Court Opinion

ID: 9925364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-19 16:03:52.462763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:06.696846
License: Public Domain

2024 IL 128763

                                          IN THE
                                 SUPREME COURT

                                              OF
                           THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

                                     (Docket No. 128763)

     THE STATE OF ILLINOIS ex rel. KWAME RAOUL, Attorney General, Appellee,
                   v. ELITE STAFFING, INC., et al., Appellants.

                               Opinion filed January 19, 2024.

         JUSTICE NEVILLE delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

         Chief Justice Theis and Justices Overstreet, Holder White, Rochford, and
      O’Brien concurred in the judgment and opinion.

         Justice Cunningham took no part in the decision.

                                          OPINION

¶1        The State of Illinois filed a complaint in which it alleged Elite Staffing, Inc.,
      Metro Staff, Inc., and Midway Staffing, Inc. (collectively, the staffing agencies),
      violated the Illinois Antitrust Act. 740 ILCS 10/3 (West 2018). The staffing
      agencies filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, claiming that the act did not apply
     to the charged conduct. The circuit court of Cook County denied the motion but
     certified for interlocutory review two questions about the reach of the act:

            “1. Whether the definition of ‘Service’ under Section 4 of the Illinois
        Antitrust Act, 740 ILCS 10/4, which states that Service ‘shall not be deemed to
        include labor which is performed by natural persons as employees of others,’
        applies to the Illinois Antitrust Act as a whole and thus excludes all labor
        services from the Illinois Antitrust Act’s coverage.

            2. Whether the per se rule under Section 3(1) of the Illinois Antitrust Act,
        740 ILCS 10/3(1), which states that it applies to conspiracies among
        ‘competitor[s],’ extends to alleged horizontal agreements facilitated by a
        vertical noncompetitor.”

     The appellate court answered the second question, but instead of answering
     question 1, it answered a different question:

        “whether the exclusion of individual labor from the definition of ‘service’ in
        section 4 of the [Illinois Antitrust Act] also excludes the labor-related services
        provided by temporary staffing agencies and therefore exempts such agencies
        from [its] coverage.” 2022 IL App (1st) 210840, ¶ 11.

¶2      We granted the staffing agencies’ petition for leave to appeal from the appellate
     court decision. Ill. S. Ct. R. 315 (a) (eff. Oct. 1, 2021).

¶3        We hold that the Illinois Antitrust Act does not exempt from antitrust scrutiny
     all agreements between competitors to hold down wages and to limit employment
     opportunities for their employees. We vacate the appellate court’s answer to the
     question it formulated, answer the circuit court’s first certified question, do not
     address the second certified question because the parties have not sought our review
     of that question and its answer, and remand for further proceedings.

¶4                                  I. BACKGROUND

¶5       The State alleged in its complaint that Colony Display (Colony) hired the
     staffing agencies to supply the temporary workers it needed. Colony, which installs
     fixtures and displays for home improvement and retail businesses, relies heavily on

                                             -2-
     temporary workers, who form the majority of Colony’s workforce. 2022 IL App
     (1st) 210840, ¶ 3. At Colony’s request, the State alleged, the staffing agencies
     agreed to fix the wages for their employees who worked for Colony at below-
     market rates, and they agreed not to hire each other’s employees. Id. ¶¶ 5-6. Colony
     helped the staffing agencies enforce their agreement. Id. The State claimed the
     alleged conduct constituted an agreement between competitors to fix the price paid
     for services and therefore that it had violated section 3(1)(a) of the Illinois Antitrust
     Act (740 ILCS 10/3(1) (West 2018)). 2022 IL App (1st) 210840, ¶ 12. The
     defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint under section 2-615 of the Code
     of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-615 (West 2018)), claiming that the complaint
     did not state a cause of action because the Illinois Antitrust Act provides that
     services otherwise subject to the act “shall not be deemed to include labor which is
     performed by natural persons as employees of others” (740 ILCS 10/4 (West
     2018)). 2022 IL App (1st) 210840, ¶ 7.

¶6       The circuit court denied the motion but certified for interlocutory review the
     following issue:

         “ ‘Whether the definition of “Service” under Section 4 of the Illinois Antitrust
         Act, 740 ILCS 10/4, which states that Service “shall not be deemed to include
         labor which is performed by natural persons as employees of others,” applies to
         the Illinois Antitrust Act as a whole and thus excludes all labor services from
         the Illinois Antitrust Act’s coverage.’ ” Id. ¶ 1.

¶7      The parties have not asked this court to address in this appeal the second
     question the circuit court certified for interlocutory review. See id.

