Court Opinion

ID: 9719922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:09:11.117963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:11.167972
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE APPLETON, specially concurring: While I concur with the majority’s decision, I write separately to express my opinion that while a finding of prima facie reversible error is all Talandis Construction Corp. allows us to accomplish in this appeal, such a finding gives little or no direction to the trial court on remand. As to the in limine order barring plaintiff from introducing evidence of the IDFPR investigation, I would find no basis exists to bar the investigating files of the IDFPR. The privilege stated in section 8 — 2101 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/8 — 2101 (West 2006)) sets forth with great specificity the information barred from use as evidence as “[a]ll information, interviews, reports, statements, memoranda, recommendations, letters of reference, or other third party confidential assessments of a health care practitioner’s professional competence, or other data” collected by entities enumerated in section 8 — 2101. While the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois Department of Human Services are listed as agencies covered by the Code, the IDFPR is not. Moreover, the evidence of defendant’s refusal to show the IDFPR’s investigator his autoclave and his ejection of the investigator from his office has nothing to do with the subject matter of an assessment of medical (dental) competence. It is evidence only of defendant’s unwillingness to be investigated and is admissible as a statement against interest. For the foregoing reasons, had I not been constrained by the procedures set forth in Talandis Construction Corp., I would have reversed the judgment of the trial court entered on the verdict and remanded for a new trial with directions to admit the evidence obtained by the IDFPR.