please the court counsel counsel i am assistant attorney general wind up watching and sign on behalf of the illinois department of public health and its director this case involves the proper construction of this court's one court to impose on the party the attorney or both a sanction if it determines that it's pleadings were not well grounded in fact and warranted by existing law or if they were interposed for an improper purpose unlike its predecessor section to get six eleven of the illinois code of civil procedure one thirty seven does not require the drought or to impose a sanction if it finds that the rule was violated section two def six eleven stated that a trial court shell imposes sanction went in to determine that the rule was violated where one thirty seven on the other hand gives the court discretion to impose or to decline to impose a sanction even if it finds a violation of when drafting row one thirty seven this court could have required the circuit court to issue a statement of reasons whenever rolls on a motion for sanctions but that is not how the rule is written rule one thirty seven d states that where is sanction is imposed under this rule the judge shall set forth with specificity the reasons and basis for any sanctions so impose the language used in the rule reflects a deliberate choice by this court as demonstrated by the language used this court's concern was with the imposition of sanctions sanctions are a drastic measure and thus this court in this room required circuit courts to explain their basis for imposing a sanction explaining why a motion for sanctions was granted serves a useful purposes it allows the sanction party to know why their conduct or pleadings were deemed taxation is and it serves as a deterrent for similar behavior in the future on the other hand denying a motion for sanctions should be the norm therefore an explanation is not required among certainly illinois public courts that requires an explanation whether sanctions are granted or denied it found the body of case law to be far more persuasive than the actual text of the rule as it's true w interpret in a statute when the language of this court's role is unambiguous it should be applied as written some appellate courts have correctly observed that rule one thirty seven on its face only requires an explanation where sanctions explain his reason for denying a motion for sanctions justify this additional requirement by suggesting that appellate review would be ad hoc and inconsistent without a statement of reasons but this court's rule was course the denial of requests for sanctions has a clear meaning this court indicated in doubt in doubt versus gleason that the parties legal theory must be so clearly lacking in merit so warrant sanctions under one thirty seven therefore the trial court's denial of requests for sanctions means that the court did not find the parties pleadings to be so clearly lacking in marriage that sanctions were necessary his lack of reasoning from the proper order any evidence review the record and determine whether or not that conclusion was an abuse of discretion which never mentioned the sixty six but provided a detailed discussion of the case law involving one thirty seven the appellate court also did not suggest as late does in its brief that the state of the record was somehow  to allow for meaningful review but the record contained every pleading that the department filed as well as the transcript from the motion on leaks here are six requests for sanctions as a general matter when all of the filings that circuit court proceedings the department had license plate as and it specifies contractor like then entered into a contract with the air force to remove this festival from a building that was set to be destroyed a sergeant from the air force solidly engaging in what he believed to be unsafe removal practices informed the department about his concerns it conducted several initial investigations determined that leaks actions threaten the public health and in march two thousand and eight the department issued an emergency stop work order under section fifty five point six three zero of its regulations the question of whether lake should be licensed as a contractor was not at issue in the emergency stop were proceeding the focus of those proceedings as it's reflected in the language of the regulation was to stop the activity that was causing the emergency eventually late took certain remedial measures and the building was about to be demolished so the department determined that the emergency stop work proceedings were moved and it voluntarily dismissed them voluntarily dismissing the proceedings did not mean that the violations had not taken place only that the emergency no longer existed later under section fifty five point six hundred of its regulations the department sought to revoke link's license based earlier violations a head of the department also filed an action seeking monetary penalties under two twenty five i'll see yes two of seven that's fifty after administrative proceedings the department its defense of a complaint for administrative review the department's view was that race today did not fly because under its interpretation of the regulations licensing issues could not have been addressed during the emergency proceedings the circuit court ruled in leagues favor in the license revocation case and it sucked room one thirty seven sanctions because the department declined in c as a general matter the party seeking to impose sanctions as the burden of proving that its opponents filings were frivolous in this case with the benefit of hindsight later argues that it was clear that the department's defense of the license revocation action would fail and it the department should be sanctioned for declining to can see the case based on the outcome of the civil penalties case late is wrong for two reasons first the department's license revocation action had both legal and factual justice haitian section eight fifty five point six hundred of the department's regulations authorizes the department to revoke in its best its contractor's license if it did german said the contractor has conducted activities in a manner that dangerous for public health in this case the department had found that leaks removal activities endangered the public health therefore it's the department's defense of its administrative decision questions could not have been addressed during the emergency stop or see the circuit were eventually ruled against the department but its argument was not so clearly lacking in myriad to warrant sanctions under one thirty seven is left to the broad discretion of the circuit court and because the circuit court has discretion not to impose sanctions even if ions that a party has violated or one thirty seven cases where the court should be found to have abused its discretion for sanctions and the department's opposition and he oversaw the hearing on leaks motion perceptions judge mclean was in the best position to decide whether sanctions were warranted in this case and he determined that they were not and he similarly declined to impose sanctions the record on appeal supports the judge's decision the department is a state agency and no record of evidence suggests that it had malicious intentions in pursuing  actions or that its pleadings were frivolous unless there are further questions we would ask this court to reverse the public course decision remain in a situation where the record revealed no historical pastis for the trial court's even though the record show that the state and checked in late and a reasonable position even though the records show that as a result of that objective and reasonable position the state caused lake environmental to incur a small fortune in legal fees and to lose prop it for over a year while the state wrongfully withheld trial court must provide the specific reasons for its ruling whether sanctions are granted or denied i mean i don't blame you for arguing that because i think you are greedy in your