Title: Smith v. Central Illinois Regional Airport
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 95593
State: Illinois
Issuer: Illinois Supreme Court
Date: November 20, 2003

Docket No. 95593-Agenda 31-September 2003.
RANDELL L.D. SMITH, Appellant, v. CENTRAL ILLINOIS 							REGIONAL AIRPORT et al.,
Appellees
Opinion filed November 20, 2003.
	 
	JUSTICE FREEMAN delivered the opinion of the court:
	This appeal arises from the circuit court's denial of plaintiff's motion
to voluntarily dismiss count III of a multicount complaint. The appellate
court affirmed (335 Ill. App. 3d 1089), and we granted plaintiff leave to
appeal (177 Ill. 2d R. 315). We reverse and remand the matter to the
circuit court for further proceedings.



Background
	On November 22, 2000, plaintiff, Randell L.D. Smith, filed a pro se
complaint(1) against defendants, Central Illinois Regional Airport, The
Prairie Aviation Museum, and The Pantagraph, in the circuit court of
McLean County. Count I of the complaint alleged that each summer,
defendants operated, sponsored, and otherwise promoted a dangerous
airshow near plaintiff's property in Bloomington, Illinois. According to
plaintiff's allegations, the low-flying military and commercial aircraft that
participated in the shows engaged in acrobatic and stunt maneuvers which
were unreasonably dangerous and unnecessary. The aircraft, plaintiff
alleged, along with the loud noises, crowds, dirt, fumes, and other noxious
materials associated with the airshows constituted a nuisance, which "is
dangerous, continuing, and recurrent each summer, and unless enjoined,
will result in continued damage to the Plaintiff and other citizens of the
Bloomington-Normal community and possible death and destruction
caused by a low level air mishap occurring during stunts and air
acrobatics." Plaintiff claimed no adequate remedy at law for his damages
and sought injunctive relief from the court. Count II contained similar
allegations, but sought relief on the theory that the airshow constituted a
common law trespass upon plaintiff's property and requested $3 million
in damages. In count III, the subject of this appeal, plaintiff alleged that
defendants' actions in operating the airshow constituted an inverse
condemnation of his property, with plaintiff seeking $5 million in
compensatory damages.
	On December 29, 2000, each defendant filed a motion to dismiss the
complaint pursuant to section 2-615 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735
ILCS 5/2-615 (West 2000)). Defendants maintained that federal laws
and regulations preempted plaintiff's causes of action sounding in nuisance
and trespass. Defendant Central Illinois Regional Airport also asserted that
federal laws and regulations preempted defendant's inverse condemnation
action. The remaining defendants argued in their respective motions that
plaintiff failed to state a cause of action against them sounding in inverse
condemnation.(2)
	The circuit court ruled on the motions in an order entered on
February 27, 2001. The court dismissed both the nuisance and trespass
counts of the complaint with prejudice. As to count III, the order read as
follows:
			"Count III is dismissed with Plaintiff given 60 days to file
amended Count III, defendants shall reply or motion any
amended pleading within 30 days thereafter."
On February 28, 2001, plaintiff filed a notice of interlocutory appeal,
challenging the circuit court's order with respect to count I.
	While the interlocutory appeal was pending,(3) plaintiff, on April 12,
2001, filed a motion to voluntary dismiss count III without prejudice. After
hearing arguments on the motion to voluntarily dismiss, the circuit court on
May 2, 2001, ruled that count III had been previously dismissed with
leave to file an amendment within 60 days and that 60 days had passed
without such a filing. The court concluded that plaintiff's failure to amend
count III was "determinative" and thereafter denied the motion for
voluntary dismissal.
 	Plaintiff then appealed both the February 27, 2001, and the May 2,
2001, orders of the circuit court. In an unpublished order filed on January
30, 2002, the appellate court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to hear
the case because the order of February 27, 2001, was not a final order
from which an appeal could be taken. Smith v. Central Illinois Regional
Airport, No. 4-01-0388 (January 30, 2002) (unpublished order under
Supreme Court Rule 23). Following the issuance of that order, plaintiff
returned to the circuit court and filed an "Amended Motion to Dismiss."
In the motion, plaintiff asserted that he had an absolute right to a voluntary
dismissal. After considering the motion, the circuit court entered the
following order:
		"The Court rules that plaintiff's Complaint has previously been
dismissed by the Court's Order of February 27, 2000. [sic]
Plaintiff having failed to amend Count III within the time
permitted, Count III is hereby dismissed with prejudice.
