Articles Posted in Illinois Supreme Court Rules

Illinoisappellatelawyerblog was born to worry. And opinions like Estate of York feed that congenital behavior.

The First District Illinois Appellate Court woke us to attention with its first words. “The case before us serves as a cautionary tale to litigants to adhere to Illinois Supreme Court Rule appellate filing deadlines, to timely file requests for extensions of time with good cause shown, and to specify all grounds of appeal in the notice of appeal.”

Dread always follows that kind of lead. Here’s what happened.

Daewoo International paid American Metals Trading $14.5 million for pig iron. But American Metals didn’t deliver, so Daewoo started an arbitration proceeding. In support of the arbitration, Daewoo got an order of attachment against American from a New York trial court. To support the attachment — i.e., trace where the money went — the New York court allowed Daewoo to obtain discovery and to depose American’s directors and officers, four brothers led by Luis Monteiro.

Daewoo believed it could serve subpoenas on American and Monteiro in Illinois. So Daewoo filed a petition in an Illinois court to ask for the subpoenas.  Forty-eight days after the court allowed the subpoenas, Monteiro asked the court to quash them. He argued that Daewoo did not comply with Illinois Supreme Court Rule 204(b), the rule that permits an Illinois court to allow discovery in a case from another jurisdiction. The Illinois trial court refused, and ordered Monteiro’s deposition to proceed.

Litigation over the validity of the New York and Illinois trial courts’ discovery orders continued. After Monteiro ran out of options, he filed a notice of appeal in Illinois. On appeal, Monteiro continued to argue that Daewoo did not comply with Rule 204(b).

William Huber filed a lawsuit to dissolve the American Accounting Association. The Association asked the trial court to dismiss the lawsuit, which it did.

Huber appealed. He mailed his Notice of Appeal to the court, but it arrived two days after the 30-day deadline.

That would have been okay had Huber included an affidavit (required of a non-lawyer) or certificate (required of a lawyer) of mailing with the Notice of Appeal. But Huber did not. He argued that a postmark on the envelope, dated two days before the 30-day deadline expired, was sufficient proof of mailing within the time required.

Anita and Sushil Sheth got divorced. Sushil was custodian on several of the couple’s two children’s financial accounts. Anita asked the trial court to remove Sushil as custodian. The trial court did so, and also denied Sushil’s reconsideration request.

Sushil appealed. He apparently mailed the notice of appeal within the 30-day jurisdictional requirement. But his “Certificate of Service” was not notarized. The court received Sushil’s notice of appeal after the 30 days passed.

The First District Illinois Appellate Court dismissed Sushil’s appeal. The court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to consider Sushil’s arguments because Sushil did not submit proper proof — that is, a notarized Proof of Service — that the notice of appeal had been mailed within the 30-day deadline  So even though Sushil’s proof of service included all of the required information, his appeal was dismissed for lack of a notary public’s stamp.

After he was injured in an accident, Juan Zamora sued his employer, Newsboy Delivery Systems, and two individuals, Cherie and Richard Payne. Zamora claimed their negligence caused the accident.

The trial court dismissed Newsboy because Zamora’s claim against his employer was barred by the Illinois Worker’s Compensation Act. The dismissal order included a finding under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 304(a) [no just reason to delay enforcement or appeal of the order]. Zamora asked the court to reconsider the dismissal. That request for reconsideration extended the time he had to appeal [30 days from the ruling on the reconsideration request]. Zamora’s request for reconsideration was denied.

The Paynes filed a third-party complaint for contribution against Newsboy. About two years later that complaint was dismissed. Zamora got a second Rule 304(a) finding, and after the rest of the claims were dismissed, Zamora appealed the two year-old order that dismissed his claim against Newsboy.

The Westin North Shore is a hotel in the northern suburbs of Chicago. The hotel was used as collateral for a multimillion dollar loan to the hotel owner. Five Mile Capital Westin had a subordinate interest in the loan. After the owner defaulted on his payments, Berkadia National Mortgage was named as special servicer of the hotel.

