Court Opinion

ID: 9710847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:18:57.389314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:00.260951
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE O’MALLEY, dissenting: I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that plaintiff did not adequately plead damages in this case. Plaintiff pleaded that “damages as a result of the passage of the first referendum to the second referendum are identifiable at no less than 25% to 30% loss of revenue, which amounts to in excess of $200,000.00 per year.” Reading this allegation liberally, as I must at this stage in proceedings (see Young, 213 Ill. 2d at 441), I infer the allegation that the referendum was for ongoing revenue, and not just for the two years preceding the second referendum. My reading is consistent with the Fire Protection District Act (Act), which provides that the ordinance allowing the levy and collection of taxes for a fire district “constitutes authority *** to extend taxes annually at the rate so provided.” (Emphasis added.) 70 ILCS 705/14 (West 2004). Thus, I disagree with the majority that “plaintiff alleged only that it was delayed in implementing its plan.” 375 Ill. App. 3d at 355. I read plaintiff as alleging that, until the proper referendum passed, each year’s installment of revenue was lower than plaintiff would have otherwise received. In other words, I interpret plaintiff as alleging that it intended the original referendum to result in its receiving $400,000 each revenue period until the voting public reversed the original referendum. To illustrate with numbers, if plaintiff received only $90,000 in the first installment, but received the full $400,000 in the second installment, it received $310,000 less than the $800,000 it would have received. Though plaintiff may have been able to implement many of the improvements it sought to make once the proper referendum was passed, the delay in implementing the first round of improvements was not the only harm plaintiff suffered, because plaintiff could have made more of the improvements if it had also received the money after the first referendum. I read plaintiff’s second amended complaint as alleging that it essentially was unable to implement the full first round of improvements until it received the money that otherwise would have gone to a second round of improvements. Then, I infer, the first round of improvements was implemented, but the second round was not made, and so on. Plaintiff will perpetually forgo one year of improvements until the shortfall is corrected. This is not just a delay— plaintiff lost one round of improvements. Put plainly with the same illustrative numbers I use above, by the time the second referendum passed, plaintiff should have been able to implement a total of $800,000 worth of improvements, but, due to defendants’ alleged negligence, it was able to implement only a total of $490,000. No matter how many installments plaintiff receives, plaintiff will still have received less revenue due to the shortfall from the first referendum. The majority holds that plaintiffs alleging a loss of revenue is not enough to plead damages: “[A] municipal corporation is not entitled to make a profit [citation], and thus a loss of money, in and of itself, cannot damage it. As the trial court put it, ‘a municipal corporation cannot accumulate money for the purpose of accumulating money.’ Accordingly, plaintiff had to plead damages beyond the mere loss of money.” 375 Ill. App. 3d at 354. First, plaintiff specifically itemized in its complaint how it would have spent the missing money. Plaintiff alleged that it intended to use its increased revenue “for increased operations, facilities, and equipment,” including “building renovation ($1.2 million ***), purchase of a heavy rescue squad ($386,000.00), a new ambulance ($157,000.00), hiring of a full-time fire chief ($76,000.00), and hiring of two part-time firefighters ($70,000.00).” The Act specifically allows a fire protection district to “accumulate funds for the purposes of building, repairing and improving firehouses,” among other things. 70 ILCS 705/14 (West 2004). Therefore, plaintiff did not seek to “accumulate money for the purpose of accumulating money,” but, rather, if it sought to accumulate money, it planned to do so for purposes specifically allowed under the Act. Second, I wonder how the majority would respond to a criminal defendant who is convicted of embezzling from a municipal corporation and who appeals on the basis that “a loss of money, in and of itself, cannot damage” a municipality. Third, even assuming that plaintiff could not accumulate money for any purpose, I do not agree with the above-quoted statement from the majority. I do not think it follows that, because a municipal corporation cannot profit, it cannot be damaged by a loss of money. Rather, I believe that, if a municipal corporation cannot profit, then, as the trial court said, it cannot “accumulate money for the purpose of accumulating money.” However, it may still accumulate assets and collect revenue, and, if someone causes the municipality to lose or forgo those assets or prevents the municipality from realizing that revenue, the municipality is damaged. Revenue is not the same as profit. Plaintiff may not have been able to keep the $310,000 as profit, but it could have spent it on an ambulance. I find precedent to support the notion that an entity may be damaged by loss of revenue even if it is not entitled to profit from the revenue. For example, in Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, Missouri v. Boatmen’s National Bank of Belleville, 261 Ill. App. 3d 750 (1994), the plaintiffs, two not-for-profit entities that were remainder beneficiaries of two testamentary trusts, sued, inter alia, the attorney who drafted the will and represented the estate, on the ground that the attorney’s negligence caused the estate “to unnecessarily pay $878,709 in estate taxes and interest, which reduced the amount plaintiffs [received].” Jewish Hospital, 261 Ill. App. 3d at 753. Though it did not specifically address the issue here, the appellate court reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for defendants and held that the defendant lawyer could be held liable to the not-for-profit plaintiffs for his alleged negligence in drafting the will. Jewish Hospital, 261 Ill. App. 3d at 761. In City of Springfield v. Allphin, 74 Ill. 2d 117 (1978), the municipal plaintiffs sued the State on the ground that the act that allowed the State to withhold as a collection fee 4% of municipal taxes before distributing them to municipalities had been amended and the collection amount reduced to 2%, yet the State wrongfully withheld 4% after the effective date of the amendment. The supreme court agreed, and it remanded the cause for the trial court to fashion injunctive relief “to reduce the amount of such taxes withheld by the State until the earlier overwithholding is compensated for.” Allphin, 74 Ill. 2d at 131. (The court did not order interest payments due to issues with sovereign immunity. See City of Springfield v. Allphin, 82 Ill. 2d 571, 579-81 (1980).) The above cases appear to contemplate, as I do, that a municipality may be harmed by lost revenue, even if it could not have converted that revenue to profit. I would apply that reasoning to this case and hold that plaintiff has alleged damages in that it lost revenue as a result of defendant’s negligence.