Case Name: THERESA BOCHANTIN et al., Appellees, v. DENNIS PETROFF et al. (Dennis Petroff, Appellant)
Court: Illinois Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Illinois
Decision Date: 1991-09-19
Citations: 145 Ill. 2d 1
Docket Number: No. 70374
Parties: THERESA BOCHANTIN et al., Appellees, v. DENNIS PETROFF et al. (Dennis Petroff, Appellant).
Judges: 
Reporter: Illinois Reports, Second Series
Volume: 145
Pages: 1–12

Head Matter:
(No. 70374.
THERESA BOCHANTIN et al., Appellees, v. DENNIS PETROFF et al. (Dennis Petroff, Appellant).
Opinion filed September 19, 1991.
Rehearing denied December 2, 1991.
HEIPLE and CUNNINGHAM, JJ., took no part.
MILLER, C.J., dissenting.
Ray Freeark and Ransom P. Wuller, of Freeark, Harvey, Mendillo, Dennis & Wuller, P.C., of Belleville, and Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, of Peoria (Gary M. Peplow and Karen L. Kendall, of counsel), for appellant.
Dunham, Boman & Leskera, of East St. Louis (Edward L. Adelman, of counsel), for appellees.
Saul J. Morse, Barbara B. Collins, and Elizabeth W. Anderson, of Morse, Giganti & Appleton, of Springfield, for amicus curiae Illinois State Medical Society.

Opinion:
JUSTICE CLARK
delivered the opinion of the court:
The issue in the instant case is whether the trial court abused its discretion in granting appellees' motion for a voluntary dismissal (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 110, par. 2 — 1009) when a motion for involuntary dismissal (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 110, par. 2 — 619) was pending before the court. We hold that it did not.
On July 27, 1984, appellees Theresa and Matthew Bo-chantin filed a medical malpractice action in the Madison County circuit court. Appellees named Dr. Petroff and Illinois Health Facilities, Inc., d/b/a Oliver Anderson Hospital, as defendants in the action. The hospital was subsequently dismissed from the action upon appellees' motion and is not a party to this appeal.
The record reveals that throughout the early history of the litigation, appellant filed numerous discovery motions with the trial court in an effort to have appellees comply with the applicable discovery rules. These included a motion to compel answers to interrogatories, a motion for pretrial conference seeking court supervision of discovery, a motion to set discovery deposition of ap-pellees' expert and, finally, a motion to dismiss the action. On October 24, 1986, the trial court granted the appellant's motion to dismiss.
However, on November 10, appellees filed a motion for the trial court to reinstate the action, which motion was granted on November 21. Appellant filed another motion to dismiss on January 23, 1987, arguing that ap-pellees' continuing failure to comply with discovery was a violation of this court's Rule 219(c) (134 Ill. 2d R. 219(c)). In its order, the trial court conceded that there had been "substantial delay" by appellees, but denied the motion because compliance was completed prior to the hearing and because the matter was not yet set for trial. Thereafter, appellant attempted to set the discovery deposition of one of appellees' experts but appellees failed to produce the expert for this or any subsequently scheduled depositions. Appellant filed another motion for a pretrial conference, and in its ruling on the motion on March 31, the trial court ordered the expert produced for deposition within 45 days. Trial was also set for November 1988, in the court's order.
The appellees failed to produce the experts by the court-imposed deadline; therefore, on October 17, appellant filed a third motion to dismiss with the trial court. At a hearing on appellant's motion on January 3, 1989, appellees told the court that the expert had not been produced because his employer requested that he not testify in the matter. Appellees indicated to the court that they became aware of their expert's withdrawal from the case in November 1988. The court gave appel-lees 30 days to replace their expert and to identify the new expert to appellant. The order did not include a ruling on appellant's motion.
On January 19, prior to the expiration of the court's deadline, the court entered an order granting appellees 30 additional days to obtain and disclose their expert. On February 3, appellant filed a motion to strike the court's January 19 order, but before arguments were heard on appellant's motion, appellees sought and were granted a voluntary dismissal without prejudice. The appellate court affirmed the order of the trial court. (198 Ill. App. 3d 369.) Thereafter, this court granted appellant's petition for leave to appeal (134 Ill. 2d R. 315). The Illinois State Medical Society filed briefs as amicus curiae in the matter in support of appellant's position.
In this court appellant argues that the trial court should have considered the October 17, 1988, motion to dismiss before ruling on appellees' motion for voluntary dismissal. Appellant believes that the extent of this court's opinion in Gibellina v. Handley (1989), 127 Ill. 2d 122, includes the requirement that a trial court consider pending defense motions to dismiss before a section 2—1009 motion where the record reveals a history of procedural and discovery violations. Alternatively, appellant argues that the trial court's ruling on appellees' motion was an abuse of discretion.