Plaintiff's Amended Motion to Dismiss is denied as moot."
Plaintiff appealed, arguing that the circuit court erred in denying his motion
because plaintiff had an unfettered right to voluntarily dismiss count III
pursuant to section 2-1009(a) of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS
5/2-1009(a) (West 2000)).
	The appellate court affirmed, with one justice dissenting. The majority
of the appellate court ruled that once the circuit court dismissed count III,
on February 27, plaintiff could have either amended that count or
accepted the court's dismissal. "However, he could not seek to voluntarily
dismiss count III. Simply put, no matter how unfettered the right to
voluntarily dismiss one's claim, such a claim must exist before it can be
dismissed." 335 Ill. App. 3d at 1092.
	The dissenting justice disagreed, stating that "[u]nder the majority's
logic, [plaintiff] should have filed an amended complaint along with his
motion for voluntary dismissal, so that there would have been a 'count III
to voluntarily dismiss.' " 335 Ill. App. 3d at 1094 (Cook, J., dissenting).
The dissenting justice also believed that the decision stripped plaintiff of his
"unfettered" right to voluntarily dismiss his action. 335 Ill. App. 3d at
1094-95 (Cook, J., dissenting).
Analysis
	In this court, plaintiff maintains that the appellate court's decision
directly conflicts with our opinion in Morrison v. Wagner, 191 Ill. 2d 162
(2000). Echoing the dissent filed in the appellate court, he contends that
he has an absolute right to a voluntary dismissal. Defendants respond that
the appellate court correctly held that plaintiff was not entitled to a
voluntary dismissal under the circumstances of this case.
	This state originally followed the common law rule that allowed a
plaintiff to take a nonsuit any time prior to entry of a decision by the judge
or the jury. However, our General Assembly has, over the years, limited
the common law rule by legislative enactment. See Gibellina v. Handley,
127 Ill. 2d 122, 131 (1989) (explaining history of the right to voluntary
dismissal and section 2-1009). Notwithstanding the legislative additions
of certain limits to the right to voluntary dismissal, our bench and bar still
sometime refer to the right as being one that is "unqualified" or
"unfettered." In our view, such adjectives paint with too broad a brush
because the right to voluntary dismissal can no longer be viewed as
absolute or without restraint. This court has made clear that a plaintiff's
right to a voluntary dismissal carries with it two important qualifications:
		"First, where a previously filed defense motion could result in a
final disposition of the cause of action if ruled favorably by the
court, the court has the discretion to hear and decide that motion
before ruling on the plaintiff's motion for voluntary dismissal.
[Citation.] Second, where the circumstances of the case are such
that dismissal under section 2-1009 would directly conflict with
a specific rule of this court, the terms of the rule take
precedence." Morrison v. Wagner, 191 Ill. 2d 162, 165
(2000).
With respect to the first qualification, this court in 1989 spoke clearly as
to the discretion entrusted to the circuit court when a motion to dismiss has
been filed prior to the filing of a section 2-1009 motion for voluntary
dismissal:
			"[T]he 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. This, of course, does not assure an
automatic denial of the section 2-1009 motion, for it is quite
possible that the opposing party's prior filed motion is without
merit; in that case the subsequent section 2-1009 motion must
be granted. This step by our court is necessitated by the noted
abusive use of the voluntary dismissal statute." (Emphasis in
original.) Gibellina, 127 Ill. 2d  at 138.
Several years later, we emphasized that our opinion in Gibellina left to the
discretion of the trial court the decision to consider a potentially dispositive
defense motion before granting a plaintiff's section 2-1009 motion.
Bochantin v. Petroff, 145 Ill. 2d 1, 7 (1991). In our view, both
Gibellina and Morrison stand for the proposition that a plaintiff's right to
a voluntarily dismissal is not always absolute.
	Defendants insist that the first qualification identified in Morrison is
at play in this case because they had filed motions to dismiss pursuant to
section 2-615 prior to plaintiff's filing of his motion for voluntary dismissal.
We disagree.
	Defendants' motions challenged the sufficiency of the facts alleged by
plaintiff to state a cause of action. Generally, such a motion, if successful,
will not result in a final disposition of the case. That is so because there
exists in this state a policy, long adhered to by our courts, that favors an
adequate and appropriate hearing of a litigant's claim on the merits, and
it is well established that a cause of action should not be dismissed with
prejudice unless it is clear that no set of facts can be proved under the
pleading which would entitle the plaintiff to relief. See, e.g., Brown
Leasing, Inc. v. Stone, 284 Ill. App. 3d 1035, 1045 (1996); Bowe v.
