Court Opinion

ID: 9718209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:18:51.2887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:57.959469
License: Public Domain

Supplemental Opinion on Petition for Rehearing. We have withheld our ruling on the petition for rehearing in this case pending the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court in Esczuk v. Chicago Transit Authority, 39 Ill2d 457, 236 NE2d 719 (petition for rehearing denied) . In the Esczuk case the court affirmed an order of the trial court denying the plaintiff’s petition to reinstate an action which had been dismissed for want of prosecution. The petition in that case was filed approximately nineteen months after the order of dismissal and alleged that the plaintiff failed to appear for a pretrial conference due to “mere inadvertency or excusable neglect.” Although the petition was filed within the two year limitation set forth in section 72 of the Civil Practice Act, the court held that the facts alleged in the petition failed to show such fraud, mistake or fundamental unfairness as would justify a collateral attack on a final judgment nineteen months after its rendition. In the instant case the section 72 petition was filed four years after the order of dismissal, a period far in excess of the statutory limit of two years and of the nineteen-month period which had elapsed in the Esczuk case. As we noted in our opinion, the delay could have been prevented by an annual review of the files. Plaintiff could also have prevented the dismissal in the first instance by answering the interrogatories propounded by the defendant or by keeping track of the pending motion to dismiss. The facts alleged in the instant case do not show such fraud, mistake or fundamental unfairness as would justify a collateral attack on a final judgment four years after its rendition. Petition for rehearing denied.