Illinois Official Reports 

Appellate Court

Schroeder v. Post, 2019 IL App (3d) 180040

Appellate Court 

Caption

RUTH J. SCHROEDER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DOUG POST,

Defendant-Appellant.

District & No. Third District

Docket No. 3-18-0040

Filed January 18, 2019

Decision Under 

Review

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Iroquois County, No. 17-L-12; the 

Hon. James B. Kinzer, Judge, presiding.

Judgment Affirmed.

Counsel on

Appeal

John A. Denton, of Godin, Denton & Elliott, P.C., of Momence, for 

appellant.

Tony L. Brasel, of Bourbonnais, for appellee.

Panel PRESIDING JUSTICE SCHMIDT delivered the judgment of the 

court, with opinion.

Justices Holdridge and McDade concurred in the judgment and 

opinion.
- 2 - 

 OPINION 

¶ 1 Defendant, Doug Post, appeals from the trial court’s denial of his motion asking the court 

to reconsider its October 2017 order in a forcible entry and detainer action in favor of plaintiff, 

Ruth J. Schroeder. In that order, the court awarded plaintiff possession of the premises and 

damages in the amount of $62,726, which included $27,000 in holdover damages. We affirm. 

¶ 2 BACKGROUND 

¶ 3 We take the following facts from the parties’ agreed statement regarding the evidence and 

testimony presented during the October 2017 bench trial. 

¶ 4 Plaintiff, defendant’s aunt, owned an undivided 75% interest of the approximately 200 

acres of land in Crescent City, Illinois, that is the subject of this lawsuit. Her brother, Robert 

Post, defendant’s father, owned the other 25% of the land. Defendant farmed the land on a 

cash-rent basis for several consecutive years. When defendant failed to pay plaintiff the total 

amount of rent due for the 2016 crop year (he still owed $6866) by October 2016, plaintiff gave 

him written notice of termination of the lease agreement and demanded that he quit and deliver 

up possession of the property on or before February 28, 2017. 

¶ 5 Robert did not agree to terminate defendant’s farm tenancy. He instructed defendant to 

continue farming the land even after defendant received plaintiff’s notice. Defendant 

continued to farm the land during the 2017 crop year without plaintiff’s consent. During the 

2017 crop year, defendant made no payments to plaintiff. 

¶ 6 Following the parties’ arguments, the trial court awarded plaintiff possession of the 

premises and ordered defendant to pay damages in the amount of $62,726 plus costs ($6866 for 

2016 rent and $55,860 for 2017 rent). The 2017 award includes holdover damages pursuant to 

section 9-202 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Code) (735 ILCS 5/9-202 (West 2016)). 

¶ 7 Thereafter, defendant filed a motion to reconsider, asserting that the court erred in 

awarding plaintiff (1) possession of the land that she did not prove belonged to her and 

(2) double damages where defendant “mitigated damages, saved waste, and there was no 

finding of bad faith” by continuing to farm the land in 2017. Following a hearing, the court 

denied defendant’s motion to reconsider finding that Daugherty v. Burns, 331 Ill. App. 3d 562 

(2002), controlled the outcome. The court also stated: 

“And I also find that [defendant’s] behavior was sufficiently wrongful and not 

sufficiently colorable to avoid the penalty aspect of the holdover statute. The penalty is 

in there to keep people from holding over, and if there’s no penalty imposed here, any 

tenant out there can simply say I’m not getting off the property. The worst that can 

happen is I farm it for next year and have to pay the cash rent that I would have paid last 

year despite the fact that perhaps insurance goes up 5 or 10 percent. So his behavior 

here was sufficiently wrongful as I said and not sufficiently colorable to avoid the 

penalty aspect of a holdover statute.” 

¶ 8 Defendant appeals. 

¶ 9 ANALYSIS 

¶ 10 On appeal, defendant argues only that the trial court erred in awarding plaintiff holdover 

damages. 
- 3 - 

¶ 11 Section 9-202 of the Code governs holdover damages. It provides: 

“Wilfully holding over. If any tenant or any person who is in or comes into possession 

of any lands, tenements or hereditaments, by, from or under, or by collusion with the 

tenant, wilfully holds over any lands, tenements or hereditaments, after the expiration 

of his or her term or terms, and after demand made in writing, for the possession 

thereof, by his or her landlord, or the person to whom the remainder or reversion of 

such lands, tenements or hereditaments belongs, the person so holding over, shall, for 

the time the landlord or rightful owner is so kept out of possession, pay to the person so 

kept out of possession, or his or her legal representatives, at the rate of double the 

yearly value of the lands, tenements or hereditaments so detained to be recovered by a 

civil action.” 735 ILCS 5/9-202 (West 2016). 

Essentially, the holdover statute permits a landlord to recover double the yearly value of the 

lands that a tenant “willfully holds over” after the tenant received written notice demanding 

possession upon expiration of the parties’ lease. See id. 

¶ 12 While the statute does not define “willful,” our supreme court long ago noted, “when the 

lease ha[s] expired according to its terms, the holding over, although intentional, is not within 

the statute, unless it was knowingly and willfully wrongful; that where the tenant continued to 

hold under a reasonable belief that he was doing so rightfully, he does not incur the penalty.” 

Stuart v. Hamilton, 66 Ill. 253, 255 (1872). “[A] tenant is not to be charged double rent under 

the holdover statute if [he] remains in possession of the premises for ‘colorably justifiable 

reasons.’ ” Wendy & William Spatz Charitable Foundation v. 2263 North Lincoln Corp., 2013 

IL App (1st) 122076, ¶ 43 (quoting J.M. Beals Enterprises, Inc. v. Industrial Hard Chrome, 

Ltd., 271 Ill. App. 3d 257, 261-62 (1995)). 

¶ 13 We review a trial court’s determination regarding whether a landlord is entitled to holdover 

damages under the manifest-weight-of-the-evidence standard. J.M. Beals Enterprises, 271 Ill. 

App. 3d at 260; Hoffman v. Altamore, 352 Ill. App. 3d 246, 250 (2004). “A finding is against 

the manifest weight of the evidence only if the opposite conclusion is clearly evident or if the 

finding itself is unreasonable, arbitrary, or not based on the evidence presented.” Best v. Best, 

223 Ill. 2d 342, 350 (2006). 

¶ 14 After reviewing the record, we find that the manifest weight of the evidence supports the 

trial court’s award of holdover damages. In Daugherty, the court held that a year-to-year 

tenancy terminates “in its entirety once unanimous consent to continue the tenancy no longer 

exists.” Daugherty, 331 Ill. App. 3d at 570. In other words, Daugherty made it clear that one or 

more joint owners of property may terminate an oral lease agreement without the unanimous 

consent of all joint owners. We find no reason to disagree with the Daugherty court. 

¶ 15 Here, it is undisputed that plaintiff, a joint owner of the farmland at issue, terminated the 

oral lease agreement by giving defendant written notice in October 2016. It is also undisputed 

that defendant ignored plaintiff’s notice of termination and continued to farm the land during

the 2017 crop year while paying no rent. Based upon the evidence, the trial court reasonably 

concluded that defendant had no reasonable belief that he rightfully possessed the land in 2017. 

¶ 16 CONCLUSION 

¶ 17 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of Iroquois County. 
- 4 - 

¶ 18 Affirmed.