rented an apartment in the city of chicago they moved out by agreement with the landlord and they never received their security deposit after moving out there's an ordinance in the city of chicago called the chicago residential landlord tenant or defense and that allows plaintiffs to file suit and seek some extra contractual damages in addition to the return of the actual security deposit that's why we're here today the appellate court ruled that that case that we filed was untimely the appellate court and the trial court held that section five slash thirteen dash to zero two which applies to statutory penalty cases should apply to this case which is based upon an ordinance and it's our contention that the appellate court and the trial court are wrong for two reasons first five slash thirteen dash two zero two does not apply to claims based on ordinances second even if it dead this case is not one that is a penalty we're not seeking a penalty and therefore even of the statutory penalty is covered and broad enough to apply to an ordinance thirteen deaths to go to should not apply to cases that are based upon an ordinance the first one is that it would appear that to reach that conclusion as the thought court did requires a violation of probably every applied couple rule of statutory construction that exists probably the first one is that statutes are to be interpreted in the way that they are written using their words if it's an ambiguous and applying the normal use of the words that's in the statute here the statute in question says that it applies to claims for statutory penalties that in essence is the entire operative issue and we c end that by not saying the word and ordinances or something else when you say a word like statute which is a very specific and precise definition under illinois law it applies in the manner that it says the statutes n it's not so great but there's also uniqueness exclude c e o all teary s which says the inclusion of one is the exclusion of the others using that principle it would appear that if you include a claim  statement that says it applies to statutes but it does not apply to anything else because we've included the one and left out all of the others there's also use them generous which says that if a statute says it applies a list of categories and says that the list is not exclusive then the class of things to which that statute applies will be interpreted to cover things that are similar to it but in this context there is nothing in the statute that says that it's intended to be viewed more broadly than it's written it doesn't say it applies to statutes and other similar items other similar things and act months by local or other governments you simply said statutes and again it would appear that that maxim was violated by applying it to or trying to provide a general ample kept applicable definition that can be applied to used in every instance across the board we're talking about the state of illinois which has identified its own terms and very carefully crafted the words that it used and by example we have the statute on statutes which talks about what rules apply in determining what interpretation what extra things are added into statutes and the statute refers to statutes in themselves for instance if there is something that's due of a saturday for filing the statute on statute says whatever statute requires it to be due on a saturday is automatically extended to the following business day which would be a monday and if this if the black's law dictionary were to be applied and everything that was a legislative enactment  as to be similarly affected then every legislative body from whether it's a township whether it's a county whether it's a state whether it's some sort of administration administrative regulatory body would  therefore be allowed to pull into its wording everything that ever applied to any statutes and we're here contending that the legislature said this is how we want this to be interpreted it applies to statutes and granted there are all kinds of people out there that can use different words to describe things but when we're talking about what the statute says and the statute has definitions then the definitions of the statute should control and it shouldn't be interpreted in a way that's much broader and there are a number of reasons for that which takes me to the next point which is when the legislature wants a word to be broader than the word statute it has the ability to do so ordinance a county ordinance or anything else including statutes so the legislature clearly has expressed an understanding that the word statute has a particular meaning for example when we talk about our compiled statutes  look to the illinois compiled statutes i l c s and when we look there we expect that the word statute means exactly what it says we find the statutes that are passed by a very distinct governmental body in the state of illinois the legislature not cover anything different because the legislature has defined what the word statute means the third reason that i think there's been a violation of statutory construction is that ordinances are not the same as statutes and vice versa statutes are not the same as ordinances they are passed by very distinct legislative bodies if the legislators had wanted the  statute to read in a way that the limitations period of two years would apply to everything they could have said well we would like this to apply to all legislative and act months or we could ask you to describe apply to all the just solution but they didn't because the legislature is ruling on things that are across the board a plausible as a state matter perhaps in the instance of the home rule community the legislatures ruling on things that will affect lesser