Berkadia got an offer to buy the hotel. But because the market for hotel properties fell, the offer did not cover the amount of the loan. If Berkadia accepted the offer, Five Mile Capital would be left with big losses.

So Five Mile Capital sued Berkadia, and asked the trial court for an injunction to stop the sale. Five Mile also recorded a lis pendens [formal notice that property title is disputed] on the property. Berkadia asked the trial court to dismiss the complaint and to lift the lis pendens. The trial court refused to dismiss the complaint, but did quash the lis pendens. The trial court also treated plaintiff’s position as a request for a preliminary injunction against the sale of the property. Then the trial court denied the preliminary injunction.

Barbara Kemp’s mortgage was held by EMC Mortgage Corporation. EMC filed a foreclosure action against Barbara because she defaulted on her payments. Eventually, EMC asked for and got a summary judgment foreclosure. Kemp then asked for reconsideration of the summary judgment and for a stay of the judicial sale of the property. Both were denied.

On the day the judicial sale was scheduled, Kemp made an emergency request to vacate the judgment of foreclosure and then to dismiss EMC’s complaint. Kemp’s request to vacate the judgment was made under Illinois Civil Procedure Act Rule 2-1401 [allowing final judgments to be vacated if there is new evidence and a meritorious defense]. The trial court also stayed the judicial sale of the property for 45 days. The court added Illinois Supreme Court Rule 304(a) language to its order [allowing immediate appeal of final judgments that do not dispose of the entire case].

Kemp appealed two of the trial court’s orders: the order denying her motion for reconsideration, and the order denying her motion to vacate. The Second District Illinois Appellate Court dismissed Kemp’s appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. The Illinois Supreme Court did the same for two reasons.

Brandon Wilson required surgery for a fractured femur. He had a heart attack during surgery, which resulted in brain injury from lack of oxygen. Brandon sued Edward Hospital, where the surgery was done, and the doctors who treated him there.

To win against the hospital, Brandon had to show that the doctors were the hosptal’s actual or apparent agents. The hospital argued that the doctors were neither, and asked for summary judgment. The trial court gave the hospital judgment on the actual agent theory, but, ruling a question of fact existed, denied the hospital’s request on the apparent agency theory. Brandon then voluntarily dismissed his complaint.

One year later, Brandon re-filed, alleging the apparent agency theory against the hospital. The hospital asked the trial court to dismiss the re-filed complaint, arguing that it was barred by res judicata [second lawsuit alleging the same cause of action against the same parties not allowed]. The trial court refused to dismiss the re-filed complaint. But the court certified a question for immediate appeal – i.e., whether the re-filed complaint was a violation of the rule against claim-splittting and should be barred by res judicata.

Elizabeth Demaret got a better job in New Jersey, so she wanted to move there from Illinois with her children. She had sole custody of her four children. James, her ex-husband, had parenting time in accord with a parenting agreement that an Illinois trial court incorporated into the divorce judgment.

Elizabeth asked the trial court for permission to move the children to New Jersey. James fought the request because he felt his time with the children would suffer and diminish. He asked the trial court to award him attorney fees he would incur fighting Elizabeth’s removal request.

The trial court denied Elizabeth’s request to move the children to New Jersey. Elizabeth appealed, but James’s fee request still was pending in the trial court. James argued that was enough to deprive the appellate court of jurisdiction to consider the appeal ― that is, (1) no appellate jurisdiction because (2) the order denying Elizabeth’s request to move the children was not final and appealable because (3) James’s fee petition still was pending in the trial court.

Arthur and Shirley Susman got divorced. The divorce judgment incorporated a marital settlement agreement, which reserved two subjects to be resolved later: (1) certain tax liabilities, and (2) allocation of certain personal property.

A few months later, Arthur asked the trial court to modify the judgment. He claimed there had been a mutual mistake of fact regarding a different tax liability. The trial court denied Arthur’s request.

Arthur appealed under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 301, which allows appeals from final judgments. But the First District Illinois Appellate Court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to consider Arthur’s appeal. The appellate court ruled that Arthur’s appeal of the order denying his request to modify the judgment was not appealable because other questions had been reserved by the trial court. Here’s how the appellate court explained it:

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