Court Opinion

ID: 9744048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:52:37.417675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:46.374333
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE QUINLAN, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision that an award of interest, pursuant to section 2 — 1303 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 110, par. 2 — 1303), on the supplemental judgment entered by the trial court here was mandatory. I believe, contrary to the majority, that this determination, i.e., whether interest on the supplementary judgment is mandatory, is controlled by our supreme court’s decision in Finley v. Finley (1980), 81 Ill. 2d 317, 410 N.E.2d 12. The majority here does recognize that the supreme court in Finley specifically held “that a divorce proceeding partakes so much of the nature of a chancery proceeding that it must be governed to a great extent by the rules that are applicable thereto” and that, accordingly, “the allowance of interest lies within the sound discretion of the trial judge and is allowed where warranted by equitable considerations and is disallowed if such an award would not comport with justice and equity. [Citations.]” (Finley, 81 Ill. 2d at 332, 410 N.E.2d at 19.) However, the majority dismisses Finley here simply by construing Finley narrowly, to apply “only to those cases involving past-due periodic *** payments” (190 Ill. App. 3d at 297) since, as the majority observes, the supreme court must have merely “carved out an exception to the interest statute *** [for] past-due periodic child support payments [on a humanitarian basis].” 190 Ill. App. 3d at 297. Initially, I reject this construction of Finley by the majority because I do not believe it is the prerogative of the appellate court to limit a supreme court’s decision to its particular facts merely because it does not find that court’s ruling particularly compelling. Rather, we, as an intermediate court of review, are required to apply such precedent to all those situations where the ruling is reasonably applicable. Additionally, in any event, here there is nothing in the supreme court’s opinion to give any support to the majority’s gratuitous conclusion that the court was merely carving out an exception to the interest statute, for humanitarian reasons, in the case of past-due child support payments. In fact, to the contrary, the supreme court specifically found that section 2 — 1303 did not apply at all to divorce proceedings since divorce proceedings were in the nature of a chancery proceeding and not similar to actions at law. Finley, 81 Ill. 2d at 332, 410 N.E.2d at 19. Of course, it is also not the function of an intermediate appellate court, such as ours, to alter the law as pronounced by our State supreme court. As the supreme court noted in Rickey v. Chicago Transit Authority (1983), 98 Ill. 2d 546, 551, 457 N.E.2d 1, 3: “[T]he nature of our court system requires that law established by this court’s decision be followed when the question decided arises again before a court. If precedent is not judicially respected, the uniformity and stability of decision, which is essential to the proper administration of justice, will be destroyed. The appellate court panel [here] usurped the function of this court, *** and created a conflict in appellate court decisions. *** [In Beagley v. Andel (1978), 58 Ill. App. 3d 588, 591, 374 N.E.2d 929, 932] the appellate court properly observed: ‘It is fundamental that appellate courts are without authority to overrule the supreme court or to modify its decisions.’ ” We are, thus, in my opinion, without any authority to restrict our supreme court’s decision in the Finley case solely to cases of past-due child support payments involving humanitarian considerations.3 See Robinson v. Robinson (1986), 140 Ill. App. 3d 610, 612, 488 N.E.2d 1349, 1351, where this court followed Finley and held that the award of interest in a divorce proceeding, in spite of section 2 — 1303, was not mandatory but was within the sound discretion of the trial court. Here, I further believe that the trial court properly exercised its discretion in denying an award of interest on the payments that Robert agreed to pay under the supplemental judgment. The supplemental judgment directed that the additional maintenance was to be paid over a one-year period of time and that the monies to be paid as a property settlement were to be paid in three installments. In addition, there was evidence here that the parties entered into another “agreed order” as a supersedeas, pending the appeal of the validity of the supplementary judgment filed by Beverly, which contended that the supplementary judgment itself was unfair and was obtained through coercion. (This court upheld the validity of the settlement, as noted by the majority, in In re Marriage of Morris (1986), 147 Ill. App. 3d 380, 497 N.E.2d 1173.) Moreover, there was also evidence that Robert was, in fact, willing to pay the additional maintenance award and property settlement (although, perhaps, no formal tender was made), but that Beverly was fearful that any such payment might prejudice her then-pending appeal. In fact, Robert did make payments pursuant to the “agreed order” of the parties pending appeal. In any event, based on the record here, the trial court could well have concluded that Robert acted in good faith and had not arbitrarily withheld the payments and that, therefore, interest was not appropriate. (See In re Marriage of Bjorklund (1980), 88 Ill. App. 3d 576, 410 N.E.2d 890.) In such circumstances, under the supreme court’s ruling in Finley, I do not see how this court could find that the trial court abused its discretion. Hence, I would affirm the decision of the trial court and, therefore, I dissent.  I also concur with the trial court, which held that section 2 — 1303 was inapplicable for, as the trial court noted, both of the orders here requiring the making of additional payments had not been “reduced to judgment,” that is, they were not “certain, final and self-executing” judgments for the payment of money. I find that the supplemental judgment was more in the nature of a decree, merely ordering certain types of payments to be made in the future, and thus, similar to orders typically found in a chancery proceeding, and not similar to a judgment for the payment of a fixed and certain sum of money, characteristic of a law proceeding. This difference, in my opinion, renders section 2 — 1303 not applicable to the supplemental judgment.