Title: Dardeen v. Heartland Manor, Inc.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 85917
State: Illinois
Issuer: Illinois Supreme Court
Date: April 15, 1999

Dardeen v. Heartland Manor  (Ill. S.Ct.) 
Docket No. 85917-Agenda 11-January 1999.
Opinion filed April 15, 1999.
JUSTICE McMORROW delivered the opinion of the court:
At issue in this appeal is whether an amendment to section 3-602 of the Nursing Home Care Act
(Act) (210 ILCS 45/3-602
(West 1996)) should be given retroactive effect. Prior to the amendment, section 3-602 required a
licensee to pay treble damages
plus costs and attorney fees to a facility resident for a violation of the resident's rights under article
II, part 1, of the Act (see 210
ILCS 45/2-101 et seq. (West 1994)). Public Act 89-197 (Pub. Act 89-197, §90, eff. July
21, 1995) repealed the treble damages
provision contained in section 3-602, limiting recovery for violations of the Act to actual damages,
costs, and attorney fees.
The trial court granted defendant's motion to strike the portion of plaintiff's complaint requesting
treble damages. Pursuant to a
motion by plaintiff, the trial court also certified the following question of law to the appellate court,
as provided in Supreme
Court Rule 308 (155 Ill. 2d R. 308):
The appellate court, Fourth District, answered this certified question in the affirmative. 297 Ill.
App. 3d 684. The appellate court
held that the amendment to section 3-602 constituted a remedial act of the legislature which only
changed the nature of the
damages that may be recovered by a plaintiff under the Act. Because the amendment did not interfere
with a vested right, the
appellate court held that it was appropriate for the statute to be applied to pending claims arising prior
to the effective date of the
amendment. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Alma Head was a resident of the Heartland Manor Nursing Home, which was owned and
operated by defendant, Heartland
Manor, Inc. On June 25, 1997, plaintiff, Iris Dardeen, as administrator of the estate of Alma Head,
filed in the circuit court of
Clark County a multicount complaint against defendant, alleging that defendant violated the Nursing
Home Care Act (210 ILCS
45/1-101 et seq. (West 1994)) by negligently causing Head's death on June 26, 1995.
Count I of plaintiff's complaint, which is
the only count at issue in this appeal, alleged that Head developed serious respiratory problems one
week before her death, and
that, although defendant was aware of Head's medical condition, it negligently failed to provide Head
with necessary medical
treatment until June 25, 1995. The complaint indicates that Head died of bronchial pneumonia on
June 26, 1995. Count I of the
complaint alleged that defendant's negligence was a proximate cause of Head's death.
The prayer for relief in count I of the complaint requested an award of treble damages pursuant
to section 3-602 of the Act (210
ILCS 45/3-602 (West 1994)). At the time of Head's death, section 3-602 allowed awards of treble
damages for a nursing
home's negligent failure to provide adequate medical care when this failure resulted in a physical
injury to a resident. Section
3-602 read as follows:
Effective July 21, 1995, section 3-602 of the Act was amended by Public Act 89-197 (Pub. Act
89-197, §90, eff. July 21, 1995).
This amendment repealed the treble damages provision. As amended, section 3-602 provides:
The amendment included no savings clause preserving treble damages for pending cases, nor did
it contain provisions addressing
whether the amendment's application was to be prospective or retroactive.
Based upon the amendment to section 3-602, defendant filed a motion to strike the prayer for
treble damages in count I of
plaintiff's complaint. On November 13, 1997, the trial court granted defendant's motion. In a docket
entry, the trial court judge
noted that plaintiff's complaint was filed over two years after the date of the repeal of the treble
damages provision, and found
that "no vested rights are involved because plaintiff had not perfected her claim by filing suit before
the law was changed. A
vested right is an expectation that is so far perfected that it may be equated with a property interest
and cannot be taken away by
the legislature; that is not the circumstance here."
The appellate court, Fourth District, accepted the question of law certified by the trial court, and
answered this question in the
affirmative. Relying upon this court's decision in First of America Trust Co. v.
Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d 282 (1996), the appellate
court rejected plaintiff's contention that she had a vested right in the recovery of treble damages for
her negligence cause of
action under the Act. Citing to Armstead, the appellate court observed that amended
laws are applied to existing controversies
where no vested rights are involved, either because such rights are not yet perfected or because the
amendment is procedural in
nature. 297 Ill. App. 3d at 686. Because the amendment to section 3-602 "merely change[d] the
nature of the damages that may
be recovered," and because there is no vested right in any particular remedy or procedure, the
appellate court held that it was
proper to apply the amended statute to plaintiff's suit. 297 Ill. App. 3d at 686. In arriving at its
conclusion, the appellate court
disagreed with the decisions in Hernandez v. Woodbridge Nursing Home, 287 Ill. App.
3d 641, 642-46 (1997), and Weimann v.