governmental bodies but in general the state statute or the state legislature is ruling on matters that concern the state in general and if we were to interpret that the word ordinances was the equivalent of statutes there  legislation and statute is legislation we should treat it all the same i would contend first that by definition whenever there's a rule or statute that says that it applies to ordinances on its face that in fact is further evidence of the point that we're making the legislature recognizes that there's a distinction between statutes and ordinances uses the words when they're appropriate doesn't use the words when they're not appropriate and understands how to use general terms when it wants to make it playable across the board  community that has its elected representatives and state legislature the local community as perhaps different elections different concerns and things of that nature but when we have a statute that passes the cross the board would like to that we've got the collective wisdom of the legislators that we voted for from the individual districts deciding things of perhaps a more broad issue and therefore it would be very different i think to say  that when there's a local city council that makes an ordinance that it's somehow the equivalent of the state legislature also ruling without some sort of statutory mandate that says that the city of chicago's legislative process we're dealing with in this case as well the first district and there are i think a number of issues that came up both in the name one opinion and ours that are similar that explain why perhaps it shouldn't just be considered  the name of court and the court ruling here decided that the statute that limits the actions to two years should be interpreted in a way that says that it says statutes only but you know they're pretty similar to ordinances they're all fall rubric of legislation and therefore they should apply the washing apply equally to things and it's our contention that number one you're violating the very first tenant of statutory construction which is apply the rules they're written and the reason i think that that rule is so important is that it gives everybody a little bit of certainty in society which i think is one of the things that the legislature is supposed to deal when you can look at a statute and say i know what it covers and what it applies to and what it does not apply to because it says what it applies to and what it does not apply to then we can all comport our lives in a manner that we can say here's what's expected of me here's what a deadline is here's what  law says i can't do what i shouldn't do what i must always do and by taking that away from us i think that the name or decision as essentially said look your guess is as good as mine if you can come up with a general word that might apply larger across the board to a word like statute to make it apply to other things then let's go ahead and make it apply to everything and it's our contention that not only is it unfair it really takes away i think what the intent of the legislature was as it expressed and it also takes away the purpose of the legislation which is to give us some guidance tell us what the rules are and let us know when we can go forward it doesn't make sense to say that any time you can add in something in it similar to that category it should be added in because those are the other rules of statutory construction that we've talked about if something isn't specific and included it would appear by logic that the other things are excluded unless there's some language that says we want this statute to apply to things in general but it's not limited to these we also wanted to include similar things and there would be language like and the such similar related but there isn't anything in there so in the end i contend that the name record is wrong in saying that you should read a statute to include things because here's what i think the real harm as i talked about all of the problems that come up  kind of a theoretical basis but let's look at the reality of what happens in a situation where you imbue a statute to say things that are specifically not included in there and the idea is you end up with just a mess it means that if you are a person that can come up with an argument that something is a little bit like this and less like that well then that statute should also apply that and we just had i think chaos at that point trying to figure it out would a statutory penalty also mean that a two year limitation should apply to anything that might be viewed as a penalty based on the illinois constitution there are innumerable situations where it's going to come up what about administrative regulation again these are considered to be in some ways very similar items they're passed by bodies that may or may not be elected always but they are nonetheless appointed by the elected bodies they are rules that we are to live by and therefore he could arguably be made arguably be said that these two are legislation i think that we'd all prefer to live in a world where you can look at a statute and say i'd like to read it and know what it says otherwise what other statute is going to be out there that we can imbue with some other word that is specifically omitted from it it would seem to me that it's limitless any time that we're talking about if you've got a lot of prohibits doing certain things in a motor in a vehicle and look to see how the board vehicle is identified and usually there's a definition provided and things like that and we read the definition and we figure it out but if the word vehicle is suddenly applied to say well all these things seem to have wheels and we're going to apply the word vehicle to we're going to imbue that with the