which states in relevant part the form and substance of a summons shall be according to rules that rule here is illinois supreme court will want to th which states in relevant part the someone shall be directed to construction are subordinate to this cardinal rule the plain language of the statute is the best indicator of this the legislature's intent and now because of the statutes language is clear it must be given effect without resort to any a construction here to determine if the emission of the word defendant was one that the prime the court of personal jurisdiction the court is being asked to interpret to dish to a one seat which provides and relevant part a court's jurisdiction is not affected goes on to state that this subsection is declared of existing law up not looking at two to a onesies clear language it identifies three defects which according to the language do not affect the court's do i'm sorry compliance with the new lien acted to two a one c however this interpretation emits the legislative history were an attached cage was initially utilized in the proposed language but was later intentionally omitted in the past this emission from the final version of the law must be acknowledged for its significance we are not free to insert such an interpretation of the legislature sip is simply a minute this court has noted that a summons must stand on it argument places form over substance but plaintiff couldn't be more wrong again we turn to true to a one in which uses the word separate and apart from the word substance when in finding that the form and substance shall be according a legal education benefit of passing the bar higher specifically to prepare assignments pres although plaintiff tries to argue that it's overruled it's not nothing could be further from the truth in fact two  justice jorgensen do you have any questions at this jorgenson sorry i was being so good in what i knew but not forgot to take it off sorry i know i did not say no problem my question is how did this summon that was used here differ from the du page county form provided by the circuit clerk great question or if the new page county form specifically identifies the parties above and below the v as played if and defendant of substance at that we submit barred the court from ever having personal jurisdiction over defendant what what other possible role could your client have had i don't know your honor the and the thing is we're we need to focus on the fact that this is not someone that filed a lawsuit this is someone that's a stranger to any kind of lawsuit this is a foreign speaker so the fact that i bloody like it but counsel respectfully the issue was whether the summons stands or falls on its fate has nothing to do with the educational background would be defended so my question is what other role could she have played in this lawsuit yes thank you i do have some questions mystery monday in your argument you reference this court's decision in the baby holding matter correct yes your right is that case not distinguishable from the fact pattern in this case as i understand an arch baby holding in that case the defendant's name was completely missing from the face of the summons the sec rect that is correct in this case benevides is was identified on the face of the summons was a correct name and correct spelling however she was not on the face of it named as a defendant and that's your essentially argument correct that is correct you're and we talked about substantial compliance rule one hundred and one as we know and we took the clock about the well settled case law that says the court should not elevate form over substance in your argument clearly has this is not doing that but sort of picking up on justice organi point looking at this also through the lens of common sense and logic if somebody is given a legal document a summons that clearly has their name on it list their name spelled it correctly and it's deal with it at all how do you respond to that argument i submit to the court that the the focus should be on who's preparing the summons how can we allow that basically a slippery slope of well substantial compliance of the sun and it could what else could be omitted that would vest the court with jurisdiction because we know under the case law that notice is only part of the purpose of the summit that's also to vest the court w jurisdiction and if a summons fails to comply with the statute here or two to a one c it doesn't accomplish that nd purpose and we also know from the case law that notice of litigation is of fearing to complying with the clear language of the law in the statute let's look at the legal and the factual underpinnings and rationale for some of these decisions i mean i suppose it's plausible to argue that if some but a document arrives at somebodies house even if it looks like a legal document that could be multiple people living there and it doesn't identify who would pertains to you might say well the person might decide hey this really doesn't have anything to do with me but if your name is currently  legal document and clearly involving litigation i think that's a little different than having your name missing completely from the document but those are not questions that i have  thank you just said some mystery monday you said that the one of the purposes of a summons was to see you create jurisdiction within the court and the other was to give notice isn't it true that your client during the course of this litigation well maybe not appearing and filing motions and petitions did actually engage in an attempt to modify the loan as well as  i think what else oh and she then on the day of the sale or the confirmation of the sale she filed bankruptcy yes the history is such that your honor correct so in fact she did have notice and she knew that there was something she could do and she did it isn't that true it is true your honor that she did but the name of that particular entity was wrong it was it did not relate to the defendant in this case so are you saying that  client's name that she has a different name that she is known by