In Gibellina v. Handley, this court stated that a trial court "may hear and decide a motion which has been filed prior to a section 2—1009 motion when that motion, if favorably ruled on by the court, could result in a final disposition of the case." (Emphasis in original.) (Gibellina, 127 Ill. 2d at 137-38.) The Gibellina opinion represented a significant change in a plaintiff's absolute right to voluntarily dismiss his action without prejudice prior to trial. Prior to Gibellina, this right was considered absolute in all but limited circumstances. In O'Connell v. St. Francis Hospital (1986), 112 Ill. 2d 273, 283, this court held that if a plaintiff files a motion to voluntarily dismiss and then refiles pursuant to section 13— 217 in response to a Rule 103(b) motion filed by the defendant, "the Rule 103(b) motion must be heard on its merits prior to a ruling on plaintiff's motion to dismiss under section 2—1009." (Emphasis added.)
This court's decisions in both O'Connell and Gibellina were grounded in our constitutional authority to regulate and manage the courts. (Gibellina, 127 Ill. 2d at 137; O'Connell, 112 Ill. 2d at 281.) Despite this clear mandate, however, only in O'Connell did the court clearly restrict the plaintiff's rights under section 2—1009 and hold that a trial court "must" consider a pending Rule 103(b) motion. The opinion in that matter was based on the conflict between the legislatively enacted Code of Civil Procedure and this court's rules. " '[W]here a rule of this court on a matter within the court's authority and a statute on the same subject conflict, the rule will prevail.' (Emphasis added.) [Citations.]" (O'Connell, 112 Ill. 2d at 281.) There was no comparable conflict in Gibellina. Rather, that opinion, necessitated by the "abusive use of the voluntary dismissal statute" (Gibellina, 127 Ill. 2d at 138; see O'Connell, 112 Ill. 2d at 281-82), clearly left within the trial court the discretion to consider the previously filed, potentially dispositive motion.
Appellant argues before this court that the proper interpretation of this court's opinion in Gibellina is that a trial court must consider the previously filed motion when the record reveals a history of procedural and discovery abuses by the plaintiff. Appellant is incorrect in his interpretation of the extent of the Gibellina holding. What appellant proposes is revision of the Gibellina rule to require determination of the defense motion rather than making the court's authority to do so discretionary. (198 Ill. App. 3d at 374.) As the opinion below observed, "[w]hile we acknowledge [appellant's] concerns, we decline to adopt this proposed interpretation because it would further limit plaintiffs'] statutory right of voluntary dismissal and because [this court] intended to afford discretion to the court, not a mandate." (198 Ill. App. 3d at 374.) The appellate court's interpretation of Gibellina is correct.
Application of the rationale underlying the Gibellina opinion has not been limited to a civil context. In People v. Woolsey (1990), 139 Ill. 2d 157, the trial court allowed the State to enter a nolle prosequi where the defendant had two motions pending before the court, one of which was a motion to dismiss for violation of the speedy-trial act. (Woolsey, 139 Ill. 2d at 165.) The defendant challenged the State's dismissal of his indictment through a nolle prosequi, arguing, inter alia, that the trial court erred in failing to conduct a hearing on his motion for discharge before allowing the State to enter a nolle prosequi. (Woolsey, 139 Ill. 2d at 161.) This court concluded, inter alia, that "[i]n the interests of judicial economy and fairness to the defendant, the trial court should have disposed of the defendant's speedy-trial motion before allowing the State to nol-pros the indictment." Woolsey, 139 Ill. 2d at 170.
In reaching its conclusion in Woolsey, this court observed that it was guided by its decision in Gibellina, where this court held that where there is a potentially dispositive defense motion before the court, "the trial court should consider and decide that motion before allowing the motion to voluntarily dismiss an action." (Emphasis added.) Woolsey, 139 Ill. 2d at 170.
Contrary to this court's statement in Woolsey, which we recognize as merely dicta, we emphasize herein that the GibeUina opinion left within the discretion of the trial court the decision to consider a potentially dispositive defense motion before granting a plaintiff's section 2—1009 motion. Moreover, although the Woolsey opinion relied on Gibellina for support in reaching its conclusion, the facts of that matter are readily distinguishable from this court's opinion in Gibellina as well as the instant case.
Our only other concern then is whether the trial court abused its discretion in choosing not to consider the defense motion. The trial court's decision will not be reversed unless there was an abuse of discretion. The standard of review on appeal is whether the trial court's ruling was a reasonable exercise of sound discretion. (Hernandez v. Power Construction Co. (1978), 73 Ill. 2d 90, 95.) As we observed above, appellees told the trial court during arguments on appellant's October 17, 1988, motion to dismiss that they had only recently been informed of their expert's withdrawal from the case. Granted, this delay on the part of appellees was another in a case replete with postponements and extensions that succeeded in freezing the litigation at the discovery stage. However, the trial court was familiar with the history of the litigation when it ruled on the appellees' motion to voluntarily dismiss the action. We cannot conclude that the trial court's decision to grant appellees additional time to prepare their case for trial rather than dismiss the action was not a reasonable exercise of sound discretion. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court's decision to do so was not an abuse of discretion.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the appellate court.
Judgment affirmed.
JUSTICES HEIPLE and CUNNINGHAM took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.