¶8                                     A. Appellate Court

¶9        The appellate court found first that the question as phrased relied on an incorrect
     assumption that, if the definition of “service” applied to the Illinois Antitrust Act
     as a whole, it exempts all labor services from the act’s coverage. Id. ¶ 11. The
     appellate court restated the question and addressed instead the issue of “whether
     the exclusion of individual labor from the definition of ‘service’ in section 4 of the
     [Illinois Antitrust Act] also excludes the labor-related services provided by

                                               -3-
       temporary staffing agencies and therefore exempts such agencies from [its]
       coverage.” Id.

¶ 10       The appellate court found that the legislature narrowed the definition of service
       “to allow individuals to engage in otherwise anticompetitive behavior regarding
       their own labor by participating in collective bargaining and related conduct.” Id.
       ¶ 15. The appellate court found the exemption of section 4 did not extend to services
       provided by staffing agencies. The court held:

           “[T]o the extent that the alleged unlawful conduct concerns restraints that they
           place on their own services (i.e., recruiting, hiring, and managing temporary
           employees) and do not concern restraints on a natural person’s individual labor,
           temporary staffing agencies like the Agency Defendants in this case are subject
           to the Act’s provisions and, in particular, section 3’s prohibitions on
           anticompetitive restraints on services.” Id. ¶ 23.

¶ 11        This court granted the agencies’ petition for leave to appeal. Ill. S. Ct. R. 315(a)
       (eff. Oct. 1, 2021). We accepted briefs amici curiae from (1) the United States
       Department of Justice in support of the State’s position; (2) Raise the Floor
       Alliance, National Legal Advocacy Network, and National Employment Law
       Project in support of the State’s position; and (3) Staffing Services Association of
       Illinois and American Staffing Association in support of the staffing agencies’
       position. Ill. S. Ct. R. 345 (eff. Sept. 20, 2010).

¶ 12                                      II. ANALYSIS

¶ 13       Rule 315 gives this court jurisdiction over the appeal. Ill. S. Ct. R. 315(a) (eff.
       Oct. 1, 2021); Moore v. Chicago Park District, 2012 IL 112788, ¶ 7. Illinois courts
       usually limit review under Rule 308 (Ill. S. Ct. R. 308 (eff. Oct. 1, 2019)) to
       answering the certified question, unless the question rests on an erroneous legal
       assumption. De Bouse v. Bayer AG, 235 Ill. 2d 544, 550, 557 (2009).

¶ 14       Both parties ask this court to answer the question certified by the circuit court
       rather than the question the appellate court answered. We do not interpret the circuit
       court’s question as incorrectly assuming that, if the definition of service applies to
       the Illinois Antitrust Act as a whole, the act necessarily excludes all labor services

                                                 -4-
       from its coverage. Rather, we find that the question the circuit court certified asked
       the appellate court to decide whether the Illinois Antitrust Act excludes from its
       coverage all agreements concerning labor services. We will answer the circuit
       court’s certified question.

¶ 15       On certified question review, this court should address only issues of law and
       not the application of the law to the particular facts of the case. Rozsavolgyi v. City
       of Aurora, 2017 IL 121048, ¶ 21. We review de novo rulings on the interpretation
       of a statute. Midwest Sanitary Service, Inc. v. Sandberg, Phoenix & Von Gontard,
       P.C., 2022 IL 127327, ¶ 19.

¶ 16       We apply familiar principles of statutory interpretation. “The most fundamental
       rule in statutory construction is to give effect to the legislative intent.” Murray v.
       Chicago Youth Center, 224 Ill. 2d 213, 235 (2007). “The statutory language, given
       its plain and ordinary meaning, is generally the most reliable indicator of that
       legislative intent, but a literal reading must fail if it yields absurd, inconvenient, or
       unjust results.” Cassidy v. China Vitamins, LLC, 2018 IL 122873, ¶ 17.

           “Words and phrases should not be considered in isolation; rather, they must be
           interpreted in light of other relevant provisions and the statute as a whole.
           [Citations.] In addition to the statutory language, the court may consider the
           purpose behind the law and the evils sought to be remedied, as well as the
           consequences that would result from construing the law one way or the other.”
           County of Du Page v. Illinois Labor Relations Board, 231 Ill. 2d 593, 604
           (2008).

¶ 17                                  A. The Statutes at Issue

¶ 18      We must interpret five sections of the Illinois Antitrust Act: sections 2, 3, 4, 5,
       and 11 (740 ILCS 10/2, 3, 4, 5, 11 (West 2018)). Section 2 states that the legislature
       adopted the act

           “to promote the unhampered growth of commerce and industry throughout the
           State by prohibiting restraints of trade which are secured through monopolistic
           or oligarchic practices and which act or tend to act to decrease competition
           between and among persons engaged in commerce and trade, whether in

                                                 -5-
       manufacturing, distribution, financing, and service industries or in related for-
       profit pursuits.” Id. § 2.

