Court Opinion

ID: 9721492
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:00:43.586925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:26.448474
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE LINDBERG, specially concurring: I specially concur in the affirmance of our earlier decision upon the granting of the defendant’s motion for rehearing. Upon reconsideration of our holding that the judgments on the December 7, 1979, directed verdicts were not properly preserved, I now conclude that they were preserved and should have been disposed of on their merits in our opinion. However, in my original consideration of those issues I concluded, and remain convinced, that the judgments on the directed verdicts should be affirmed on their merits. While appeal of the judgment on the jury verdict was clearly waived for the reason set forth in the opinion, I now believe the judgments on the directed verdicts were preserved under the supreme court’s instructive decision in Burtell v. First Charter Service Corp. (1979), 76 Ill. 2d 427, 394 N.E.2d 380, also relied upon in the majority opinion. I think we should be guided in the instant cause by the holdings of the court in Burtell that the appeal from a subsequent final judgment draws in question all prior nonfinal orders and rulings which produced the judgment; the notice of appeal serves the purpose of informing the prevailing party in the trial court that the unsuccessful litigant seeks review by a higher court; briefs, and not the notice of appeal itself, specify the precise points to be relied upon for reversal; a notice of appeal will confer jurisdiction on an appellate court if the notice, when considered as a whole, fairly and adequately sets out the judgment complained of and the relief sought so that the successful party is advised of the nature of the appeal; and, unless the appellee is prejudiced thereby the absence of strict technical compliance with the form of the notice is not fatal, and where the deficiency in the notice is one of form only and not of substance the appellate court is not deprived of jurisdiction. Burtell, at 433-34. I respect the conclusion that the issue of the plaintiff’s entitlement to prejudgment interest is only indirectly dependent upon the earlier judgments and the failure to include those judgments in the second, valid notice of appeal was of substance and not merely a form. However, I think we should read Burtell more broadly, particularly under a procedural fact situation where only through punctilious judicial research prior to oral argument was the questionable appellate jurisdiction discovered by this court. The appellee proceeded to the day of argument without awareness of this potential defect and therefore was not misled and, in fact, provided the court with a complete and vigorous argument on the merits of each of the issues embraced by both notices of appeal. I do not see how the prejudgment interest was any less substantive in its relationship to the earlier judgment than was the issue of the accounting as to its underlying judgments in Burtell. Nevertheless, having considered the merits of the defendant’s arguments attacking the December 7 directed verdict I would affirm the judgment of the trial court on those issues. Therefore, I specially concur in the original opinion of the court upon the granting of the petition for rehearing.