meaning that anything with a wheel is a vehicle pretty soon you're talking about well you have a laundry cart that's got wheels maybe somebody that walks down the street with a laundry cart doing something that's violent of of the statute is also violating the the statute and i'm saying let's read the statute the way it's written let's interpret it the way it's written and therefore we'll all know what it is that we're trying to do and here's a couple of other i guess reasons why it's so important in the context of this case five slash thirteen days to go to is written very precisely it in room rates i count seven different items two which i makes the two your limitations apply to personal injury false imprisonment malicious prosecution statutory penalties the want to play ball here abduction seduction and criminal conversation what happens the next time that a court says well there's a two gratian for claims for personal injury why don't we go ahead and apply it says what it really is a claim for a personal injury is a claim for money damages because something somebody committed a tort we should make that a plausible to property damage as well because in the end the very similar things somebody committed to tort somebody is seeking money and they're more alike than the dislike well the answer is i say because that's not what the statute says the legislature was very precise in what it said and the next reason why i think that it shouldn't apply is we can look at other situations where word ordinances are used the word ordinance is used if you look to rule two zero one h of the only supreme court rules one of the rule says we're not allowed to have discovery in cases of ordinances where only a penalty is at issue while this court is ruling that warden it says as a word means the same thing as  statutes then perhaps anytime somebody has a claim that they're seeking to enforce a statute on somebody else a municipality for violation of a statute is that also going to apply to  the to your limitation i'm contending that it should not because by recognizing that an ordinance should be spelled out separately in rule to one h to what discoveries allowed or not allowed this court itself is already recognized that you don't get to use the word synonymously in general the legislature has defined words in a way that you can't use them across the board synonymously either when they wanted to apply differently they used different words when they wanted to or a statute to be applied across the board they used words like enactments that didn't happen in five thirteen two zero two no as far as the second issue whether this is in fact a penalty or not every court to several ruled on the issue has looked to three different points to determine whether a statute that allows extra contractual damages is in fact a penalty does it impute automatic liability while the amount of the damage is automatically calculable by what's listed in the statute as a specific amount and are the damages allowed regardless of actual damages and here we have a situation where the ordinance i think clearly would pass the penalty test on the first factor it's automatic if there's a violation of the ordinance there's a violation and that penalty provision that defendant contends exists as a penalty is triggered but we claim that it's just a remedial matter so the first one i have to give to the defendants but the other two are not because if you look to the ordinance there's no specific amount of money that is awarded when there's a violation rather there's a multiplier effect it says look to how much was that issue in the security deposit and double it and then let people get their attorneys fees as well and every statute that's ever addressed whether something's a penalty or not says look just because you can have a formula doesn't mean that you're actually setting forth what the amount of the damages are there's a difference between having a formula and having a sets the civic amount and the third one is that are the damages that are awarded under the ordinance awarded regardless of the suffering of i'll confess i'm not familiar with that one but i think that the issue that you're raising now is exactly what it is you have to look to what's the overriding effect or the purpose of what's being done here and the in this instance and i think in ninety nine percent of the other instances we're seeking to recover money that was never returned to us of course that's remedial we're out eighty four hundred dollars in security deposit if it isn't returned a we lose thank you  to controlling authority in the first district the namur case and found that this case is controlled by the namur case it is true that the chicago residential landlord tenant ordinance is in part remedial and the state and the courts of the state have so found they have said that there are provisions which are remedial nature and there are provisions which are penal in nature based on the test which was set forth in the mcdonald versus the vine case which wasn't about this ordinance or this issue but set forth basic rules for distinguishing between a provision providing for relief so that we could determine whether that relief was penal or remedial in nature now i'm going to begin perhaps by responding to one of the last comments that was made about the two reasons why the argument is that the first district got it wrong and i have to confess that my burden is lighter than my my learned opponents because all i have to do is persuade you either that this ordinance is within the ambit of section thirteen to allow to the statue  limitations we're talking about and it is and that's what namor says and by the way if i can digress namor is a wonderful decision and it represents i think a very carefully