Opinion ID: 3134286
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 31 of the Statute o[n] Statutes. Pub. Act 89--7, sec. 990, eff.

Text: March 9, 1995. The general severability provision found in section 1.31 of the Statute on Statutes provides: If any provision of an Act  or application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, such invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of the Act which can be given effect without the invalid application or provision, and to this end the provisions of each Act  are severable, unless otherwise provided by the Act. 5 ILCS 70/1.31 (West 1996). Although the presence of an express severability clause is not dispositive of the question, it does establish a presumption that the various provisions of a body of legislation are severable. Jacobson v. Department of Public Aid, 171 Ill. 2d 314, 329 (1996); People ex rel. Chicago Bar Ass'n v. State Board of Elections, 136 Ill. 2d 513, 532 (1990). Moreover, the various provisions of the Act are not so interrelated that one must conclude that the elimination of the provisions struck down by the majority means that the remainder of the Act also falls. Although the majority characterizes the invalid portions of the Act as core provisions whose removal yields an unenforceable residue (slip op. at 80- 81), the remaining provisions are actually substantial measures in their own right that are independent of the provisions invalidated here. In Grasse v. Dealer's Transport Co., 412 Ill. 179, 202 (1952), this court stated: The established rule is that only the invalid parts of a statute are without legal effect, unless all the provisions are so connected as to depend upon each other. [Citations.] If that which remains after the unconstitutional portion is stricken is complete in itself and capable of being executed wholly independently of that which is rejected, the invalid portion does not render the entire section or act unconstitutional. Although all the provisions contained in the Act are related to tort law generally, they are not so intertwined or interrelated that the failure of any one measure, such as the provision limiting the recovery of noneconomic damages, necessitates the corresponding failure of any other measure, such as the provision requiring a certificate of merit in products liability actions. The limit on the recovery of noneconomic damages and the requirement of a certificate of merit function independently of each other, and there is no reason to believe that the legislature would not have enacted one in the absence of the other. Moreover, although the legislature might have viewed the limit on noneconomic losses as one of the most significant parts of the legislative package, the invalidity of that provision does not undermine the operation of the remaining provisions. As this court explained in People ex rel. Dougherty v. City of Rock Island, 271 Ill. 412, 422 (1915):  `If a statute attempts to accomplish two or more objects and is void as to one, it may still be in every respect complete and valid as to the other; but if its purpose is to accomplish a single object, only, and some of its provisions are void, the whole must fail unless sufficient remains to effect the object without the aid of the invalid portion.'  In the present case, whether the Act is viewed as having multiple purposes accomplished in multiple ways, or a single purpose accomplished in multiple ways, I believe that the legislature intended that the measures found invalid by the majority would be severed from the remaining provisions of the Act. The Act itself contains further proof that the legislature believed that any portion found to be invalid would be severable. The provision restoring joint and several liability in medical malpractice actions in the event that the cap on noneconomic damages is found unconstitutional represents compelling evidence that the legislature intended for the various provisions of the Act--or at least the cap on damages, the crux of the majority's antiseverability argument--to be severable from the other. The majority believes that the provision restoring joint and several liability demonstrates that key provisions of the Act are interconnected and mutually dependent upon each other (slip op. at 80) and thus supports a finding of nonseverability. In my view, however, the provision compels the opposite conclusion, for it establishes that the legislature was concerned about the possible invalidation of the cap on noneconomic damages and intended for the remaining portions of the Act to survive any adverse judicial ruling. Clearly, the legislators would not have crafted a response to that contingency if they had thought that a ruling invalidating the limit on noneconomic damages would drag down the remaining provisions of the Act. Whether or not the legislature considered the cap on noneconomic damages to be the most important feature of the Act, as the majority asserts, it is clear that the legislature did not believe that the failure of that measure would doom the rest of the Act. In sum, given the presence of a severability clause in the Act, the ability of the valid measures to stand independently of those found invalid, and the legislature's concern about a ruling striking down a portion of this body of legislation, I would conclude that the provisions found unconstitutional here are severable from the remainder of the Act.