¶ 19   Section 3 provides:

       “Every person shall be deemed to have committed a violation of this Act who
       shall:

             (1) Make any contract with, or engage in any combination or conspiracy
          with, any other person who is, or but for a prior agreement would be, a
          competitor of such person:

              a. for the purpose or with the effect of fixing, controlling, or maintaining
          the *** fee charged or paid for any service performed or received by the
          parties thereto; [or]

              b. fixing, controlling, maintaining, [or] limiting *** the sale or supply
          of any service, for the purpose or with the effect stated in paragraph a. of
          subsection (1)[.]” Id. § 3.

¶ 20   Section 4 defines “service” as follows:

           “ ‘Service’ shall mean any activity, not covered by the definition of
       ‘commodity,’ which is performed in whole or in part for the purpose of financial
       gain.
           ‘Service’ shall not be deemed to include labor which is performed by natural
       persons as employees of others.” Id. § 4.

¶ 21   Section 5 makes an exception to the broad reach of section 3:

       “No provisions of this Act shall be construed to make illegal:

              (1) the activities of any labor organization or of individual members
          thereof which are directed solely to labor objectives which are legitimate
          under the laws of either the State of Illinois or the United States.” Id. § 5.

¶ 22   Section 11 guides the interpretation of the Illinois Antitrust Act:

                                           -6-
          “When the wording of this Act is identical or similar to that of a federal antitrust
          law, the courts of this State shall use the construction of the federal law by the
          federal courts as a guide in construing this Act.” Id. § 11.

¶ 23       This court has explained that, where the language of federal antitrust statutes
       differs markedly from the Illinois Antitrust Act, “we must consider whether, given
       the differences between section 3[ ] and [the federal statute], the reasoning
       employed by the Federal courts in interpreting [the federal statute] is relevant to
       our interpretation of section 3[ ].” Gilbert’s Ethan Allen Gallery v. Ethan Allen,
       Inc., 162 Ill. 2d 99, 104 (1994).

¶ 24       Because of section 11, we must also consult federal antitrust statutes. Section 1
       of the Sherman Act provides that “[e]very contract, combination in the form of trust
       or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several
       States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.” 15 U.S.C. § 1 (2018).

¶ 25      Finally, the Clayton Act provides:

              “The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.
          Nothing contained in the antitrust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence
          and operation of labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations, instituted for
          the purposes of mutual help, and not having capital stock or conducted for
          profit, or to forbid or restrain individual members of such organizations from
          lawfully carrying out the legitimate objects thereof; nor shall such
          organizations, or the members thereof, be held or construed to be illegal
          combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade, under the antitrust laws.” Id.
          § 17.

¶ 26                        B. Section 3 of the Illinois Antitrust Act

¶ 27        The General Assembly patterned section 3(1)(a) of the Illinois Antitrust Act
       after section 1 of the Sherman Act. People ex rel. Scott v. College Hills Corp., 91
       Ill. 2d 138, 150 (1982) (“Section 3(1)(a) is patterned after section 1 of the Sherman
       Act [citation], and in our construction of the Illinois Antitrust Act we are guided by
       Federal case law construing analogous provisions of Federal legislation

                                               -7-
       [citation].”). The United States Supreme Court succinctly summarized one
       significant problem courts encounter when interpreting the Sherman Act:

          “[Section] 1 of the Sherman Act *** cannot mean what it says. The statute says
          that ‘every’ contract that restrains trade is unlawful. But, as Mr. Justice Brandeis
          perceptively noted, restraint is the very essence of every contract; read literally,
          [section] 1 would outlaw the entire body of private contract law.” National
          Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U.S. 679, 687-88
          (1978).

       To avoid the absurd consequences of applying the Sherman Act literally, “ ‘courts
       have construed it as precluding only those contracts or combinations which
       “unreasonably” restrain competition.’ ” Williams v. St. Joseph Hospital, 629 F.2d
       448, 452 (7th Cir. 1980) (quoting Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. United States, 356
       U.S. 1, 5 (1958)). For many restraints of trade, federal courts adopted “rule of
       reason” analysis, under which the “trial court must perform a market share analysis
       to determine whether the defendant possessed monopoly power in the relevant
       market. *** [T]he plaintiff must show that the defendant possessed sufficient
       monopoly power to inflict competitive injury in the relevant market.” Gilbert’s
       Ethan Allen Gallery, 162 Ill. 2d at 102-03.

