper vehicle
to challenge its decision, whether by certiorari or by invocation of the Administrative Review law.
We need not address plaintiff’s additional claims, as plaintiff advances them in the context of a
request for administrative review via a writ of certiorari and that is improper.
¶ 20 IV. CONCLUSION
¶ 21 In light of the foregoing, the judgment of the circuit court of Lake County is affirmed.
¶ 22 Affirmed.
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