no i'm not saying that your honor but what i am saying is in the student over its case queen's park was the common name that was used by the trust was the summons compliance with the law or not as a said one of the other issues is the identity of the defend that justice jorgensen asked you a question and and you didn't answer it but now i'm going to ask a bit more pointed what does your client or did your client at the time of this service think that she was a bank i i didn't ask my client that question or  did did she think she was suing the bank i didn't ask my client that question either did she know that she lived in that house yes rather she knew she that house ok so if you look at the caption there is a bank or a national action star mortgage company some some entity that deals with money and then there are several different persons listed her rita being listed st so if if you just look at the if you look at the summons as we have to do if she is if she's not a bank and although you don't know that tell but i think it's pretty common sense she probably isn't then she she's not bringing the lawsuit she has to respond to the lawsuit which would make her a defendant correct having the benefit of a legal legal education your honor practicing in this area for quite some time i know that believe i believe that just using the the proposition of what it stood for was was fine under the under the case that was cited in the footnote but also in my reply i  do ask the court you know or advise the court that we do acknowledge that it was in on an unpublished opinion but that we want to use the reasoning of the opinion not necessarily the opinion itself well that particular  e twenty three was based upon several other properly published opinions that you could have used why didn't she use those instead we did use the pres opinion your honor i thought it might be prudent to show the i guess that parental continued on in the young cited opinion more recently well as you know i'm sure the supreme court rules including rule twenty three is not an invitation or a or an aspiration it's a rule so i would suggest you not otherwise cite unpublished opinions in the future orders of a circuit court that denied to the defendant appellants motion aquash service and motion to reconsider our arguments are set forth in our brief but there are a few things i'd like to highlight st the defendant brought up the bank united opinion that came down last month and that opinion is directly on point the issues raised bank united by the same allegations that are being raised here that the word defendant was not listed in the caption of a summons and  that the defendant was alleging that his name was not listed following to each defendant on the st page of the summons the court and bank united found that those alleged defects in the summons did not preclude the court from obtaining personal jurisdiction over the defendant and it did so for all the reasons that we argue in our priests which is that of summonses that the summons substantially complied with the form set forth in supreme court rule one hundred and one the court also noted as a score brought up with and question counsel for the purpose of the summons to notify the party that an action had been commenced against him the summons are to be considered liberally and that the court should evaluate form over substance the arguments that were rejected by the court and bake united  the same arguments that are being raised in this appeal the defendant's appeal argues that page one of the summons does not have the word defendant in the caption and that her name is not listed in following the line to each defendant on the st page of the summons however of the sermons has a service that service which that page also has a case caption and the word defendants is listed under her name in the caption the last page also has her name and address right on identified under the police service section on the last page of the summons the defendant acknowledges that her name appears in the camps and on the last page of the summons and the defendant never disputed receiving the last page of the friend and that was being served even if the even if even if that wasn't the summons of service the complaint in the complaint clearly identifies her as a defendant both in the caption and the body of the complaint not the cases where the summons have been found to be invalid are completely different than the allegations in this case that was a situation where the summons didn't name the defendant at all the quote from mark twain was a summons to not name a person on its face and notify him to appear as no summons at all so far as the unnamed person is concerned the summons in this case is quite different someone has the defendant name right on the st page first and last name properly spelled clearly putting her on notice and she's that it's an action against her in addition her name appears on the last page of the summons some of this case just simply is not like the summons in arts day instead it's almost identical to the summons in the with the liberal comes a liberal construction in this case clearly establishes that the summons complied with the requirements of the supreme court rules and the alleged defects are nothing more than a technical error in the form of summons that does not affect this court's jurisdiction therefore we but it doesn't comply with the supreme court rule for it doesn't comply with you page county form and that's just plain sloppy i wouldn't call a slap in the obviously we would have liked to include the word defendants in the of all right let's say that substantial you left out the word some and only one word where do we draw the line you're in this slippery slope between technical deep x and substantive deep x been issued by the clerk of the court the person or entity to be served is identified as a defendant on the summons it doesn't say is identified on the summons it says identified as a defendant on the summon so if we were to exceed to your arguments are we ignoring that plain language what is the purpose of the words as