¶ 28       Some agreements “are so plainly anticompetitive [citation] that they are
       conclusively presumed illegal without further examination under the rule of reason
       generally applied in Sherman Act cases.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
       Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 441 U.S. 1, 8 (1979).
       “ ‘If a practice is within the per se category, all you have to prove to establish a
       violation is that the defendant engaged in the practice; you do not have to show that
       in fact the practice has had or will have an adverse effect on competition.’ ”
       Gilbert’s Ethan Allen Gallery, 162 Ill. 2d at 105 (quoting Marrese v. American
       Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 692 F.2d 1083, 1093 (7th Cir. 1982).
       “[A]greements among competitors to fix prices on their individual goods or
       services are among those concerted activities that the Court has held to be within
       the per se category.” Broadcast Music, 441 U.S. at 8.

¶ 29       The complaint here alleges that competitors, the staffing agencies, agreed to fix
       the wages they would pay to their employees sent to work for Colony. The alleged
       agreement falls squarely within the realm of conduct so clearly anticompetitive that

                                               -8-
       it violates antitrust laws without further examination under the rule of reason. See
       id.; Quinonez v. National Ass’n of Securities Dealers, Inc., 540 F.2d 824, 828-29
       (5th Cir. 1976).

¶ 30       Applying federal standards (see Laughlin v. Evanston Hospital, 133 Ill. 2d 374,
       383-84 (1990)), we find that a multiemployer agreement to restrict wages and not
       to hire each other’s employees violates section 3 of the Illinois Antitrust Act unless
       section 4 of the act exempts the alleged agreement from the coverage of the act.

¶ 31                         C. Section 4 of the Illinois Antitrust Act

¶ 32       Considered in isolation, section 4, which exempts from the Illinois Antitrust
       Act’s coverage “labor which is performed by natural persons as employees of
       others” (740 ILCS 10/4 (West 2018)), appears to exempt from antitrust scrutiny all
       agreements concerning wages and conditions of employment, regardless of their
       anticompetitive effects. But if we construe the definition so broadly, it conflicts
       with the stated purpose of the act, which the legislature designed

          “to promote the unhampered growth of commerce and industry throughout the
          State by prohibiting restraints of trade which are secured through monopolistic
          or oligarchic practices and which act or tend to act to decrease competition
          between and among persons engaged in commerce and trade, whether in
          manufacturing, distribution, financing, and service industries or in related for-
          profit pursuits.” Id. § 2.

¶ 33       Just as the broad language of the Sherman Act conflicted with its purpose and
       led to absurd results, the broad language of the definition in section 4 conflicts with
       the purpose of the Illinois Antitrust Act. We find section 4’s definition of services,
       when considered in the context of the act as a whole, ambiguous because of the
       conflict between the apparent reach of the exemption on superficial examination
       and the purpose of the act. When we encounter ambiguity in a statute considered as
       a whole, we turn to tools of interpretation to help us determine the meaning of a
       statute. DeLuna v. Burciaga, 223 Ill. 2d 49, 59 (2006) (“if the language of a statute
       is ambiguous, courts may look to tools of interpretation to ascertain the meaning of
       a provision”).

                                                -9-
¶ 34      “Where the mind labours to discover the design of the legislature, it seizes every
       thing from which aid can be derived.” United States v. Fisher, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch)
       358, 386 (1805). “When aid to construction of the meaning of words, as used in the
       statute, is available, there certainly can be no rule of law which forbids its use,
       however clear the words may appear on superficial examination.” (Internal
       quotation marks omitted.) United States v. American Trucking Ass’ns, 310 U.S.
       534, 543-44 (1940).

¶ 35        We have a commentary on the Illinois Antitrust Act prepared by the drafters,
       the Chicago Bar Association’s Committee on Antitrust Law (Committee). The
       Committee prepared the commentary in 1967, two years after the legislature
       enacted the Illinois Antitrust Act. This court has used the commentary as an aid to
       interpreting the act. See Laughlin, 133 Ill. 2d at 386-87; Gilbert’s Ethan Allen
       Gallery, 162 Ill. 2d at 106. State archives list the sponsors of the bill that became
       the Illinois Antitrust Act and the proponents and opponents of the bill. One of the
       bill’s proponents, Professor James Rahl, wrote an article in which he argued the
       states should enact their own antitrust statutes because not all pernicious price
       fixing agreements and other antitrust violations affect interstate commerce. James
       A. Rahl, Toward a Worthwhile State Antitrust Policy, 39 Tex. L. Rev. 753, 758
       (1961) (State Antitrust). Because Rahl appeared before the legislature as a
       proponent of the bill the legislature enacted, we find that his article qualifies as
       some evidence concerning the intent of the legislation. William N. Eskridge Jr., The
       New Textualism, 37 UCLA L. Rev. 621, 636 (1990) (comments of nonlegislator
       drafters constitute some evidence of legislative intent). We also have some
       evidence of legislative inaction and an argument concerning the effect of
       subsequent legislation.

