Court Opinion

ID: 9525327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:02:13.006631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:14:22.876598
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WARD, dissenting: I join in Justice Goldenhersh’s dissent. I would add that the majority avoids the embarrassment of disclosing that this court no fewer than four times has unsuccessfully sought to convince the legislature of the unwisdom of the provision that we are again considering. Under our constitution’s direction (Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, sec. 17) that the supreme court make legislative recommendations to the General Assembly, this court in 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1986 urged that “Section 7(a) of the Workers’ Compensation Act should be reconsidered.” Each year the court set out in detail the provisions of the statute and described the court’s holding in Interlake, Inc. v. Industrial Com. (1983), 95 Ill. 2d 181. In our last recommendation we referred specifically to the case now before us and to the appellate court’s holding that under section 7(a) the plaintiff was entitled to continuing benefits. This of course followed the interpretation of this court in Interlake. The General Assembly, however, was not swayed by these persistent recommendations. This court, in interpreting a statute has held: “Where the legislature chooses not to amend a statute after a judicial construction, it will be presumed that it has acquiesced in the court’s statement of the legislative intent.” Miller v. Lockett (1983), 98 Ill. 2d 478, 483. Sutherland on Statutory Construction (1984 revision) cites the holdings that “legislative inaction following a contemporaneous and practical interpretation is evidence that the legislature intends to adopt such an interpretation.” (2A Sutherland, Statutory Construction sec. 49.10, at 407 (4th ed. 1984).) Sutherland states further: “Where action upon a statute or practical and contemporaneous interpretation has been called to the legislature’s attention, there is more reason to regard the failure of the legislature to change the interpretation as presumptive evidence of its correctness.” (2A Sutherland, Statutory Construction sec. 49.10, at 408 (4th ed. 1984).) Here the interpretation in Interlake has been formally called four times to the legislature’s attention. The disregard by the legislature is to me a long and clear signal that the holding in Interlake expresses the legislative intention. I fear that some will say, however incorrectly, that the majority’s holding reflects a nearly obsessive effort to reach a result that the majority considers wiser than that intended by the legislature.