a defendant well the two thousand two hundred and one c says it appears on the summons and if you look at the last page of the summons she does appear as a defendant on a summons the caption lists are name list that the word defendant under her name and then identified her name and address so are some and does comply with to a one c in that the the the language into a one c simply says it has to appear on the summons doesn't necessarily state have to appear on the st page of the summons that is part of the summons page six clearly identified her as a friend and so that's why that section is applicable t have counsel there seems to be in the cases some question about what is the solomons is it the the face page is it the multiple documents attached to it and if you look at ted believe it would be one o one that sets the actual sum and format it doesn't have extra pages for the service of process and things of that nature so how can you rely on the fact that as you say on the last page of the summons it doesn't say it's the part of the summons does it well what is it so you're saying that mr v's got the face page of the summons and she got the entire service list when she was served or when the summons was left at the house absolute with all of the other defendants absolutely and she's never argued otherwise all right you know justice jurgensen asked a very important question why what's the problem with putting plaintiff and defendant on the st page of the document which is the critical one the st page of the summons how does it get left off i'd imagine it would be because of the spacing when you have a lot of parties and you're trying to fit everything into one page and i think i have i think the form from another court also didn't have that same didn't have the word plaintiff and defendant not necessarily for du page put in a different court  i think that's how it happened well i mean you're saying that this summons could be multiple pages five hundred and sixty seven pages so what does it matter if there are a lot of parties didn't you have to go your ear your basic salman's goes to more than one page it's a good question the arch big case had indicated that it had to spend to be on the face of the summons and then because it can be multiple pages that's why the last page of the of the summons does have the word defendants on there because there's more room to fit  all right i don't have any other questions at this time mr monday do you have any reply that you wish to offer yes just briefly your honor the legislative history is is very if the name the fine is listed on a document attached to the summons this subjection is declared of existing law stepped forth by only supreme court infliction of risk open however that that language was changed and specific sections were deleted so in april of two thousand and eighteen the b part or the the the the proposed legislation that left the senate and went into the house read much the subsection is the clear to the existing law not we have to again account for the legislature's intentional deletion of what mr hurd is tries to argue to this court that a death of a page attached to  summons can be considered part of the summons that is not what the final version sets we can't say that now the introductory bill was was declarative of the law that was passed no it went through several months of revision in several different forms now what we also have to account for is the fact that it doesn't say on the face of the summons and here is what i submit because in ohio miller's there are three thousand right so they said ok it's going to be on the summons not on the face of the summons meaning that vacuum action of the summons can go on for ten pages but it still constitutes the summons here they're tryin curtis is trying to argue that that something different than what the legislature in fact discussed accounted for and eventually passed and again there's no proof that the service lists in  jorgensen i do have a follow up question you spoke earlier about us with that we should focus on who prepared the documents these would be who received the that at all i mean how would we consider that she is not an attorney and an attorney did prepare this summons why is that relevant at all then because if we're looking at the issue of the summons your honor some was not prepared by her to someone's was prepared by that i don't know you say you said we should consider her status if she did not understand what this w mean she's not an attorney we're not granted an attorney here simply did not comply with the closest to the two forms available but my question all of the circumstances surrounding this entire case you thank you justice hudson no i don't have any additional questions thank you mr a monday notwithstanding the fact that she was not identified as a defendant she took steps consistent with the notice that she received not as the person suing someone but as the person being sued so hasn't there been the purpose of the the summons served in that there has been notice and she did avail herself of jurisdiction when she filed i would submit your honor that the stand to its case directly addresses the issue of notice and does not equate to or taking steps to settle a case does not equate to personal jurisdiction and that's not and you say your the the the file does not reflect that she received all of the documents the record would not reflect that i believe the the record reveals that there was a return of service and i'm trying to i don't want to speak your honor i believe it begins on page sixty three continues through  all right i'll review that again counsel do you have any of these cases pending in other counties because we have seen you rather frequently hear me do you have seven cook some and you know outlying counties i do not for participating with us here this morning we hope to get back to normal whatever that might be at some time in the future we will issue a decision in due course after considering this matter so we will now stand in recess to prepare for next argument thank you thank you very much thank you