brief that the language is on ambiguous that that the written in fact even the subsection headiness in tile required written explanation of the imposition of sanctions for certainly so my specific question is is this the appellate court ruling on discretion or is it what it seemed just a very saying they're holding that you have to regardless of what the rule over a period of about twenty care during that period of time rule one thirty seven has been amended by this or three times in one of the a mandatory  and the features are the number one record get not the the record shows that a litigant took a very questionable position in the this context your honor this looks to me like a case where the appellate court to say in the event that the record is a raft of some basis from which we can discern the deny really or a violation of the rule because in this case based on the state's pursuit of my client after losing the civil penalties case it was clear th last sentence basically before the conclusion is we find a reason to put forward by our colleagues in the second district requiring right the reason over the last twenty two years to be far more persuasive than anything found abortion to the rule your honor he i don't think that that's a fair characterization of cases the way in which the appellate court discussed the case for this when the court reviewed the cases relied on by the state in this case it went through the factual setting in each of those cases and they shared some common features as well in all of those cases this could be discerned from either comments made by the trial court in deciding the motion for sanctions or based on the nature of the issue itself that there was no reason for the trial court to express any additional reasons in other words you could discern from the record that the circuit court had applied the appropriate parent principles and made a reasoned decision on the issue of whether sanctions would be imposed in fact i'd like to refer the course pacifically to the principal  and in some cases that means quote remain and for development of more of a more in will light a record which may or may not include expressed by have to search the record to gas why the trial court decided not to invoke sanctions under rule one thirty seven even though it was apparent that the state the record of an order denying sanctions is not sufficient to enable the appellate court to discern whether the circuit judge applied the appropriate standard in denying sanctions and whether or not the circuit court made an informed decision to deny sanctions that's the role that we advocate in this case and i believe sanctions but on the other hand the appellate court when reviewing an order denying sanctions has to be able to search to determine whether the court properly exercise discretion there's a balance and out here i one hand the rule if the trial court why discretion to determine whether or not sanction should be appellate court can determine that the trial court applied the appropriate standard and made an informed decision then appell following up on justice thomas question that says we reverse and remand with directions from the circuit court in turn order ruling on the plaintiff's motion with citations so the order to describe with specificity the reasons for so ruling it a hearing to develop a record as to what but it's really it and that sounds like rule one thirty seven language you're looking at the way i interpret that statement from though it was apparent that the state took an on reasonable and objectively unreasonable position with respect to prosecuting this case against lake opportunity to review the record decided that the record did not show any mitigating factors for the state's prosecution of the license and sent it back to the circuit court to explain why based on a situation where the state is wrongfully prosecuting late should sanctions not be imposed maybe there was some good reason for the trial court's decision but if there was one if there were mitigating factors it's not apparent from the record the appellate court  cases it was a situation where the appellate court did not have any basis to make an informed to determine whether the circuit court made a four informed decision conversed li the appellate court went through the cases where reasoning was not required and in each of those cases saw the record either because of the nature of the issue like there was one case where there was a procedural issue where in fact there was a dissenting opinion violation of rule one thirty seven but this is a different situation and i think i have to turn to the merits briefly to illustrate there were parallel lawsuits in the circuit court involving late in the department the same parties the first one was a civil penalties case the department claimed that late had allegedly violated certain regulatory requirements warranting the imposition of civil civil penalties at the same time the department  commenced an action to revoke lake's license and it ministre to the license revocation case and the civil penalties gays were based on the identical alleged violations of law that had actually allegedly occurred two years earlier while the license the circuit court ruled in the civil penalties case by summary judgment that the state had no right to allege these violations of the act because two years earlier the state had dismissed another case against lake environmental with prejudice and was not able to resurrect those allegations two years later now the circuit court summarily rejected the civil penalties lawsuit in september of two thousand and eleven right after lake filed its petition or administrative review of the agency's license revocation so we have it back stage of the litigation a situation where the agency knows that it can no longer rely on these past allegations to attack lake environmental revocation on hold or they could give up the license revocation case but what that the agency doing it took neither of those actions it didn't appeal the civil penalties case but it continued and filed an answer in the administrative review case battling the license revocation we spent another year litigating this case while the state withheld our license even though it was clear that when the courts marilee rejected the agency's position in the civil penalties case based on the doc and that would be a similar fashion in which any motions for sanction in any record came to the appellate court that is correct so the only thing missing is that the appellate court wanted to know what the reason was for the circuit court did nine the motion for sanctions iraq because they said that would be helpful and i'm sure it would be helpful but if our rule distinguishes between swear not arguing that rule three sixty six would never allow an appellate court to remain and for further factual development if that in fact were necessary in that case but it's clear that that is not what happened here here recognized simply wanted a statement of reasons and rule one thirty seven does not require a statement of reasons where a motion for sanctions is denied the appellate court also said nothing about the state of the record and in fact even though counsel refers to the record as being inadequate it's not clear what's missing from the record in his view as we noted the record contained all of the pleadings that were challenged as well as the transcript from the hearing on the motion for sanctions so it's hard to see what is inadequate about the record counsel repeatedly refers to the department's position as objectively and reasonable but that was a matter for the trial court to decide and in denying the motion for sanctions implicitly the trial court determined that the department's position was not objectively reasonable and as we noted earlier that what was at issue in the license revocation proceedings differed from and had a different standard than what was at issue in the civil penalties action so even though counsel repeatedly asserts that it was clear that the department