¶ 36       Because section 11 of the Illinois Antitrust Act directs our attention to federal
       law, we start with a discussion of decisions interpreting federal antitrust law,
       followed by discussions of the committee comments, Rahl’s views, and legislative
       inaction. Finally, we respond to an argument raised by amici supporting the staffing
       agencies’ position, who claim that a statute immunizes staffing agencies from all
       antitrust laws.

¶ 37                                1. Federal Antitrust Law

                                              - 10 -
¶ 38       The Clayton Act provides, “The labor of a human being is not a commodity or
       article of commerce.” 15 U.S.C. § 17 (2018). Employers have sought to use the
       provision to exempt from antitrust scrutiny anticompetitive agreements similar to
       the agreement alleged in the State’s complaint here.

¶ 39       In Roman v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 55 F.3d 542, 543 (10th Cir. 1995), Roman
       alleged that several airplane manufacturers agreed not to hire each other’s
       employees. He alleged that one of the manufacturers would have hired him and
       paid him a higher salary if not for the agreement. Id. The Roman court found that
       Roman stated a cause of action for violation of federal antitrust law. Id. at 545. The
       court adopted the following explanation from a treatise on antitrust law:

              “ ‘Antitrust law addresses employer conspiracies controlling employment
          terms precisely because they tamper with the employment market and thereby
          impair the opportunities of those who sell their services there. Just as antitrust
          law seeks to preserve the free market opportunities of buyers and sellers of
          goods, so also it seeks to do the same for buyers and sellers of employment
          services. ***

              Thus, the courts have readily approved standing for professional athletes
          challenging agreements among employers fixing employment terms and for
          brokers or magazine solicitors challenging their employers’ agreements against
          hiring switching employees.’ ” Id. at 544 (quoting II Phillip Areeda & Herbert
          Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 377c (rev. ed. 1995)).

¶ 40       Both parties cite Cordova v. Bache & Co., 321 F. Supp. 600 (S.D.N.Y. 1970),
       in support of their arguments. In Cordova, securities representatives alleged that
       their employers, stock brokerage firms, conspired to reduce the commissions paid
       to securities representatives for the sale of stock. Id. at 603. The brokerage firms,
       like the staffing agencies here, argued that the complaint did not allege a violation
       of antitrust law. Id. at 605. According to the brokerage firms, a “conspiracy on the
       part of employers with respect to the labor of their employees” cannot violate
       federal antitrust law because “ ‘[t]he labor of a human being is not a commodity or
       article of commerce.’ ” Id. (quoting 15 U.S.C. § 17 (1970)).

¶ 41      The Cordova court held:

                                               - 11 -
              “If the language of *** the Clayton Act stopped with the sentence quoted
          by defendants, it would lend support to their position. It is immediately
          followed, however, by additional language which when considered in the light
          of the statute’s legislative history, convinces us that the sole purpose and effect
          of the section is to exempt activities and agreements on the part of labor,
          agricultural or horticultural organizations with respect to their furnishing labor
          in the market place. ***

                                              ***

              It is readily apparent that Congress *** was concerned with the right of
          labor and similar organizations to continue engaging in such activities,
          including that right to strike, not with the right of employers to ban[d] together
          for joint action in fixing the wages to be paid by each employer. There is no
          evidence of the existence of any necessity to protect the latter type of activity
          ***.” Id. at 605-06.

¶ 42       The court surveyed the extensive legislative history of the federal antitrust
       statutes and concluded:

          “Congress’ only purpose *** was to help the labor organizations and the labor
          movement by removing any doubt as to the legality of their existence and
          operations. ***

              ***

              There can be little doubt about the fact that if a group of employers, as the
          complaint here alleges, were allowed, not as part of a collective bargaining
          agreement, to agree together to reduce the commissions paid to their respective
          employees, they would have the same power to restrain competition as is
          inherent in a price-fixing agreement. *** The effect of such a unilateral
          agreement between employers, as alleged in the present complaint (citation),
          could also be to restrain mobility on the part of employees who would otherwise
          have the opportunity, in a competitive market for services, to transfer to higher
          paid opportunities offered by other[s]. *** [A]n agreement between employers
          would enable the employers together to achieve what no single one of them
          could do alone.

                                              - 12 -
                                                ***

               *** [A]n essential prerequisite to the legality of such multiemployer
           combinations with respect to industry-wide wages or working conditions is the
           existence or prospect of a joint collective bargaining agreement with the union,
           which all parties concede to be immune from the antitrust laws. The exemption
           granted to such agreements extends to joint-employer action reasonably related
           or incident to them. Absent such conditions, however, a combination of
           employers to reduce their employees’ compensation does not share labor’s
           exemption.” Id. at 606-07.