Meadow Manor, Inc., 285 Ill. App. 3d 455, 457-59 (1996), in which the First and Fifth
Districts of the appellate court had
answered similar certified questions in the negative, thereby allowing the plaintiffs in those cases to
pursue treble damages.
We granted plaintiff's petition for leave to appeal. 166 Ill. 2d R. 315.
ANALYSIS
In First of America Trust Co. v. Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d 282 (1996), this court held
that the application of new legislation to
pending suits or preexisting causes of action is governed by "the law that applies by its terms at the
time of the appeal, unless
doing so would interfere with a vested right." Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d  at 289. Vested
rights are "interests that are protected from
legislative interference by our due process clause (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, §2)."
Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d  at 289. Although "[w]hether
a particular expectation rises to the level of a vested right is not capable of precise definition"
(Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d at 290), a
right has not vested until it is "so far perfected that it cannot be taken away by legislation," and so
"complete and unconditional"
that it "may be equated with a property interest." Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d  at 290-91.
We explained in Armstead that "where an amendment does not reach back and
interfere with vested rights, there is no truly
retroactive impact." Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d  at 289. However, where an amendment takes
away or impairs vested rights acquired
under existing laws, or creates a new obligation, imposes a new duty, or attaches a new disability in
respect of transactions or
considerations already past, an amendment is retroactive. Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d  at 290.
Thus, this court concluded in Armstead
that "[w]here no vested rights are involved, either because they are not yet perfected or because the
amendment is procedural in
nature, the amendment can be applied to the existing controversy without any retroactive impact."
Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d  at 290.
At issue in this appeal is whether applying the amended section 3-602 to plaintiff's pending cause
of action would affect a vested
right within the meaning of Armstead. The First District, fourth division, and the Fifth
District of our appellate court have
concluded that application of the amended statute would impair a plaintiff's vested rights to treble
damages under section 3-602
prior to the enactment of Public Act 89-197. See Hernandez v. Woodbridge
Nursing Home, 287 Ill. App. 3d 641 (1st Dist.
1997); Weimann v. Meadow Manor, Inc., 285 Ill. App. 3d 455 (5th Dist. 1996). Both
Hernandez and Weimann found it
significant that the amendment was enacted after accrual of the plaintiffs' causes of action and after
the plaintiffs had filed their
complaints. Those courts ruled that the plaintiffs' right to recover treble damages had been perfected
and thus amounted to a
vested right. Hernandez, 287 Ill. App. 3d at 645; Weimann, 285 Ill. App.
3d at 458. Hernandez found it additionally significant
that under the preamended version of section 3-602, a plaintiff proving simple negligence could
recover treble damages.
Characterizing the treble damages award as a form of punitive damages, the Hernandez
court observed that, as a result of the
repeal of the treble damages provision, a plaintiff was required to meet the traditional standard of
proving willful and wanton
misconduct to obtain punitive damages under the Act. Consequently, the court found that "the
amendment amounts to a
substantive change in the law and should be applied prospectively." Hernandez, 287 Ill.
App. 3d at 645.
In the cause at bar, the appellate court explicitly disagreed with the holdings in
Hernandez and Weimann that the plaintiffs had a
vested right in the recovery of treble damages, and rejected the reasoning that the timing of the filing
of the complaint was
determinative in assessing whether a plaintiff possessed a vested right in the treble damages remedy.
Instead, the appellate court
ruled that because "[t]here is no vested right in any particular remedy or procedure," it follows that
"[a] change in law affecting
the remedy or procedure will be employed without regard to whether the cause of action accrued
before or after the change in the
law or when the suit was instituted unless there is a savings clause as to existing legislation." 297 Ill.
App. 3d at 687.
Additionally, the appellate court disagreed with the conclusion in Hernandez that
because the amendment of section 3-602
foreclosed a plaintiff from recovering treble damages upon proof of simple negligence, as opposed
to proof of willful and wanton
misconduct, the repeal of the treble damages provision constituted a substantive change in the law.
The appellate court, citing to
this court's decision in Harris v. Manor Healthcare Corp., 111 Ill. 2d 350, 366-67
(1986), observed that the treble damages
remedy available under the former section 3-602 and an award of punitive damages constituted
different and distinct remedies
under the Act. 297 Ill. App. 3d at 687. Therefore, because a plaintiff always had to prove willful and
wanton misconduct to
recover an award of punitive damages, the appellate court concluded that no substantive change in
the law occurred as a result of
the amendment.
Similar to the appellate court in the instant cause, appellate panels in the Second and Third
Districts have also explicitly rejected
the reasoning employed in Hernandez and Weimann, and have concluded
that a plaintiff has no vested right in seeking treble
damages. See Ditsworth v. Kankakee Terrace Partnership, 298 Ill. App. 3d 544 (3d
Dist. 1998); White v. Sunrise Healthcare
Corp., 295 Ill. App. 3d 296 (2d Dist. 1998). Disagreement has also occurred within the First
District of the appellate court. The
second division recently ruled in Parker v. Illinois Masonic Warren Barr Pavilion, 299
Ill. App. 3d 495 (1998), that the holdings
in Hernandez and Weimann "do not accord with
Armstead," and that section 3-602 of the Act "is related solely to a remedy and
does not affect a vested right." Parker, 299 Ill. App. 3d at 507. In sum,
Ditsworth, White and Parker all hold that because the
amendment to section 3-602 affects only the procedures and remedies used to enforce a plaintiff's
rights, the provisions of the
amended section apply to pending causes of action brought pursuant to the Act.
