Court Opinion

ID: 9740264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:31:14.85713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:17.166256
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARING Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE ROMITI delivered the opinion of the court: Defendant, Seymour Gerber, has filed a petition for rehearing in which he, for the first time, contends that plaintiff’s failure to file an amended complaint within the time allowed by the trial court was an election by the plaintiff to stand on her stricken complaint, citing People ex rel. Scott v. Carriage Way West, Inc. (1980), 88 Ill. App. 3d 297, 410 N.E.2d 384, and therefore the dismissal was properly with prejudice since it operated as an adjudication upon the merits. In Carriage Way the plaintiff did more than fail to plead over within the time permitted; it brought a mandamus action challenging the circuit court’s striking of its complaint. Likewise, in the two cases cited by the court in Carriage Way, Campbell v. Harrison (1973), 16 Ill. App. 3d 570, 306 N.E.2d 643, and Brainerd v. First Lake County National Bank (1971), 1 Ill. App. 3d 780, 275 N.E.2d 468, the plaintiff’s election to stand on the stricken complaint was evidenced not merely by failing to file an amended complaint but by appealing not only from the order dismissing the cause of action but from the order striking the complaint and arguing the merits of the complaint on appeal. Plaintiff here did none of these things. Furthermore, until now, defendant has never treated the plaintiff’s act as an election to stand on the complaint, nor was the February 22, 1980, motion one under section 45 for judgment on the pleadings. On the contrary, defendant in his motion alleged that there was no complaint on file and sought a dismissal solely on the grounds that plaintiff had not filed an amended complaint within the time set by the court. Nor, when the plaintiff on appeal contended that a dismissal for want of prosecution could not be with prejudice, did the defendant, at any time in its brief, deny that the dismissal was for want of prosecution. We believe it is abundantly clear from the conduct of both parties throughout, that both understood that the final dismissal on February 22 was for failure to comply with an order of the court. Accordingly, the petition for rehearing is denied. Petition for rehearing denied. JOHNSON and LINN, JJ., concur.