¶ 43                               2. Bar Committee Comments

¶ 44        The bar commentary explains that the Illinois Antitrust Act, “[i]n the main, ***
       is the same as a bill drafted by the Committee on Antitrust Law of the Chicago Bar
       Association.” 740 ILCS Ann. art. 10, Committee Comments-1967, at 12 (Smith-
       Hurd 2010). The committee prepared the commentary “to memorialize the
       intentions of the draftsmen as to the meaning of the language of the Act, and to
       offer guidance to the courts and the bar in the interpretation of the law.” Id.

¶ 45       The commentary first explains the need for “effective antitrust enforcement at
       the state level” (id. at 13) and adds that the drafters intended “to provide an effective
       means of combating the serious damage which is done to the free enterprise system
       in Illinois by groups who substitute self-designed schemes of private business
       regulation for the impersonal direction of the free market” (id. at 14). According to
       the commentary, section 3(1)(a)

           “is designed to reach the ‘hard core’ conspiratorial offenses of price fixing,
           limitations on production, and allocation of markets or customers. ***

               Section 3(1)(a) proscribes agreements between competitors, the purpose or
           effect of which is to fix, control, or maintain *** the prices which they will pay
           for the commodities or services which they buy.” Id. § 3, Committee
           Comments-1967, at 19-20.

¶ 46       The brief commentary on section 4 addresses the definition of service:

                                                - 13 -
          “[T]he definitions of Section 4 were expressly designed to make services and
          real estate subject to the prohibitions of the law. It was the feeling of the
          draftsmen that exemptions should be strictly limited and that almost all service
          occupations should be within the reach of the statute. In this connection see the
          discussion, infra, with relation to Section 5 on exemptions generally.” Id. § 4,
          Committee Comments-1967, at 52.

¶ 47      The comment on section 5 elaborates:

             “It was always understood by the draftsmen that exemptions would be
          accorded to labor unions, agricultural cooperatives, and public utilities. *** [I]t
          was believed necessary to adopt an approach similar to that used for the federal
          exemptions on those subjects, thereby preserving general overall consistency.

              The labor exemption in subsection (1), like that of *** the Clayton Act,
          prevents the application of the Antitrust Act to legitimate labor objectives and
          activities of unions or of individual members thereof. The Illinois Act is more
          explicit than the Clayton Act, however, in limiting the exemption to activities
          which ‘are directed solely to labor objectives which are legitimate under the
          laws of either the State of Illinois or the United States.’ ***.

              The labor exemption should be read together with the provision of Section
          4 which states that labor performed as an employee is not a ‘service’ within the
          meaning of Section 3 of the Act. The effect of this provision is to make the Act
          inapplicable to agreements by either labor or nonlabor groups insofar as they
          relate to restraint of competition concerning labor itself. The Act thus protects
          both management and labor in bargaining collectively over terms and
          conditions of employment.” Id. § 5, Committee Comments-1967, at 55.

¶ 48       We find the bar committee commentary shows the drafters intended to limit the
       exemption to legitimate labor union activity and agreements multiple employers
       reach in the course of collective negotiations with labor unions.

¶ 49                                    3. Rahl’s Proposal

¶ 50       In State Antitrust, Rahl proposed an antitrust act, and the proposal included the
       following definition:

                                              - 14 -
              “ ‘Service’ shall mean any activity not covered by the definition of
          commodity, which is performed in whole or in part for the purpose of financial
          gain. ‘Service’ shall not include labor which is performed by persons as
          employees of others, but this exclusion is limited to conduct pertaining to such
          labor, and does not exclude from the operation of this Act agreements or acts
          by or with laborers or organizations of laborers concerning commodities and
          services covered by this Act.” Rahl, supra, at 775.

¶ 51      Rahl explained:

          “The draft *** [makes an] exclusion for labor in the definition of ‘services.’
          *** [The exclusion] should be sufficient to protect the right of labor
          organizations to restrain and monopolize the terms and supply of the labor with
          which they are concerned, and hence to carry on the customary labor activities
          contemplated by present-day national labor policy. Incidentally, this approach
          would also remove from the act restraints as to labor imposed by non-labor
          groups, occurring in situations such as joint bargaining on the management
          side.” Id. at 778.

¶ 52       Like the bar committee, Rahl emphasizes the need to exempt legitimate union
       activity from the reach of the Illinois Antitrust Act and the correlative exemption
       for agreements between employers in the course of negotiations with unions. No
       source concerning the purpose of antitrust laws suggests that the legislature meant
       to leave competing employers free to collude with each other to reduce the wages
       they pay to their employees or to collude to prevent workers from switching to
       better jobs.

