Court Opinion

ID: 9741515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:57:07.989717+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:24.159623
License: Public Domain

CHIEF JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting: The trial judge in the present case granted the plaintiffs’ request for voluntary dismissal of their action without first considering a pending and potentially dispositive defense motion for involuntary dismissal. I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial judge’s ruling may now be sustained on the ground that it did not constitute an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, I dissent. A brief review of the 4V2-year history of this litigation in the circuit court will demonstrate the merits of the defendant’s position. The plaintiffs filed the present medical malpractice action in 1984. In October 1986, the trial judge dismissed the suit because the plaintiffs had failed to disclose the identity of any expert witness. The action was later reinstated when the plaintiffs submitted the names of two expert witnesses. In January 1987, the defendant filed a second motion for dismissal of the action, contending that the plaintiffs had failed to respond to supplemental requests for production and supplemental interrogatories propounded some six months earlier. The plaintiffs submitted answers to the discovery requests at a subsequent hearing, and the trial judge then denied the dismissal motion, though he noted that the plaintiffs had been responsible for substantial delay in the proceedings. In October 1988, the defendant filed a third motion for dismissal, this time on the ground that the plaintiffs had failed to set the discovery deposition of Dr. Allan J. Jacobs, one of the expert witnesses previously identified by the plaintiffs. In November 1988, the plaintiffs learned that Dr. Jacobs’ employer would not permit him to appear as a witness in the present case. Following a hearing on January 3, 1989, the trial court entered an order granting the plaintiffs 30 days in which to disclose the identity of a new expert witness. The order also declared that no further extensions would be allowed. On January 19, 1989, the trial court granted the plaintiffs an additional 30 days’ time in which to name a new expert witness. Apparently there had been no request by the plaintiffs for a further extension of time, however, and on February 3 the defendant filed a motion to strike the latest order and to reinstate the previously imposed deadline. On February 15, 1989, the plaintiffs filed a motion for voluntary dismissal of their action pursuant to section 2—1009 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 110, par. 2—1009). The trial judge granted the plaintiffs’ request on February 23, 1989. In Gibellina v. Handley (1989), 127 Ill. 2d 122, this court held that “the 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 138.) The holding was applicable to all potentially dispositive defense motions, and not just to those grounded in a specific rule of this court (see O’Connell v. St. Francis Hospital (1986), 112 Ill. 2d 273). The novelty of Gibellina is indicated by its purely prospective operation: the court declined to apply the new holding even to the cases consolidated in that appeal, electing instead to limit the effect of the decision to trial court proceedings conducted on or after February 22, 1989, the date on which the opinion was filed. Applying Gibellina to the present case, the majority concludes that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in granting the plaintiffs’ request for voluntary dismissal without first considering the defendant’s prior motion. In support of this conclusion, the majority opinion notes that the trial judge was aware of the history of the litigation when he granted the plaintiffs’ motion. In my view, the majority’s holding is subject to two major defects. First, it is not at all clear that the trial judge realized that he had any discretion to exercise; the trial judge might have believed instead that he was compelled to grant the plaintiffs’ request for voluntary dismissál, as he would have been required to do prior to Gibellina. Nothing in the record indicates what circumstances, if any, were considered by the trial judge in allowing the plaintiffs’ request for dismissal. The record on appeal does not contain a transcript of the February 23 hearing, and the order entered that day stated only that the motion was being allowed, without specifying any reasons for that ruling. Though applicable to the present action, Gibellina apparently was not considered by the court or the parties during the hearing on the plaintiffs’ request for voluntary dismissal. Indeed, it seems that Gibellina was first brought to the court’s attention in the defendant’s subsequent motion for reconsideration; the wording of the motion suggests that, at the time of the February 23 hearing, the trial judge and the parties were not aware of the decision in that case, which had been filed only the previous day. Second, even if we are to assume that the trial judge and the parties believed that the present case was governed by Gibellina, I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that granting the plaintiffs’ request for voluntary dismissal was not an abuse of discretion. In deferring to the lower court’s ruling, the majority merely cites the trial judge’s familiarity with the course of the present litigation. That circumstance will be present in virtually every case, however, and I do not believe that our reliance on it can afford adequate guidance concerning proper practice under section 2—1009. Discussing the growing abuse of the voluntary dismissal statute, this court noted in Gibellina that “an ever increasing number of plaintiffs are using a section 2—1009 motion to avoid a potential decision on the ‘merits’ or to avoid an adverse ruling as opposed to using it to correct a procedural or technical defect. [Citations.]” (Gibellina, 127 Ill. 2d at 137.) The consequences of that abuse are readily apparent. As this court explained, “It has become clear that the allowance of an unrestricted right to dismiss and refile an action in the face of a potentially dis-positive motion is not only increasing the burden on the already crowded dockets of our courts, but is also infringing on the authority of the judiciary to discharge its duties fairly and expeditiously.” Gibellina, 127 Ill. 2d at 137. The case at bar illustrates well the frequent abuse of the voluntary dismissal statute and the resulting burdens that are being imposed on litigants and courts in this State. In requesting dismissal of their action under section 2 — 1009, the present plaintiffs were not seeking to correct a mere procedural or technical defect in the proceedings but instead were attempting to avoid an adverse ruling on the defendant’s pending motion. This is the type of problem highlighted in Gibellina. Short of adopting a bright-line rule that would in every case require a trial judge to consider the merits of a potentially dispositive defense motion that has been filed prior to a plaintiff’s request for voluntary dismissal, this court should provide meaningful standards by which the priority of those competing motions may be readily determined. The majority’s decision in the present appeal can only lead to confusion among bench and bar regarding proper practice under section 2 — 1009. Justice Frankfurter’s observation is apt here: “Litigation . is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess.” (City of Indianapolis v. Chase National Bank (1941), 314 U.S. 63, 69, 86 L. Ed. 47, 50, 62 S. Ct. 15, 17.) Faced both with crowded dockets and with diverse demands on scarce resources, the judicial system should be curbing, rather than encouraging, dilatory trial tactics. Today’s decision simply holds in check the eventual resolution of this much-delayed action and deprives practitioners and the lower courts of any guidance with respect to these recurring problems.