our next case on the call the docket is case number one one zero eight eight six in the interest of haley d a minor people in the state of illinois calendar says ralph hall and fully agenda number six your honor so this court should reverse the decision of the appellate court and affirm the underlying decision of the circuit court this case concerns the proper proper application of section two days fourteen a one of the illinois code of civil procedure procedure provided for review from judgments here respondent filed a timely two fourteen zero one petition alleging or searching that the underlying judgment against him terminating his parental rights was either personal or subject matter jurisdiction but and that's consistent with this court's precedent in the ford motor company in marriage of mishal mitchell in johnston versus city of bloomington the circuit court had jurisdiction to enter the april fourteenth two thousand and four judgment defensing a respondent indeed responded concedes this point on appeal and that even the appellate majority agree that the circuit court had jurisdiction to enter the underlying order and that's consistent with the case law the court required personal jurisdiction over responded in the juvenile case when responding was served with the summons of the neglect petition initially as well as or in the alternative when respondent showed up in court and attended some court hearings and the court has subject matter jurisdiction runs once the general assembly created the juvenile court act this court has held jurisdiction over responded and had the subject matter jurisdiction should resolve all issues that were fairly related to the juvenile court proceeding where you are i think that the record seems to permit that that conclusion and i think that's a very important point even by the time the two forty one petition in the circuit court ralph never responded never argued i didn't have notice responded are you would my car broke down i was on my way to the courthouse admittedly there is some ambiguity in the record in because the hearing that responded mr zabel fourteen and the motion to two fourteen zero one petition affidavit attached respondent says i was on my way to the cross on april fifteenth and my car broke out the attorney's letter also used the april fifteenth one four two fourteen zero one petition filed routh is asserting called problems child care problems not lack of challenge it relied on equitable considerations considerations of fairness in deciding that ralph was responding was deprived of notice the respondent was deprived of notice and therefore the judgment should be vacated under section two fourteen zero one the political application and use of its equitable power in that circumstance is inconsistent with this court's decision specifically the line of cases beginning with people vs vincent if nothing else even if equitable considerations may arise in the other two fourteen zero one circumstances such as perhaps considering whether the party diligence it certainly does not apply when judgment is even if this was i'm to consider respondents for their arguments those arguments and again respondent never contends those arguments show that the order was void of all and that he otherwise met the requirements under two fourteen  cases where there is a due process violation correct your honor and that begins with this court's people versus davis decision in which the court specified parties have rights that should not be violated but if those rights are there may be circumstances where a violation of due process shows that there was a lack of personal jurisdiction for instance if the orders are entered in a case in which the court never originally obtain jurisdiction over the party jurisdiction and a violation of the due process that is not you know maybe of a constitutional magnitude it's not a jurisdictional magnitude and again argument is that a constitutional violation may not be reversible under the under the proper procedure it's just that it is not boyd just purely void and of no effect and that's consistent with among other cases this court's decision again and people versus davis which i think spell this out and also consistent with the breadth of criminal cases where you could have parties who are imprisoned based on a violation of constitutional rights both a member writes something like that and if they don't adequately procedurally raise their claims but he cannot yet effective relief as a result the point of that is simply having a constitutional violation does not deprive the jurisdiction of j recognized the plain language of two fifteen does three ruhleben does not govern what papers shall be certain it governs if papers are going to be served this is proceedings but if you choose to do so you need to get you need to still comply with the rule eleven requirements otherwise a more expansive reading of rule eleven as having some sort of substantive effect in terms of specifying which papers shall be filed would permit the exception to completely swallow completely swallow the general assembly's plain language for going plain language it says this notice is not required in these cases moreover the general said we did not incorporate this court's rule one o four and one hundred four is the rule that specifies which documents need to be served on parties ru present party you can serve up by mail or by personal delivery by fax if agreement except it's a method of serving documents that are required but in it's of itself is not an entitlement to service of any documents explicitly clear and respondent never brings it never makes any counterargument to the notion that what about what of the effect of one of four and the and the general sin was decision not to provide any party for an entire month received documents the other language the foregoing language up to fifteen days three specifically says they are not so entitle ruhleben provides that if a party chooses to provide those documents you should do so in accordance with will love and i want to add a certainly not the state's coliseum to not serve parties with documents something happened in this case i think the record is unclear as to why perhaps service was not if service was in fact not a factual did though again as we were discussing before the parties never claimed they would notice and it is certainly not a policy of the state to not provide not personal service or a boat service but yeah on this mother ok you know in this case if you have or have not been that service if there had been noticed by publication then would there had to been another publication because  yes then the point would be the court not news jurisdiction even if there was a defect i think that if there is action that says you still have to serve overseas or personally of some papers have some papers by personal service certified mail or publication again greater than regards right and so when the general assembly meant there to be specific service