¶ 53                                 4. Legislative Inaction

¶ 54       The staffing agencies rely on two published federal cases and argue that the
       legislature’s failure to amend the Illinois Antitrust Act after those decisions shows
       that the two decisions correctly interpreted Illinois law.

¶ 55       “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, 98 Ill. 2d 478, 483 (1983).

                                              - 15 -
          “[E]vidence of legislative silence and subsequent history is usually too
          ambiguous to count as legislative history, but in some contexts the sources are
          considered by the [United States Supreme] Court. *** Legislative silence will
          usually be supporting evidence of legislative intent and will be the main
          evidence only when there is virtually no other evidence of legislative intent.”
          Eskridge, supra, at 640.

¶ 56       We find that the persuasive power of legislative silence depends on the
       circumstances of the legislative decision not to amend a statute following a judicial
       interpretation of the statute.

              “It is an elementary rule of construction that where, after a statute has been
          construed by the highest court of the state, the Legislature re-enacts the statute,
          whether by the adoption of Revised Statutes or by amendment, the act of the
          Legislature carries with it the construction previously placed upon the law by
          the court.” Texas Fidelity & Bonding Co. v. City of Austin, 246 S.W. 1026, 1029
          (Tex. 1922).

       Similarly, “[a]fter [the Illinois Supreme Court] has construed a statute, ‘that
       construction becomes, in effect, a part of the statute and any change in interpretation
       can be effected by the General Assembly if it desires so to do.’ ” Village of Vernon
       Hills v. Heelan, 2015 IL 118170, ¶ 19 (quoting Mitchell v. Mahin, 51 Ill. 2d 452,
       456 (1972)).

¶ 57       Legislative inaction following an interpretation by the Illinois Appellate Court
       provides some lesser support for an inference the appellate court correctly
       interpreted the statute. Barrall v. Board of Trustees of John A. Logan Community
       College, 2020 IL 125535, ¶ 27 n.2. The inference disappears if published opinions
       of the appellate court give differing interpretations of the statute. See United States
       v. Powell, 379 U.S. 48, 55 n.13 (1964) (no inference arises if published decisions
       show no settled judicial interpretation of the statute).

¶ 58        Here, the staffing agencies rely on two published federal decisions interpreting
       Illinois law. Because the federal decisions do not bind Illinois courts (Travelers
       Insurance Co. v. Eljer Manufacturing, Inc., 197 Ill. 2d 278, 302 (2001) (“ ‘The
       general rule is that decisions of the United States district and circuit courts are not
       binding on Illinois courts.’ ” (quoting City of Chicago v. Groffman, 68 Ill. 2d 112,

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       118 (1977)))), we find the proposed inference from legislative inaction very weak,
       but we consider it as some evidence of legislative intent. See Wittman v. Koenig,
       831 F.3d 416, 425 (7th Cir. 2016) (“It is difficult to imagine careful drafting of
       legislation in this field that would not consider decisions by the federal bankruptcy
       courts in the state. In this situation, then, it is reasonable to treat legislative silence
       as at least weak evidence that the bankruptcy courts’ interpretation of Wisconsin
       Statutes § 815.18(3)(j) has not been objectionable to the legislature.”).

¶ 59       In O’Regan v. Arbitration Forums, Inc., 121 F.3d 1060, 1062-63 (7th Cir.
       1997), O’Regan sued her former employer, a nonprofit corporation, alleging that
       the employer violated both federal and Illinois antitrust law by terminating her
       employment because she refused to sign a noncompete agreement. The O’Regan
       court found O’Regan had not stated a claim for a federal violation because “an
       employee discharged for refusing to participate in an alleged antitrust violation has
       no standing to sue on the basis of that violation.” Id. at 1065.

¶ 60       The court then found three separate reasons for dismissing the state claims:

           “Federal antitrust standing rules apply under the Illinois Antitrust Act. *** The
           Act only covers services ‘performed in whole or in part for the purposes of
           financial gain.’ [Citation.] *** [The defendant] is a non-profit corporation, not
           covered by the Illinois Antitrust Act. Finally, to the extent O’Regan’s claims
           relate to an alleged market for labor services, they are specifically excluded by
           § 10/4 of the Act ***.” Id. at 1066.

¶ 61       The O’Regan court read one sentence from section 4 in isolation, without
       considering the Illinois Antitrust Act as a whole. The O’Regan court did not analyze
       section 4 in light of sections 2, 3, 5, and 11. The O’Regan court did not consider
       the purposes of the Illinois Antitrust Act or whether the court’s broad reading of
       the exemption would serve the act’s purposes.