  According to plaintiff, the appellate court in the matter at bar erred when it found that the repeal
of the treble damages provision
in section 3-602 of the Act constituted a remedial act of the legislature which did not deprive plaintiff
of a vested right. Plaintiff
urges us to adopt the reasoning of Hernandez and Weimann, and thereby
allow her to recover treble damages pursuant to the
preamended version of section 3-602.
We hold that the amendment to section 3-602 of the Act repealing the treble damages provision
is related solely to a remedy and
does not affect a vested right. As explained in Armstead, not all expectations rise to the
level of vested rights. Where a statutory
amendment is procedural in nature, no vested rights are involved, and the amendment is properly
applied to an existing
controversy. Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d  at 290. It has been well settled for over a century
that, prior to judgment, a plaintiff has no
vested right to a particular method of procedure or remedy such as the treble damages authorized
under the former section 3-602
of the Act. See, e.g., Woods v. Soucy, 166 Ill. 407, 414 (1897);
Chicago &amp; Western Indiana R.R. Co. v. Guthrie, 192 Ill. 579,
581 (1901); Orlicki v. McCarthy, 4 Ill. 2d 342, 346 (1954). Furthermore, this court has
specifically held that a plaintiff has "no
vested right *** to exemplary, punitive, vindictive or aggravated damages." Smith v.
Hill, 12 Ill. 2d 588, 595 (1958). Because no
vested right is affected, the application of the amended version of section 3-602 to plaintiff's pending
suit is proper, irrespective
of when the cause of action accrued or the complaint was filed.
Plaintiff contends that the legislature's abolition of the right to recover treble damages pursuant
to section 3-602 "deprive[s]
[her] of a substantial right of action." According to plaintiff, the statutory amendment "alters the
elements to be proved in order
to recover" on her claim, and denies her the opportunity "to recover punitive damages upon proof
of negligence *** as opposed
to proof of intentional or wilful misconduct." Contrary to plaintiff's assertions, the repeal of the treble
damages provision by the
legislature as a result of Public Act 89-197 does not interfere with plaintiff's substantive right to
recover against defendant for
violations under the Nursing Home Care Act. In order to recover under the Act, a violation of a
resident's rights, as enumerated
in part 1 of article II of the Act, must be established. See 210 ILCS 45/2-101 through 2-113 (West
1996). The grounds for
recovery have remained unchanged both before and after the amendment to section 3-602, and,
therefore, plaintiff's substantive
rights have also remained unaffected. Furthermore, plaintiff's claim that she has been deprived of a
substantive cause of action
because the amended section 3-602 raises the burden of proof a plaintiff must meet in order to
recover punitive damages is
misplaced. The repeal of one of the remedies available to plaintiff under the Act does not deprive
plaintiff of her cause of action.
As stated, the amendment alters neither the substance nor the elements of a violation under the Act.
The amendment to section
3-602 pertains only to the remedies available to plaintiff once plaintiff has proved her cause of action.
Under the amended version
of the statute, plaintiff may recover actual damages and attorney fees upon proof of defendant's
negligent violations of the Act,
and may additionally recover common law punitive damages upon proof of willful and wanton
misconduct on the part of
defendant.
Plaintiff's reliance on Hogan v. Bleeker, 29 Ill. 2d 181, 187 (1963), is unavailing.
Hogan is factually distinguishable and
inapposite to the cause at bar. Unlike the plaintiff in Hogan, plaintiff in the cause at bar
has not suffered a deprivation of vested
rights as a result of the application of the amended section 3-602 to her suit. As explained above,
plaintiff's right to pursue her
cause of action under the Act is unaffected by the amendment, and several remedies remain available
for enforcement of plaintiff's
rights.
It is well established that a plaintiff has "no vested right in the mere continuance of a law."
Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d  at 291. It is
likewise well established that "[t]he legislature has an ongoing right to amend a statute."
Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d  at 291. The
legislature has exercised this right by eliminating the statutory provision for treble damages in section
3-602 of the Act and by
not including a savings clause as to existing litigation. This statutory amendment does not infringe
upon a vested right possessed
by plaintiff, as it only alters the remedies available for plaintiff's cause of action. To the extent that
Hernandez and Weimann hold
otherwise, those decisions are overruled.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that amended section 3-602 of the Nursing Home Care
Act does not affect vested rights.
Accordingly, the amendment is to be applied to pending claims arising under the Act. The judgment
of the appellate court is
affirmed.
Affirmed.