reasoned survey of the in this area and in fact namor goes back to a case from eat hundred eighty eight in which the city of chicago sued someone named ann wright who had a partner named kelly and they were selling wholesaling liquor in the city of chicago without a license and so the city sued mr and right and they said you will us four hundred dollars in change and mr enright said no this is a prosecution a criminal prosecution i'm entitled to a different a shorter statute of limitation and the first district said the same phrase involved statutory penalty they said no this statutory penalty ordinances are statutory for purposes of the phrase statutory penalty and have been since one thousand nine hundred eight that's what a number pointed out black's law dictionary also defines statute as a general category which includes a number of subcategories including ordinances now it is true that from time to time courts will refer to ordinances which are a subclass of statutes as ordinances in order to distinguish them from  innocuous that are passed in the general assembly that is true but that doesn't make them different in nature it doesn't make them different in kind it doesn't justify the notion that we need to separate rules one rule for a penalty that is impose based on what i have seen and that there are some categories within it that we would have the general category of statute which according to the authorities which we cite in our brief what it tends to connote is the that this is a formal written permanent indication of how people are to conduct themselves and that could be just as true of an ordinance as it is  inaccurate here by the general assembly the point we are trying to make here is that there really is a distinction without a difference there is really nothing no reason why a a penalty that is created by an organ should be somehow be entitled to longer statute than one that is created here in springfield it just doesn't make any sense and in fact to the extent that we found that the city of chicago could by simply changing the way that  itself describes its own acton's if they decided tomorrow that they were going to stop calling there enact means ordinances they're going to call them statutes with that create a contrary result where we now because we're focusing on this one word and disregarding statute of limitation it wants if what they're really doing is creating a penalty and they are in this case that that's that's precisely what we're trying i think perhaps not as clearly as you may have said we're trying to point that out that th state is the source of the authority that flows to these other entities and they then utilize that authority to carry out certain administrative functions so i would agree with that there is something that i have to confess when you look at the language we all i think would agree that the rules of construction that we've heard about always seem to begin with the language of the statute itself and it's interesting to note that the last portion of the statute has the last sentence where there was some language added in the i believe it was the only civil rights act of two thousand and six and it talks about compel confessions and actions that might arise at the end there's a carve out however it says however this provision which talks about compel confessions relating to the compelling of a confession information shall not apply to units of local government apparently the general assembly understood that that this section thirteen to go to was are and had been for over one hundred years had been interpreted as applying to units of local government and that's why it was necessary to include this so the notion that we are somehow making a new law by not overturning the first district in this case which was relying on ours so we would be overturning this case the first district now or we would also be an overturning impliedly the case that namor relied on which is the enron case from one thousand nine hundred eighty eight all of which has been undisturbed a case came up before this court in clare v bell which is one of the cases cited in the tough case which by the way as if it's a three page opinion most of it is a quotation of of another opinion which talks about the nature of these criminal proceedings involving parking tickets and it cites only two cases and by the way the the defendant in this case mr tough was pro se so it's not surprising perhaps that this this court didn't have the the the  the benefit of the and right case before it that no one raised that that precedent that no one alerted the court to the precedent which had already decided this issue long long before this case was decided however when the looked at this the first thing they pointed out was that they didn't even address or consider it was one thing if you're going to disagree with that right but you ought at least know what's out there so if this is where we want to go we have a pretty fairly slim read i think in this case to do that one of the cases that cites interestingly though it is in suggesting somehow that there is a difference a fundamental need difference in in nature between an seven construing a statute courts are not confined to the literal meaning of the words used if situations if a situation is within the intention is regarded within the statute although not within the letter conversely the situation within the letter is not within the state this it is not within the statute unless it is within the intention there is we're not bound by blindly or we are not bound to follow rules to the extent that we understand and know that that was never the intention and the fact that the general assembly in two thousand and six felt it was necessary to provide a carve out for local units of government