Court Opinion

ID: 9739850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:22:19.977945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:14.261456
License: Public Domain

Supplemental Opinion On Denial of Rehearing Attorney Lowell Myers in his petition for rehearing requested that this court clarify its opinion by specifying that its decision will apply only to the taxpayers who appealed from the order of the circuit court setting attorneys’ fees and that the order of the circuit court is final as to the 63 taxpayers who did not appeal from that order. This request is not in accord with the holding of the opinion. The judgment of the trial court found that reasonable attorneys’ fees in this case is a sum of money equal to 15% of the accumulated fund of $4,785,883.25 and ordered that Bernard J. Korzen, county treasurer and ex-officio county collector of Cook County, pay this amount from the segregated fund to the attorneys “as and for a fee for legal services rendered collectively by them on behalf of members of the class who made payments into the segregated special fund ***.” This case has been prosecuted as a class action and the award of attorneys’ fees was for the representation of the class to be paid from the segregated fund to which the members of the class had contributed. The award is not a judgment at law against each individual taxpayer. This is a suit in equity, and the direction of the circuit court was that the payment of the attorneys’ fees be made from the segregated fund. The principle that “a decree is final as to a party who did not appeal” (see Shedd v. Alexander, 270 Ill. 117; Glos v. Woodward, 202 Ill. 480) is not applicable to this case. The opinion filed by this court reversed the judgment of the circuit court referred to above and set the amount of attorneys’ fees at $270,000. This amount is to be paid from the segregated fund as was the original award of the circuit court, and the balance remaining in the fund is to then be distributed to the taxpayers who contributed to that fund, according to their respective interests therein.