Court Opinion

ID: 9703876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:11:22.704744+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:52.656398
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE SEIDENFELD dissenting: In my view the court below erroneously considered defendants’ successive post-trial motion filed after 30 days of the July 10, 1972, judgment order, and therefore the circuit court acted without authority in vacating its September 21, 1972, order denying defendants’ original post-trial motion. The majority opinion agrees that a successive post-trial motion filed beyond the 30 days does not continue the jurisdiction of the trial court (see Deckard v. Joiner (1970), 44 Ill.2d 412; In re Estate of Schwarz (1965), 63 Ill.App.2d 456; Weaver v. Bolton (1965), 61 Ill.App.2d 98). But it apparently assumes that defendants may properly file or reinstate post-trial motions after 30 days from the July 10 judgment which could otherwise not be considered, due to the fortuitous circumstance that another party has a timely post-trial motion pending. Section 68.1(3) of the Civil Practice Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 110, par. 68.1(3)), however, provides that post-trial motions must be filed within 30 days after entry of judgment or within any further time the court may allow within the 30 days or extensions thereof. There is no exception evident to this rule of procedure that because one party has timely filed his post-trial motion, others need not do so. (Pruitt v. Motor Cargo, Inc. (1961), 30 Ill.App.2d 222; Rosenberg v. Stern (1898), 77 Ill.App. 248, affd, 177 Ill. 437.) When the lower court granted defendants’ motion to vacate filed after 30 days of the July 10 judgment, it acted without authority. Cf. Williams v. Deasel (1974), 19 Ill.App.3d 353, 355. Since defendants’ October 18, 1972, motion to vacate was not filed in apt time, the appeal is not premature. I agree that the payment of the condemnation award did not for procedural purposes dispose of the City’s post-trial motion. Now that the City has appealed, however, its appeal constitutes a formal abandonment of its post-trial motion (Corwin v. Rheims (1945), 390 Ill. 205, 214; Smith v. Glowacki (1970), 122 Ill. App.2d 336, 340; Vogel v. Melish (1962), 37 Ill.App.2d 471, 473) and introduces finality into the proceedings in the cause below. Because the only order below appealed from, tire order of March 13, 1973, allowing defendants’ motion to vacate, was entered without authority, the judgment of July 10 should be affirmed. Defendants are not thereby unreasonably precluded from exercising their right to appeal. Defendants sought to preserve their right to appeal by filing a petition under section 303(e) on November 22, 1972, but indicated both in their petition and in their briefs filed in the present appeal that they did not believe there was an appealable order due to the pendency of the City’s post-trial motion. In effect, we so ruled by denying their petition. The responsibility is on the party seeking to perfect an appeal to submit a record on appeal that reveals finality in the circuit court proceedings. Had defendants wished to appeal, they needed only to have had the court below dispose of the City’s post-trial motion as of record for want of prosecution, mootness or any other appropriate reason. Further, defendants had the right to file a cross-appeal within the time provided by rule from the date of the service on them of the City’s notice of appeal. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 110A, par. 303(a).) Defendants chose not to avail themselves of either route of appeal, but instead persisted in an untimely post-trial motion.