in providing this is amend and i think suggest that they understood that for over one hundred years this provision section thirteen to two has been interpreted as pretty as applying to  municipal ordinances and the city of chicago presumably understands that to the chicago residential landlord tenant act is silent doesn't say anything about a statue imitation but another point you can make is that  now it was decided in one thousand nine hundred eight hundred years after and right and if the general assembly felt that somehow the courts were doing just violence to their intent in section thirteen tool to by applying it beyond the intended scope they could have very easily done the kinds of things the council is talking about here today we submit as a result of those reasons that this is  this ordinance does come within the ambit of a statutory penalty the fact that they use the term statutory to modify than the noun penalty may be nothing more than the mere happenstance that there isn't a convenient adjective that you can make out of the down ordinance i don't know how you take the word ordinance and convert it conveniently into a natural and i think that's why the more general word statutory use is used  the second point though these plaintiffs have not sought and do not seek in this court here today remedial relief the solomon case tells us that the solomon case was a case  where a tenant brought an action under the chicago residential landlord tenant act ordinance excuse me and and basically there was an argument that because they had received a partial refund of the security deposit there should be an offset after they were awarded relief under provisions that punish in our view punish certain types of conduct and the court said no there is no set these provisions that we're talking about here today do not include a return of the actual security deposit in a case where the security deposit is not returned you continue to have under the ordinance we're talking about whatever rights a common law or whatever right you might have to bring a breach of contract action to recover that and in fact if you read the brief it's quite clear they understand or stan that because they have filed an amended complaint after the complaint seeking surely penal relief was dismissed they then filed an amended complaint seeking breach of contract damages and a return of the actual security deposit that action to the extent that you were to affirm the first district they could still timely bring to the extent that that were included in your order but that the relief here is not remedial they are stacking that they claim that there was a because of the late return of the security deposit that triggers one penalty which is defined as two times the security deposit there is no linear relationship no variance that accounts for the actual damages that may or may not have been suffered if the if the payment is made t a return of the security positive one day late it's the same amount of money if it's a year late same amount of money there's no attempt to quantify actual damages and that's because the solomon case tells us if you want actual damages you can still get those you still have an independent cause of action to get actual remedial relief that doesn't go away this is this is penal these are provisions which are designed to punish landlord misconduct not to make the statement by the apple e's that the legislature is hamstrung it has to use the word statutory penalty because there's no other good word to apply across the board i think doesn't really apply here as the legislature already no in the local governmental toward immunity act they use the word enactment when they want to apply when they specifically noted they wanted to apply to ordinances statutes and everything else the word an a know it works and it does the second issue is that the issue about this has to be considered well let me back up the second issue really should be that the idea that this has to be considered a statute and an ordinance have to be the same seems almost to be disputed by the defendant's own argument they note that it's true the courts sometimes to distinguish them between from statutes use the word ordinances when describing ordinances i think that's the my exact point of course the courts use the word ordinances when they want to apply to the word ordinance and of course they use the word statute when they want to apply the word statute that's exactly what the legislature does too they've done it time and again repeatedly and it has to be done because they're not the same thing the mere fact that a court would itself think that it has to distinguish the two i think is proof positive of what we're seeing the word statutory penalty in the limitations period that they're arguing applies by definition would mean it applies to a statutory penalty the third issue is in arguing that there was a penalty provided by this ordinance because there's a formula to give double the security deposit back i think that is a misstatement of what actually is going on it's not possible to recover all of your actual damages in a lawsuit unless there's some extra contractual remedy that is provided and this court has noted it before when talking about the bad faith or delay caused by insurance companies when they refuse to award or pay out on a claim and there's a statute that allows extra contractual damages on that at this point i believe it's sixty percent extra and as we noted in our brief this court had looked at one of the cases unsaid that there is obviously more money being awarded to somebody  the amount of money that wasn't paid out but sometimes you have to give out more than the money that wasn't paid out in order to make somebody whole and in the context of a security