Court Opinion

ID: 9726668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:03:03.844185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:14:51.590377
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GARCIA, specially concurring: I write separately because I read the supreme court’s decision in Cruz v. Northwestern Chrysler Plymouth Sales, Inc., 179 Ill. 2d 271, 688 N.E.2d 653 (1997), more broadly than Justice Gordon. I also find words of caution necessary regarding the view of our esteemed colleague in dissent. Justice Wolfson’s position, that a rejection notice may be challenged as a nullity where the rejection notice lists one of several findings in an arbitration award, would open the door to more litigation on issues collateral to the claims of the parties. Counsel henceforth seeking to bar rejections would undoubtedly come up with creative arguments to challenge carelessly phrased (or not so carelessly phrased) rejection notices. To open the door to such challenges is, I submit, at odds with the stated objective of mandatory court-annexed arbitration of making litigation less “costly, complicated and time consuming.” Cruz, 179 Ill. 2d at 280. The language the dissent quotes from Cruz, that “ ‘the parties must accept or reject the award in its entirety,’ ” is no barrier to our conclusion that the rejection notice here satisfies Rule 93, (Emphasis in original.) 385 Ill. App. 3d at 627, quoting Cruz, 179 Ill. 2d at 279. In Cruz, the court never addressed the requirements of a rejection notice. The quoted language comes from the appellate court decision the supreme court determined took the correct approach of making clear to plaintiffs that if the relief sought goes beyond that which the arbitrators awarded, the only recourse plaintiffs have is to reject the award in its entirety. Plaintiffs cannot accept the award with the expectation of obtaining additional relief before the circuit court when judgment is entered on the award. The judgment entered by the circuit court may not exceed the arbitration award; plaintiffs cannot cherry-pick the relief granted in the arbitration proceedings; it is all or nothing. Of course, the situation in Cruz involving plaintiffs is not present here. Nor is the situation present here the mirror image of the Cruz situation. Here, there was nothing for Mison to cherry-pick; there was only one relief available to him — to proceed to trial. I submit, the Cruz statement that an award must be accepted or rejected in its entirety means simply what it says — that where a rejection notice of an arbitration award is filed, the notice is a rejection of the award in its entirety. It is of no consequence that the rejection notice lists one, none or all of the findings in the award. This conclusion is consistent with the provision in Rule 93 that “[t]he filing of a single rejection shall be sufficient to enable all parties *** to proceed to trial *** without the necessity of each party filing a separate rejection.” 166 Ill. 2d R. 93(a). That the rejection notice here, however carelessly written, is a rejection sufficient to enable Mison to proceed to trial is in line with the purpose of the mandatory court-annexed arbitration system, meant as an alternative to a civil trial, which a litigant should not be denied simply because his counsel lists the one finding in the arbitration award that pertains to his client. This leads to my last point. Justice Wolfson seeks to prove too much in his claim that “Mi-son’s attorneys *** intended to reject only the arbitrators’ findings with regard to *** the municipal division suit.” (Emphasis added.) 385 Ill. App. 3d at 628. That is a conclusion the dissent draws. Reasonable minds differ as to whether that is the only conclusion that can be drawn based upon the facts the dissent marshals. Irrefutable, however, is the clear intent manifested by Mison’s rejection notice to proceed to trial.