Abbott Laboratories, Inc., 240 Ill. App. 3d 382 (1992). See also 30 Ill.
L. &amp; Prac. Pleading §227, at 195 (1993) (noting that "[w]here a motion
to strike or dismiss a pleading is granted, leave to plead over or to file an
amended pleading is a matter within the discretion of the court. In an
appropriate case, a complaint may be dismissed with leave granted to
plead over, or the plaintiff may seek to plead over within thirty days after
dismissal of a complaint where the dismissal is based on a technicality or
other matter that may be cured by the filing of an amended complaint").
	The circuit court resolved defendants' motions to dismiss in the order
it entered on February 27, 2001. The order stated that plaintiff's count III
was dismissed and that plaintiff would be allowed 60 days leave to amend.
The court's decision to grant leave to amend indicates that defendants'
motions were not final dispositions of the case, and thus it cannot be
considered a final order. In our view, the reasons for characterizing the
order in such fashion are best illustrated by the decision of the United
States Supreme Court in Jung v. K.&amp;D. Mining Co., 356 U.S. 335, 2 L. Ed. 2d 806, 78 S. Ct. 764 (1958). In that case, the district court had
dismissed the complaint on May 10, 1955, and had granted the plaintiffs
" 'twenty days *** within which to file an amended complaint.' " Jung,
356 U.S.  at 336, 2 L. Ed. 2d  at 807, 78 S. Ct.  at 765. The district court
later granted the plaintiffs an extension of 20 more days to file an amended
complaint. No amendment was filed within the allotted time. Rather, after
the passage of about two years, the plaintiffs informed the district court
that they chose to stand on their complaint. The district court dismissed the
action in an order entered March 25, 1957, and the plaintiffs appealed.
The defendant moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing that the appeal came
two years after the district court had issued its judgment. The Court of
Appeals for the Seventh Circuit agreed, holding that "the order of May
27, 1955, became the District Court's final judgment in the case when
petitioners failed to file an amended complaint within the 20 days thereby
allowed for that purpose." Jung, 356 U.S.  at 336, 2 L. Ed. 2d  at 807, 78 S. Ct.  at 765. The Supreme Court disagreed:
			"We think that the District Court's order of May 27, 1955,
denying petitioners' motion to vacate the order of May 10,
1955, but granting further leave to petitioners to amend their
complaint, did not constitute the final judgment in the case. It did
not direct 'that all relief be denied' [citation] but left the suit
pending for further proceedings 'either by amendment of the
[complaint] or entry of final judgment.' [Citation.]" Jung, 356 U.S.  at 336-37, 2 L. Ed. 2d  at 807-08, 78 S. Ct.  at 765-66.
The Supreme Court further noted the following:
			"Although to be sure nearly two years elapsed between the
time petitioners were given leave to file an amended complaint
and their motion of March 25, 1957, the defendants also did not,
as they so easily could have done, nor did the District Court
exercising power sua sponte over its own calendar, take any
step to put a definitive end to the case and thereby fix an
unequivocal terminal date for appealability. The undesirability of
useless delays in litigation is more than offset by the hazards of
confusion or misunderstanding as to the time for appeal." Jung,
356 U.S.  at 337, 2 L. Ed. 2d  at 808, 78 S. Ct.  at 766.
The reasoning behind the Supreme Court's decision in Jung aptly reveals
why Illinois courts have likewise held that such orders are not final. See
Doner v. Phoenix Joint Stock Land Bank of Kansas City, 381 Ill. 106
(1942); Cole v. Hoogendoorn, Talbot, Davids, Godfrey &amp; Milligan,
325 Ill. App. 3d 1152 (2001).
	The foregoing discussion demonstrates why the appellate court
correctly ruled, in its order dismissing plaintiff's second appeal for lack of
jurisdiction, that the circuit court's order of February 2001 was not final.
As the United States Supreme Court made clear in Jung, the February 27
order left only an amendment or a final order as the remaining matter
pending in the suit. In this court, plaintiff contends, as did the dissenting
justice in the appellate court, that because defendants' section 2-615
motions would not have resulted in a final disposition of the case until at
least after the expiration of 60 days, plaintiff enjoyed, up until the
expiration of that passage of time, the unfettered right to take a voluntary
dismissal. Plaintiff argues that he need not have amended count III of his
complaint before seeking the voluntary dismissal.
