Court Opinion

ID: 9738521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:55:28.74302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:06.725774
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE JONES, specially concurring: I agree that the result reached by the majority is compelled by the La Jeunesse case. Nevertheless, I also agree with the dissenting justices in the La Jeunesse case that: “The facts of life are that unincorporated voluntary associations, as entities, own and control assets worth millions of dollars and wield great power, both economic and political. Their ability to sue and be sued should not depend upon the continued existence of an archaic rule based on a legal fiction.” 63 Ill. 2d 263, 269. It should be recognized that the Judicial Article embodied in the Illinois Constitution of 1970 has abolished the distinction between courts of law and equity so that our state’s circuit courts have “original and exclusive jurisdiction of all justiciable matters.” (Ill. Const. 1970, art. 6, §9.) The purpose of section 9 was to create a single integrated trial court structure (Ill. Ann. Stat., 1970 Const., art. VI, §9, Constitutional Commentary (Smith-Hurd 1971)), thereby vesting the circuit courts with jurisdiction to adjudicate all controversies. Consequently, so long as a case presents a justiciable matter, the circuit court has jurisdiction and whether the action brought is by its nature historically “legal” or “equitable” is an irrelevant consideration. (Lopin v. Cullerton, 46 Ill. App. 3d 378, 361 N.E.2d 6; Stevens v. Protectoseal Co., 27 Ill. App. 3d. 724, 327 N.E.2d 427.) In furtherance of this argument it should be noted that the Illinois legislature by a series of bills adopted in their 1976 session, abolished all statutory reference to the equitable “decree,” substituting therefor the terms “order” or “judgment.” Moreover, the statutory provisions encompassed in chapter 22 of the statutes, “chancery,” were transferred to chapter 110 concerning “practice.” A legal and logical anomaly results when an unincorporated association, such as a union, wielding vast economic power and wealth, and engaging in a multitude of activities reaching into the core of our society, can neither sue nor be sued “at law.” In this regard the majority state: “We add that the potential for near destruction of unions is evident should this rule of suit immunity be abrogated.” With this remark I disagree. It implies that unions can function in society only if they are immune from suit, that if they are held accountable in the law of contract and tort the same as individuals and other business entities they could not survive. The statement is an unwarranted and unrealistic comment upon union purposes and operational methods. I believe they both could and would continue to fully perform their roles in society while being amenable to suits “at law.”