¶ 62      The federal district court in Butler v. Jimmy John’s Franchise, LLC, 331 F.
       Supp. 3d 786, 798 (S.D. Ill. 2018) (quoting O’Regan, 121 F.3d at 1066), found that
       several competing franchisees’ alleged agreement not to hire each other’s
       employees would (if proven) violate federal antitrust law, but the court followed
       O’Regan as binding precedent barring the claim for violation of the Illinois
       Antitrust Act because the alleged agreement “ ‘relate[d] to an alleged market for

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       labor services.’ ” Butler thus adds nothing to the slight authority of O’Regan.

¶ 63                     5. The Day and Temporary Labor Services Act

¶ 64       The Staffing Services Association of Illinois and American Staffing
       Association, in their brief amici curiae, argue that the Day and Temporary Labor
       Services Act (Temporary Labor Act) (820 ILCS 175/1 et seq. (West 2020))
       comprehensively regulates all staffing agencies and therefore “the Court should
       hold that [Temporary Labor Act]-regulated staffing agencies are implicitly
       immunized from [Illinois Antitrust Act] liability.”

¶ 65      The Temporary Labor Act includes a statement of the problem the legislature
       sought to address:

              “Recent studies and a survey of low-wage day or temporary laborers
          themselves [find] that as a group, they are particularly vulnerable to abuse of
          their labor rights, including unpaid wages, failure to pay for all hours worked,
          minimum wage and overtime violations, and unlawful deductions from pay for
          meals, transportation, equipment, and other items.

              Current law is inadequate to protect the labor and employment rights of
          these workers.” Id. § 2.

¶ 66       The Temporary Labor Act has no provision penalizing collusion to reduce
       wages or to limit employment opportunities for these vulnerable employees. The
       Temporary Labor Act does not mention the Illinois Antitrust Act, nor does it
       explicitly exempt staffing agencies from the reach of the Illinois Antitrust Act. The
       ruling amici seek would directly conflict with the Temporary Labor Act’s stated
       purpose, and it would exacerbate the problem of worker vulnerability the legislature
       sought to address. We find the Temporary Labor Act provides no support for the
       staffing agencies’ position.

¶ 67                            6. Summary of Legislative History

¶ 68       The Illinois Antitrust Act directs courts to look to federal case law for aid in
       interpreting the act “[w]hen the wording of this Act is identical or similar to that of

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       a federal antitrust law.” 740 ILCS 10/11 (West 2018). This court has held that when
       federal statutes differ from the Illinois Antitrust Act, we consider more carefully
       whether the federal courts’ reasoning helps construe the Illinois act. Gilbert’s Ethan
       Allen Gallery, 162 Ill. 2d at 104. The Cordova court persuasively argues that the
       United States Congress did not intend to exempt from antitrust scrutiny all
       agreements between competing employers to fix wages they would pay their
       employees and not to hire each other’s employees. Cordova, 321 F. Supp. at 605-
       07. The bar committee comments and an article by one of the proponents of the
       Illinois Antitrust Act further support the application of Cordova’s reasoning to the
       interpretation of the Illinois Antitrust Act. Multiemployer agreements to reduce
       wages and to reduce employment opportunities violate the Illinois Antitrust Act
       unless the restrictions arose in the course of labor negotiations and “the affected
       employees, through their collective bargaining representatives, *** unequivocally
       consent[ed] to bargain with the multi-employer unit.” Id. at 607. The minor
       differences in the wording and placement of the labor exemption in the Illinois
       Antitrust Act do not show a contrary legislative intent. The legislative inaction after
       O’Regan, which lacks precedential force in Illinois courts, does not overcome the
       contrary inference from the Illinois Antitrust Act’s stated purposes, the statutory
       direction to look to federal decisions, and the discussions in the bar committee
       comments and Rahl’s article proposing terms for state antitrust statutes.

¶ 69                                   III. CONCLUSION

¶ 70       We vacate the appellate court’s answer to the question it formulated. We answer
       the question the circuit court certified thus: the definition of “service” in section 4
       applies to the Illinois Antitrust Act as a whole, but it does not exclude all
       agreements concerning labor services from the act’s coverage. In particular,
       multiemployer agreements concerning wages they will pay their employees and
       whether they will hire each other’s employees may violate the Illinois Antitrust Act
       unless the agreement arises as part of the bargaining process and the affected
       employees, through their collective bargaining representatives, have sought to
       bargain with the multiemployer unit. We do not address the second question the
       circuit court certified (see 2022 IL App (1st) 210840, ¶ 1), or the appellate court’s
       answer to that question, because the parties have not asked this court to address that

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       question in this appeal.

¶ 71      Appellate court judgment vacated in part.

¶ 72      Certified question answered.

¶ 73      Cause remanded.

¶ 74       JUSTICE CUNNINGHAM took no part in the consideration or decision of this
       case.

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