of specific documents in certain situations it made that the broad rule you know for specific circumstances but the general principle is under two fifty three you don't get noticed that's the overarching you don't get further notice that's the overarching rule and it has to be construed  considering all these together of course these provisions have to be construed and construed as provisions together to keep in mind again that we have the best interest of the child is the ultimate goal to which we're working in these proceedings and the fact is sometimes when you service on or they might be hard to actually get these documents but the general said we didn't want that to delay the proceedings to enable the court the juvenile court to effectuate the best interest of the child in this case here for and even though there's a fundamental interest in your children and not having parental rights terminated without due process of law the only way you get that is set aside is under two fourteen  offense just saying i'm a father and my rights were terminated without any notice to me without due process is not will not correct he has to establish an end to this would be support from this by life this is with the university of hearing motion but in the underlying action here to raise something as to fourteen zero one contingent that say due process violation is not america or is and stuff but i didn't get notice i didn't get an opportunity to respond to do anything correct much like a simple complaint so you would have had allegations in that complaint that would have suggested that he did have a defense to determination itself absolutely and one very quick point on that your hon morning or may please the court my name is michael whelan and i represent the respondent ralph it is a well established principle that parents have a right to purchase spirit in the lives of their children the us supreme court has defined it is an essential right and in this case the record is clear in undisputed the state never attempted to notify ralph of his of the petition to terminate his parental rights no he did not use i cannot know i understand that your honor and i don't have any justification for those letters nor do i have an explanation unfortunately i was obviously i can look at the record and i see exactly what you see a termination of parental rights so yes i i think tried to make it very clear about the exclusionary clause and at the end of that i don't think that the general assembly intended on writing a statute that would deprive allows the state to have the minimal requirements of due process so for instance in this case ralph has lived in the same home since one nine hundred seventy four all the state would have to do is send a notice to him tha and i would even go as far as to say that if faxes have been between the between attorneys notification by fax would be sufficient as well as the petitions term that ralph was filed and set for status ruled on and orders were entered without him ever having notice of it now the state argues that these are are not necessary anymore that the that the general assembly abrogated these rights however i don't believe that that could be permissible at all i don't think that the due process that has been ensconced in this country could allow something like that to happen and i believe that the the notice of finding that notice was required or else you or was void which is what your position basically when they have rendered twelve fifteen three language about notice changes and with meaningless no would not because again i believe that the general assembly was attempting to minimize as the state has stated on a number of occasions minimize the expense minimize the amount of diligence that is required they set forth the minimum requirements in order to serve somebody with a with further notices and further here have hearings in their in their case and in this instance i believe that the state failed completely if you look at the record they they did serve the mother and they actually went to great lengths to do so  the natural mother the sheriff had gone to her home the sheriff had gone to a facility the trysting at for drug problems only after all of those methods had been attempted to the state file an affidavit for publication they then  asked the court for for the trial court for leave to file via publication which was given but it was never given forward the father the father was never mentioned in any of these hearings the father was never mentioned in any of the motion civil in a civil case you would file your motion for  correct however i believe that the when they amended it from the the goal from return home to terminations the charges changed so it would be as if in a civil action if somebody met had a contract claim nor this court would say that you have to file a new are having someone served and go through all those other processes i think that would be there would be an exaggeration of what we need to happen however  not however i do believe that notice must be given before you could take away somebody's property rights or somebody so if you speak in the language of jurisdiction you agree that personal jurisdictions established over the father i don't believe that we have ever disputed that then the fact that he did not receive the knows that you believe is required generally speaking that is required to what end where does that take this is it you fourteen i want to force you know one case it says generally there is a very important word there and it says generally you may not have it the only way to make an order boyd is without proper subject matter or personal jurisdiction the word generally in that i think is the is the key word in that entire case because it no point has has there been a hard and fast rule where this is the only way and i would think that in many other cases it has been found the due process waits any judgement so i'm saying that they did the lack of due process was an infringement upon his constitutional right and therefore the order must be void then it's a void because because you don't have personal just fiction so it is it is a concept that that this action would void personal could be void is based upon it lacking a personal or subject matter jurisdiction then i would actually say yes however i believe that if you do not have due process if the process is not if you have not lived to the minimum requirements of due process t believe that meant i believe without due process you cannot have personal that jurisdiction over something but i believe that then the city of chicago versus american national bank it's i can say i call it the in one case i believe in that case the court held that yes there was process served on a gentleman five years down the line our number of years down the line they entered a judgment against them the property that disputed r t changed hands a number of times the court said yes your personal jurisdiction because we had personal jurisdiction