	Defendants reply that, under section 2-1009, the circuit court had the
discretion to deny plaintiff's motion for voluntary dismissal because the
court had previously ruled on defendants' section 2-615 motions and that
the court's decision to grant plaintiff a finite amount of time in which to
amend reveals that the circuit court considered its ruling on defendants'
motions to be potentially with prejudice.
	In the present case, it is true that defendants challenged the
sufficiency of count III by way of a section 2-615 motion on December
29, 2000, and that the circuit court heard the motion prior to plaintiff's
filing of his motion to voluntarily dismiss. The court had, in fact, ruled in
defendants' favor by dismissing count III. Contrary to defendants' claims,
however, that ruling did not have the effect of a final disposition of the case
because the court made the dismissal without prejudice and gave plaintiff
60 days in which to file an amendment. As we have explained, the order
of February 27 was not a final order. An order striking or dismissing a
complaint is not final until the circuit court enters an order dismissing the
suit. Cole, 325 Ill. App. 3d at 1153-54. See also 30 Ill. L. &amp; Prac.
Pleading §227, at 194 n.11 (1993) (acknowledging that "[a] final
judgment, order, or decree following sustaining of motion to dismiss
complaint should not merely sustain motion and dismiss complaint but
should adjudge, in substance, that plaintiff take nothing and that defendant
go hence without day, or certain words or phrases of equivalent import
and meaning"). We must stress that no such order was entered in this
case. Moreover, the circuit court made clear that no such order would be
entertained until at least after the passage of 60 days. For all we know, the
circuit court might even have allowed plaintiff more time to amend had
plaintiff sought leave to do so. We stress, as the United States Supreme
Court in Jung stressed under similar facts, that the circuit court's order did
not direct that the requested relief be denied but, rather, left the suit
pending for further proceedings.
	In our view, because the order of February 27 expressly left the suit
pending for further proceedings, the order not only allowed plaintiff the
opportunity to amend, but also allowed plaintiff to pursue other options
available to him during this 60-day time frame besides filing the
amendment. Plaintiff could have chosen to stand on his complaint and
sought an order dismissing the complaint with prejudice, as a means of
obtaining a final, appealable judgment. See, e.g., Miller v. Suburban
Medical Center at Hoffman Estates, Inc. 184 Ill. App. 3d 545 (1989);
Schoen v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 77 Ill. App. 2d 315 (1966). He also
could have elected, as he did here, to voluntarily dismiss the count
because the upshot of the court's February 27 order was that the granting
of defendants' section 2-615 motion would be considered to be with
prejudice only after the expiration of the 60-day period. Under these
circumstances, the circuit court should have allowed plaintiff to seek a
voluntary dismissal up until the expiration of the 60-day period to amend.
In its order, entered on May 2, the circuit court stated that plaintiff failed
to act within the 60-day time period. Clearly this was error. We note that
plaintiff's motion to voluntarily dismiss was filed on April 12, 2001, on day
48 of the 60-day time period set forth in the February 27 order. The
circuit court erred in its calculation that the 60-day period had passed
without any action on plaintiff's part. This is not the case where the plaintiff
waited until the sixty-first day to seek voluntary dismissal. Because plaintiff
acted within the period of time left open for amendment, we believe his
right to a voluntary dismissal was intact.
	Were we to hold otherwise, we would, in effect, be requiring a
litigant to proffer an amendment in one hand and a motion to voluntarily
dismiss in the other. We do not believe such actions would serve any
useful purpose. The effect of the circuit court's order of February 27 was
to keep the suit pending for at least another 60 days. In our view, as long
as plaintiff enjoyed the right to amend count III, he also enjoyed his right
to seek a voluntary dismissal.
Conclusion
	In light of the above, the judgments of the appellate court and circuit
court are reversed and the matter is remanded to the circuit court with
directions to allow plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss his cause of action for
inverse condemnation.
Reversed and remanded.
1.Plaintiff has appeared pro se
throughout the course of this litigation.                

2.In the legal memorandum filed by the
Airport in support of its motion to dismiss, the Airport appears to have
abandoned its assertion of federal preemption vis à vis the inverse
condemnation count. In the memorandum, the Airport argued that count III failed
to allege "facts which would support a claim of taking' of plaintiff's
property, for purposes of inverse condemnation."

3.             The appellate court
ultimately affirmed the circuit court's actions in an unpublished order filed
on October 1, 2001. Smith v. Central Illinois Regional Airport, No. 4010168
(October 1, 2001) (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23)