Court Opinion

ID: 9716498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:42:13.90021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:46.015009
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, specially concurring: I concur in the court’s conclusion but not in the reasoning leading to that conclusion. I do not think it is necessary to consider whether the amendment to the statute is retroactive in order to resolve the question presented here. Nor is it necessary to label the amendment “curative” in order to justify service in this case. My view is that we are venturing into uncharted areas by deciding that the legislature is authorized, in the name of curative legislation, to affect the outcome of a judicial action pending prior to the enactment by approving procedures followed prior to the enactment. I submit that there is a much less circuitous path to the conclusion the majority reaches. The majority approves of the service of summons on Gabriel which occurred prior to the May 29, 1985, hearing. That service is the significant event for purposes of the issue raised in this appeal — termination of parental rights — as far as I am concerned. After that service was completed none of the parties objected to any of the previous proceedings, including the prior judicial declaration that Gabriel was a ward of the court. From that point on I would regard the parties as having waived objections to orders previously entered. (See In re J.W. (1981), 87 Ill. 2d 56, 62 (where mother of juvenile appeared in court and actively participated in the proceedings without objection, she waived formal service of process and submitted to the jurisdiction of the court).) Moreover, it is a questionable practice to permit the respondent, Gabriel’s parent, to assert that the circuit court had no jurisdiction over Gabriel when Gabriel, through his court appointed guardian ad litem, does not contest the court’s jurisdiction over him and is apparently willing to waive formal service of process. In any event, proper service was effected and jurisdiction vested in the circuit court for the termination proceedings at issue in this case. It is clear that we can reach the same result the majority does without the necessity of applying the amendment to the statute as a “curative” effort.