COURT MUST PROCEED ACCORDING TO LAW OR STATUTE
In a court of limited jurisdiction, the court must proceed exactly according to the law or statute under which it operates. Flake v. Pretzel, 381 Ill. 498, 46 N.E.2d 375 (1943) (“the actions, being statutory proceedings, … were void for want of power to make them.”) (“The judgments were based on orders which were void because the court exceeded its jurisdiction in entering them. Where a court, after acquiring jurisdiction of a subject matter, as here, transcends the limits of the jurisdiction conferred, its judgment is void.”); Armstrong v. Obucino, 300 Ill. 140, 143, 133 N.E. 58 (1921) (“The doctrine that where a court has once acquired jurisdiction it has a right to decide every question which arises in the cause, and its judgment or decree, however erroneous, cannot be collaterally assailed, is only correct when the court proceeds according to the established modes governing the class to which the case belongs and does not transcend in the extent and character of its judgment or decree the law or statute which is applicable to it.”