from the very start however he was never notified of any of the subsequent hearings so he never thought anything was going on anymore because you know he transferred the property in that case the court said this order is void because you do not have a right to enter orders that affect people's property without first notifying them and giving them an opportunity to hear to be heard mr roland this let's talk about where you're not you're not making an argument in any form that this is facial should be read in order to try to limit any constitutional questions if in fact the statute is read in the way that the state has read it that no notice is required on any on any party for any reason i think that that would be const that we would have a constitutional issue that what exactly does that mean i asked you earlier about the where that it would seem that this is surplusage it means nothing if indeed it would w correct but it also again contemplates that notice must be provided in order to in order to meet the standards of due process and that would be except as otherwise provided by rule eleven and i  that if that provision if the exclusionary clause that i as i've called it if the exclusionary clause is not present then we do have a constitutional problem because what the state could do and i believe i've gone through i believe i said in the brief is that th state could have secret proceedings they could serve a party with a petition to terminate with the return home and never give that party another notice of any motion or any hearing for that for the entirety of the case at that point you're giving the state the unfettered access to to dispose of these cases without any any sort of a test on a rule on rule of and how do you address the state's argument that eleven c doesn't seem significant is that ruling generals are in for the talk about the kind of motors record in the words all paper seems to be referring to all papers that have to be filed but does not answer what papers have to be filed i think  hope i get there are going to write i believe that all is all encompassing i believe that all means what it says i believe that when the courts promulgated those rules it understood that all means every paper that's filed in the court not all of the papers says it wants to not just some of them but exactly as it reads all of them and they must be served on each individual part and this is actually this is actually a theme throughout this case because if you if you look at the motion to withdraw filed by the natural mother s public defender she doesn't notify ralph either throughout this entire case things are just not being sense rough and what is upsetting i guess about that is that he was the only one that was showing up these hearings when he would get an order he would show up he would have somebody showed up he hired counsel counsel the remedy i think that's been suggested here is that when he filed  he could have resented his allegations as to why in fact he had a defense termination he could explain why he was a good father and why he was not unfit that he chose not to do that is to correct and i believe that but i believe that that is a burden shifting approach and if your constitutional rights are violated you should not be shifting the burden to another party and i believe in in the savage case to i'm sorry the fuentes case is well you can't start shifting the burden to the party that did nothing wrong so what you would end up doing is you would be providing the state with all of the defenses and i believe that one of the one of the requirements is having an evidentiary hearing with evidence or at least affidavits of the defenses that you're going to be providing now in this case i know that ralph is not a man of means and he could not afford all of these steps going forward and i'm sure that many parents in this position are not do not have the means to go forward either so at that point you're shifting the burden to having two trials on this you're going to have to have your trial your for to know one trial evidentiary hearing if you will and it will have to describe and have evidence and you have to call these people in and have testimony then if the judge if the trial court term is that yes he might have he might have the defense then we have to go through the discovery process then we have to go through all these other processes and it just becomes financially unfeasible for a man such as roe it's true all moment what's wrong with sending justices analysis where she indicates that  one of the problems is because then you're putting in upon the trial court to make a decision on his past rulings so you're saying to the trial court that it is avoidable the station so then we bring our fourteen oh then we bring a motion to reconsider and then we're stuck again in the appeals process again we have  in issue of if it is avoidable decision then we have to prove our defenses we have to go through meritorious defenses we have to go through all those other levels where further a due process violation is a void makes it a void order if you do not have the requisite well that to be quite frank i don't totally understand that argue because i mean her position is the majority erred where they went any further than say personal jurisdiction everybody agrees therefore it can only be voidable and void so to say that it has to be void because if it has to be void because if you determine that it voidable we have to go through these extra hooves i don't understand how that makes it void because you have to go through regular hoops therefore it is void rather than board no maybe i probably wasn't clear on that it is void because it is a violation of your constitutional right to  process plain and simple be it not only is it a federal right but it is also a state right and both the federal courts and this court has held that violations of your due process rights in many cases are void in this case it is one of those cases because we're talking about about eight eight eight the lives of a parent to be in with the child and raising an upbringing it's an essential right is not just a protective  know but what i can say is on the on the fourteenth the the hearing occurred on the fifteenth is when there affidavits in their letters stated that they were scheduled to be there obviously if they didn't even have the right date and i think that is a very important thing i believe that they had some point probably did have not necessarily notification of what was occurring but i think that i think that they knew that i mean ralph knew at some point petition was going to be filed the terminated from threats he knew he knew that that was going to happen at some point in the future now the state told him that he would and they would notify him of when this was going to be but they never did what happened subsequent to the fourteenth and in the letters in the the in affidavits i unfortunately don't want to comment too much just because i can only look at