Court Opinion

ID: 9738895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:05:02.084232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:09.123907
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE CRAVEN, dissenting: I dissent. The majority opinion transposes the rules of procedure into a snare and a trap for the unwary. The notice of appeal in this case was due to be filed in the trial court on January 26,1979. It was not filed on that date, but it was, in fact, placed in the mail on that date, properly addressed to the circuit clerk. It was received after the due date and filed notwithstanding the fact that it was late. This late filing was not noted by anyone until this court raised the issue. The appellants’ time for petition to seek leave to file a late notice of appeal was lost by reason of the fact that the circuit clerk filed the appeal after the permissible filing date. Supreme Court Rule 12 (58 Ill. 2d R. 12) authorizes the service of process by mail and the filing of papers in the appellate court by mail, the filing date being the date mailed. The postmarked date is the date of constructive as well as actual filing. There is no corresponding provision for filing by mail in the trial court. In a case most analogous to this one, In re Estate of Eiberger (1977), 49 Ill. App. 3d 1129 (order under Supreme Court Rule 23), the court dismissed an appeal because of the plaintiff’s failure to file a timely notice of appeal. In Eiberger, the plaintiff mistakenly mailed the notice of appeal to the appellate court for filing. That was done within the time specified. The clerk of the appellate court thereafter mailed the notice of appeal to the trial court for filing. By the time this was done, the 30-day period for filing had passed. No matter how you look at it, the notice of appeal in Eiberger was not tendered for filing until after the 30 days had expired. There, as here, the error was not discovered until after the time for filing a late notice of appeal had expired. In Eiberger, this court, sitting by assignment in the Third District, dismissed the appeal as the majority does here. The supreme court granted leave to appeal and in a supervisory order told us we were wrong and told us to reinstate the appeal. In its order of January 26,1978 (Docket No. 50090), the supreme court succinctly stated: “In the appeal from the Circuit Court of LaSalle County the notice of appeal was erroneously sent to the Clerk of the Appellate Court, instead of the Clerk of the trial court, within the 30-day period for filing such notice of appeal. The Clerk of the Appellate Court sent it to the trial court after the 30-day period expired, and the Appellate Court dismissed the appeal for failure to file the notice within time. The petition for leave to appeal is allowed and, in the exercise of this Court’s supervisory jurisdiction, the Appellate Court is directed to reinstate the appeal.” The action that the supreme court took in the Eiberger case is appropriate here. Here, as there, the notice of appeal did not get to the trial court on time. Here, as there, the time for a petition for a late notice of appeal expired before the purely clerical error was discovered. Here, as there, the clerical error does not work an injustice upon the appellee, and as a matter of fact, here, as there, the court, not the party, discovered the clerical error. (See also People v. Brown (1973), 54 Ill. 2d 25, 294 N.E.2d 267.) The majority opinion exalts form over substance and I dissent.