Court Opinion

ID: 9732790
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:35:39.70115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:34.001857
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RYAN, dissenting: This case demonstrates a continued abuse by counsel of the privilege granted to plaintiffs of voluntarily dismissing a complaint and refiling under sections 2 — 1009 and 13 — 217 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1983, ch. 110, pars. 2 — 1009, 13 — 217). In Kahle v. John Deere Co. (1984), 104 Ill. 2d 302, I voiced my displeasure with such abuse and pointed out that the reason for authorizing refiling after a voluntary dismissal is to protect the plaintiff from his loss of the right to relief on the merits because of some procedural defect. Kahle v. John Deere Co. (1984), 104 Ill. 2d 302, 310-11 (Ryan, C.J., concurring). Recently in O’Connell v. St. Francis Hospital (1986), 112 Ill. 2d 273, the court held that these two sections of the Code of Civil Procedure could not constitutionally be applied in such a manner as to defeat or unduly interfere with the performance of the critical judicial function of administration of justice without delay. That is exactly what has happened in our case. The case was originally filed in McHenry County and was processed to the stage that it was ready to be set for trial. However, on the day the court was to set the case for trial, plaintiff’s attorney pulled the rug from under the judge in McHenry County by taking a voluntary dismissal and later filing the case in Cook County, where it again must work its way through the administrative procedures of that court until it gets to the trial stage at which time, under the holding of this court, presumably plaintiff will again be able to take a voluntary dismissal and then again to later refile in some other circuit of plaintiff’s choosing, or in the same circuit. This court is charged with the administrative and supervisory authority over all the courts of this State (Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, sec. 16). The chief judge in each circuit, subject to the rules of this court, has general administrative authority over the court in that circuit (Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, sec. 7(c)). Delay in the disposition of cases is one of the most, if not the most, critical problems of administration facing this court and the chief judges of the circuit courts in this State. Every person in the court system with administrative responsibility is keenly aware of this problem and is concerned with reducing the delay in the disposition of cases. Their efforts to this end should not be interfered with by such maneuvering by counsel as has been demonstrated in this case and in Kahle. If this case would have been set for trial on December 5, 1983, when the circuit court of McHenry County proposed to set it for trial, it would have been disposed of two years ago and the injured plaintiff, if entitled to recover, would have long ago been compensated. As it is, the case still languishes in the circuit court of Cook County and conceivably could remain there for another year or two. The courts exist as a forum for the resolution of disputes of litigants. They are not the private playgrounds for attorneys. Counsel should not be permitted to play on one playground until he tires of it, or something or someone more attractive appears on another which causes him to abandon the one on which he had been playing and to move to the other. In our case it appears that the attraction that lured plaintiff’s counsel from the playground of his original choice was a pitcher with a good earned-run average who apparently preferred to pitch only on his own playground in Cook County. The opinion speaks of the preference given to the forum of plaintiff’s choice. However, the opinion also acknowledges that there is a local interest in having localized controversies decided at home, quoting from Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert (1947), 330 U.S. 501, 508-09, 91 L. Ed. 1055, 1062-63, 67 S. Ct. 839, 843. The opinion recognizes that this same language was quoted by this court in Foster v. Chicago & North Western Transportation Co. (1984), 102 Ill. 2d 378, 382, Jones v. Searle Laboratories (1982), 93 Ill. 2d 366, 372-73, and Espinosa v. Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. (1981), 86 Ill. 2d 111, 118-19. This was the basis of the holding of this court in Wieser v. Missouri Pacific R.R. Co. (1983), 98 Ill. 2d 359, 366-68, where this court analyzed the rationale of the deference paid to a plaintiff’s choice of forum and noted that the Supreme Court, in Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno (1981), 454 U.S. 235, 70 L. Ed. 2d 419, 102 S. Ct. 252, considered that the plaintiff’s choice of forum is not entitled to the same weight or consideration in all cases and that when the plaintiff is foreign to the forum chosen, his choice deserves less weight. This court followed that rationale in Jones v. Searle Laboratories. Thus the plaintiff’s choice of forum when he and the incident out of which the claim arose are strangers to that forum is not sacrosanct. In our case, however, plaintiff’s choice of forum, the forum in which he chose to first file his lawsuit, was McHenry County, which is the forum in which the plaintiff resides and in which he was injured. Under the rationale of the cases discussed in Wieser, this is the choice of forum to which deference should be paid and not the plaintiff’s second choice of Cook County, to which the plaintiff and the claim are foreign. Because of the abuse of the privilege granted to plaintiffs by sections 2 — 1009 and 13 — 217 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and the undue deference which the opinion gives to plaintiff’s second choice of forum, I must respectfully dissent. JUSTICE MORAN joins in this dissent.