deposit i think it couldn't be better explained or better shown because when somebody doesn't a security deposit back to a tenant it's not as if the people are being damaged only by not getting their money back there's a slew of consequential damages that result they don't have the money to put down at another apartment in order to pay a security deposit they might not have the money available in order to pay their credit card or their card bills etc and before you know it every one of the other loans that they have that they owe money on starts tacking on a late charge because they're allowed to under the contract i agree in fact that's one of the things that we asked the lower appellate court to clarify and it did say that it would allow us to proceed i guess in essence a mentor complaint to seek simply the security deposit that we're going after factors that i mentioned because it's impossible just to say where you get more money than you might not have been paid out and therefore it has to be a penalty the three factors are is there a formula that automatically awards or is there a set amount of money that's automatically awarded in this case it's not but the biggest of the factors is the third one where it says are you suing simply to recover money that you are going to use as a windfall you'll receive as a windfall and by example here's one that is a penalty that would come up in the kind of text of the residential landlord tenant ordinance one of its provisions prohibits a landlord from commingling funds on the security deposit with themselves some way of words violate that and he put the money in their general bank account the reason that the ordinance exists and is written the way it does is you don't want a landlord to have its creditors sue and then grab all the money that really is being held for the benefit of the tenant so when the landlord coming goals there's a violation of the ordinance and under the ordinance you're allowed to sue for some of the money in that instance if there was an actual violation but the tenant still received the money it would be one of those no harm no foul situations and yet under the ordinance the ten it would still be allowed to go after a double the security deposit penalty and that might not be absolutely fair that might be a penalty in that instance in this case though as every case it's decided whether something is a penalty or not when it's a little bit mixed up because it's not just your actual damages they always look to see whether it is part of your claim based on actual damages suffered and contrary to what the first district ruled in this decision and apparently namers well there are actual damages suffered this isn't a situation where there was a one day delay in returning the security deposit it's never been returned we're out eighty four hundred dollars above that it's not as if a one day delay gets somebody into trouble as a landlord for not returning it therefore creating a penalty of strict liability you missed by a day there's a forty five day grace period that a landlord has to return the money so here it was you know by definition there's no claim unless there's at least a forty six day delay and that's the point that i'm arguing about where the extra contractual damages might be warranted because the death point if you don't get your money back you don't know if you're getting it back or not in this instance it's been you know six years since it hasn't been returned to us but most people are going to have a real hardship if their money isn't returned to them shortly after it's owed because most people live paycheck to paycheck and as this court ruled in crowd six versus anderson in determining that the consumer fraud act has to have a little bit more teeth it has to let a plaintiff go after somebody recover attorney's fees but it shouldn't let the defendant recover their attorney's fees of profiling party if there wasn't bad faith in the claim because you've got to give the consumers a little bit of teeth in order to protect them otherwise everything's going to be turned up on their heads and things that are intended to benefit them to allow them to get extra damages that might actually compensate them for all the late penalties that they've had to pay elsewhere suddenly becomes a toothless situation and yes we'll be able to continue to go after  the actual security deposit itself but what about the attorney's fees that are involved in trying to get that money back those who are awarded under just the contract itself those are monumental it's going to prevent most tenants that don't get their security deposit back from ever filing a claim and it's going to do it based on the fact that there's a statute that says it has a two year limitations period that applies only to statutory penalties but we're going to make it read much more broadly than it actually says most of the rules of statutory construction that exist and in contravention of all of the enumerated items that are in the statute and all of them that are excluded from the statute and we're going to imbue it with a word that's not there so that everybody has to now in the future guess as to what's a in the statute or what isn't for those reasons your honour's what we're asking for is that you reverse the appellate court and reinstate the case that is allowing us to seek the remedies allowed under the chicago residential landlord tenant ordinance those include the extra amount of money that's recovered for the security deposit and attorney's fees as well in the alternative if you feel that the  statute that exists that has a two year limitations period does apply to ordinances and that this ordinance as it's being applied here is a penalty then we ask that you at least send back the matter to the lower