Court Opinion

ID: 9726241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:38:49.278749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:24.467617
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GOLDENHERSH, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. The majority position, I believe, is in error in ways that render its position untenable. First of all, the clear language of Burnett v. New York Central R.R. Co. (1965), 380 U.S. 424, 13 L. Ed. 2d 941, 85 S. Ct. 1050, indicates that the trial court’s ruling was wrong as a matter of law. The Supreme Court in Burnett indicates, relying on Herb v. Pitcairn (1945), 325 U.S. 77, 89 L. Ed. 1483, 65 S. Ct. 954, that an action is sufficiently commenced pursuant to the FELA statute when process has effectively brought the parties into court to start judicial proceedings which could lead to a final judgment without the issuing of new or additional process. The Burnett Court, working from this premise, held that the State action filed in Ohio, dismissed in that State due to improper venue and refiled in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, had effectively tolled the statute of limitations. The Burnett Court, on inquiry of the congressional purpose to be effectuated by tolling the statute of limitations, concluded that the Federal Employers’ Liability Act is a remedial act and that when a plaintiff commences a timely FELA action, as described in Herb v. Pitcairn, that action effectively eliminates the malady for which the statute of limitations exists, forcing a defendant to defend against a stale claim under circumstances in which the plaintiff has slept on his rights. The documentary evidence for defense may no longer be available, and due to the normal passage of time, memories have faded; in essence, defense may be made stale by the passage of time, and defendant, not having been given timely notice within which to marshal its defenses, would be in an unfair position. In the Burnett situation, the Court found that no such unfairness existed and that it advanced the congressional intent of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act to allow the action to proceed. Similarly, these considerations should lead our court to hold that the action in this case should proceed. The initial State action was timely filed, defendant was duly served and put on notice, and the case, if it had proceeded without dismissal, could have resulted in a final judgment. Further, the prosecution of this refiled case would serve the congressional intent underlying the FELA, that is, resolution of these remedial claims, without doing violence to the intent of the statute of limitations, protecting a defendant from stale claims of which it had no notice. The majority, in my opinion, has improperly read the Burnett case by confining it strictly to its facts and not giving sufficient weight to the underlying policy considerations articulated in the opinion. I would further hold the majority’s position that the original complaint did not exist because it was voluntarily dismissed as a fiction, while the Federal cases cited by the majority deal with Federal procedure, South Carolina procedure clearly is not ours, and the only Illinois case cited by the majority, Neuman v. Burstein (1992), 230 Ill. App. 3d 33, 595 N.E.2d 659, does not state that. In Neuman, the question before the court was whether a refiled medical malpractice case would be granted the additional 90 days under section 2 — 622 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 110, par. 2 — 622) to file the appropriate health professional’s affidavit. Nothing in the Neuman case can be expanded to the general proposition that the prior medical malpractice case did not exist, a legal fiction. The underlying policy considerations articulated by the Burnett Court should control the consideration of the instant case by this court since the underlying question is one of Federal law and the articulation of the Federal law principles by the United States Supreme Court should be paramount. (See Klawonn v. Mitchell (1985), 105 Ill. 2d 450, 475 N.E.2d 857; Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. v. Liepelt (1980), 444 U.S. 490, 62 L. Ed. 2d 689, 100 S. Ct. 755.) With the guidance of Burnett, I would reverse the order of the circuit court of Madison County and remand this cause for further proceedings.