{ "id": 2551438, "name": "The People of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Earl Kraft, Defendant-Appellant", "name_abbreviation": "People v. Kraft", "decision_date": "1967-07-21", "docket_number": "Gen. No. 67-6", "first_page": "435", "last_page": "438", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "85 Ill. App. 2d 435" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "199 NE2d 769", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "217 NE2d 73", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "186 NE2d 303", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "26 Ill2d 325", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 5354564 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "330" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/26/0325-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 397, "char_count": 5670, "ocr_confidence": 0.641, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.5522964274278852e-07, "percentile": 0.6751380099766434 }, "sha256": "165437e37474d50f9e4b69eab0d8e1d293895a71e8554ef58c40714839ab039d", "simhash": "1:f046b4c692cc5f45", "word_count": 995 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:34:40.913901+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "The People of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Earl Kraft, Defendant-Appellant." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "MR. JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON\ndelivered the opinion of the court.\nThe defendant appeals from a judgment of the Circuit Court of Stephenson County, based on a jury verdict, which found him guilty of a violation of the Illinois Rabies Control Act and imposed a fine in the sum of $100, the maximum penalty provided by the Act.\nSection 5 of the Rabies Control Act (Ill Rev Stats, 1965, c 8, \u00a7 23 (i)) provides in part as follows:\n\u201cEach calendar year, or at such intervals as may hereafter be promulgated by the Department, every owner of a dog, 4 months or more of age not confined at all times to an enclosed area, shall cause such dog to be inoculated against rabies by the Rabies Inspector, or by his deputy, or by any licensed veterinarian . .\nSection 13 provides that a fine for the violation of the Act shall be not less than $25 nor more than $100.\nAlthough several points are raised as possible grounds for reversal, we shall concern ourselves only with that portion of the Act that we have quoted.\nThree witnesses testified for the State. A deputy from the County Rabies Inspector\u2019s office stated that he visited the defendant\u2019s farm on June 9, 1965, to inquire if their dog had been inoculated. He talked to a teenage daughter of the defendant at the farm house and learned that their dog had never been inoculated although it was over six years old. While he was speaking with the girl he heard a dog barking but did not see a dog or the defendant. He gave the girl a ticket that provided that the dog would have to be inoculated within 10 days.\nThe County Rabies Inspector and Veterinarian testified that he also visited the defendant\u2019s farm around the 7th of July as a routine procedure when the defendant failed to comply with the ticket. He also talked with the daughter and during his conversation he heard a dog barking but did not see it. The sounds of the barking, he stated, came from \u201coutside the house in the yard towards the barn.\u201d\nMareine Kraft, the daughter of the defendant, testified that it was her dog and had never been inoculated. She further stated that the dog was kept in an old woodshed adjoining the barn behind the house. The shed had no door and could only be entered through a window about two to two and a half feet above the ground. The dog was tied by a chain to a wall in the back of the shed and, according to the girl, had never in its entire life been off the chain or out of the shed. The dog was fed by members of her family through the window which had no glass or other covering.\nAt the conclusion of this testimony, the defendant moved for a directed verdict. The motion was denied and when no defense was offered the jury returned a verdict of guilty and judgment was entered from which this appeal is prosecuted.\nThe defendant urges that the evidence thus adduced shows that his dog was \u201cconfined at all times to an enclosed area\u201d and was therefore not subject to annual inoculation. The State, on the other hand, takes a position that the shed, as described by the girl, was not an \u201cenclosure\u201d as that term is used in the Rabies Control Act since the window had no covering and afforded access to the shed for all who chose to enter. The County Veterinarian testified that rabies was transmitted by numerous small animals that presumably could have entered the shed and passed the disease to the dog chained to the wall.\nThe term \u201cenclosed area\u201d as used in this Act has not previously been subject to judicial review. An \u201cenclosure\u201d has been defined as \u201csomething that encompasses, surrounds, shuts or fences in . . .\u201d as it applies to an act relating to the prohibition of gambling devices. People v. McDonald, 26 Ill2d 325, 330, 186 NE2d 303. The State urges that the title of the Rabies Control Act, \u201cAn act in relation to the control and prevention of rabies . . .\u201d indicates a legislative intent that only those dogs that are entirely isolated from all possible outside contact are relieved of the necessity of annual inoculation. We cannot agree with such a severe interpretation.\nA shed, with four walls, a floor and a roof, is obviously an \"enclosed area\u201d in any ordinary definition of that term. That the dog was confined to the shed is beyond argument since the only evidence on that point was that it was permanently chained to the wall. To accept the argument of the State would require that all dogs be annually inoculated unless they were permanently isolated from all possible contact.\nIf the Legislature had intended such a narrow exception to the requirement of inoculation it clearly would not have employed a term as broad as \"enclosed area.\u201d Ordinarily, words or terms used in statutes must be given their ordinary and plain meaning unless such construction will obviously defeat the intention of the Legislature. Droste v. Kerner, 34 U12d 495, 503, 217 NE2d 73; Nelson v. Union Wire Rope Corp., 31 I112d 69, 100, 199 NE2d 769. We are unable to construe the term \u201cenclosed area\u201d to mean, for all practical purposes, a permanent quarantine.\nWe therefore conclude that the only evidence before the trial court indicated that the defendant\u2019s dog was \u201cconfined at all times to an enclosed area\u201d and was not subject to annual inoculation. The motion for a directed verdict at the close of the State\u2019s case was improperly denied.\nReversed.\nDAVIS, P. J. and MORAN, J., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "MR. JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON" } ], "attorneys": [ "Knight, Ingrassia and Schirger, of Rockford, for appellant.", "Dexter A. Knowlton, State\u2019s Attorney of Stephenson County, of Freeport, and Woodruff A. Burt, Assistant State\u2019s Attorney, for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "The People of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Earl Kraft, Defendant-Appellant.\nGen. No. 67-6.\nSecond District.\nJuly 21, 1967.\nKnight, Ingrassia and Schirger, of Rockford, for appellant.\nDexter A. Knowlton, State\u2019s Attorney of Stephenson County, of Freeport, and Woodruff A. Burt, Assistant State\u2019s Attorney, for appellee." }, "file_name": "0435-01", "first_page_order": 441, "last_page_order": 444 }