the record and see this thing never tempted notice and he  the consequence of that was he didn't have a forty one petition and determination of judgments parental rights iow i what happened in the interim i don't know except that i know that they did not attempt service or notification at all mr  has just to clarify or help me understand your argument but i think you are arguing that lack of personal or so of our personal jurisdiction is not the only basis for a work of finder judgement boy that is correct but then you also argue earlier in response to a question that lack of due process resulted in lack of personal jurisdiction i believe and that of course are a lot of cases a personal jurisdiction order is void you have when i said that you don't have the the the person it would be personal jurisdiction if there is not you know to due process i think what is it incumbent upon is that the due process argument itself makes the void just one other point is the ex parte nature of it and i think that the second district clearly was very clear in that it was unjust unfair neck and neck rule thank you thank you thank you your honors a few quick points opposing counsel doesn't like the word generally and the ford motor credit company case this is the first time he's raised this as in his brief on appeal he never cited or discussed for motor credit company or at a situation where there was a failure to provide required notice under the juvenile court act after a original summons had already been served on the parties of the court had originally acquired personal jurisdiction and the court said that failure of notice of subsequent terminations for terminations proceedings mr lerner we have said however and i agree with what you said michel i think that was  a correct reflection on those cases but we have said that a criminal sentence that is outside the statutory range in exceeds the authority that exceeds the already the court is therefore void without any mention of jurisdiction less problematical at all in this kind it's not problematic in this context the outside of the authority of the court and the relationship with that notion to jurisdiction is a murky area i think in mistake but those mistakes even be they of a constitutional dimension and in a criminal proceeding you're not result in a void order a lot of times coarse language after they undertake an analysis of what happened will say this was wrong analysis and insofar as it's not reconcilable and i think that this court in those in the ford motor credit company might have cases made clear that there are inconsistent decisions out there there is bad language out there and this is the standards that we operate going forward mr lay or yes if i understand the argument by mr coleman he's saying that the voidness is grounded in the due process violation correct and you position and i want to make sure i've got this right is that the statute doesn't require any further notice that's correct so my lovely take this is step at a time if it doesn't require any notice then there's really not a mistake as you just argued because it's not required correct so how if the statute is to be read that way and we we know that the us supreme court has said sometimes he versus kramer that parents in a terminations proceeding are protected by due process because there's a fundamental liberty interest if you never have to give them notice he could hold determination here in every single case under the statute under that construction never notify a parent of any hearing how is due process satisfied under that kind of sept of fundamental liberty in without going through the entire matthew versus outage analysis as they stand here and these are you going to situations where there was an issue all service of summons these parties were apprised both of the fact that they are not entitled to further notice and the consequences of these proceedings is not a situation in which the government conducted secret secret secret proceedings where they were never told the party of even the existence of these court cases these people had noticed from the beginning of what could happen are you saying that a notice on that or that disclaimer says you're not going to get any notice even of terminations parental rights of action that satisfies due process i'm saying that that is that that factors in if sir if service of summons is provided and the notice of the proper notifications are given and there is a sense how does someone have that meaningful opportunity to keep up with the case they have to camp out the courthouse every day if you never ever send a notice and i must say that happens a lot of the construction if we take the statute away you virtuous that there's no requirement how would you how would you as a parent defend your rights as a parent i ideally if i had i would have an attorney present at the hearings and again they can have an appointed attorney in these cases they fired their investment fired the court appointed attorney you know you don't need to have private counsel but i would take advantage of and this factors into i think the due process and co you have appointed counsel there and i say you ask counsel to keep up with it you can also call the clerk's office you don't necessary have to camp out at that witnesses call every week every day just say no to the construction that says there's no notice for the notice required to get an essay that happens right but if i understand struction how do you deal with that how is there a meaningful due process opportunity the doesn't require twenty four hour vigilance on case i want to turn it is it is certainly difficult and i think that in fact ultimately that that end or that possibility when a rise so we because  too many problems in the state doesn't want to complicate matters further by conducting secret proceedings and not having and not voting no it is this situation this alleged lack of notice here complicated this matter he was thriving with her foster parents it is not in the state's best interest in this case to ignore that and so i don't think that there's a realistic chance of that and scenario actually happening  in any sort of real world you know you don't ever really too much time to discuss this but i asked a question to mr allman regarding and i think we're getting there getting to that now whether or not you know this court determines regardless of the statute that it's a due process violation in every case in which there is no notice given of a determination proceeding does that leave us with addressing whether or not the statute is spatially unconstitutional ultimately decides that there could be the state you could possibly lead to a violation due process and that violation due process could be of a jurisdictional magnitude such as to render an order void than the counsel he's number one one zero eight eight six in the interest of haley d a minor by the people the state of illinois versus ralph l is taken under advisement as agenda numbers