Court Opinion

ID: 9710354
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:08:01.61763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:40.781600
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARING Mr. JUSTICE KUNCE delivered the opinion of the court: We had affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint as a sanction for failure to comply with discovery pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 219(c) (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 110A, par. 219(c)) and denial of plaintiff’s subsequent section 27 petition (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 110, sec. 72) for reinstatement. Plaintiff-appellant (petitioner) now petitions us to reconsider the issues raised in her appeal. She urges that in our review we overlooked certain facts in the record when we found no abuse of discretion by the trial court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint as a sanction for refusal to comply with discovery. We have considered her petition and have been apprised of no facts which we failed to consider in our prior review. Indeed, each fact raised in this petition had received our due consideration. We held then, and do so now, that those facts do not render the trial court’s conditional order of dismissal an abuse of discretion. First, it is pressed that we overlooked the fact that when the court entered its November 1, 1976, order of conditional dismissal, it was impossible to tell from the record which of defendant’s two prior motions with respect to compelling discovery compliance was the subject of this particular order. We believe the record shows clearly enough that the November 1 order was in response to defendant’s October 28, 1975, motion for compliance with defendant’s August 11, 1975, request to produce and motion to compel answers to earlier interrogatories.  Petitioner further contends that we overlooked the fact that defendant’s motions for compliance had merely asked the court to order compliance. Petitioner claims that because defendant’s request was specifically for compliance that the court lacked authority to dismiss plaintiff’s complaint. We do not agree. When a party moves the court for relief pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 219, the court has authority to select or design the sanction it deems, in its judicial discretion, to be just. In any event, the petitioner should note that the court did not order an outright dismissal. The November 1 order reads: “Defendant’s motion to compel presented and allowed. Plaintiff’s Complaint is hereby dismissed. If plaintiff complies with [defendant’s] request within 7 days of this order, order will automatically be vacated without any further action by either side.” By this order, the court, in effect, demanded compliance by plaintiff by a date certain with a predetermined consequence should plaintiff’s compliance not be forthcoming. Let us assume that the court’s November 1 order ordered plaintiff to comply with discovery within 7 days; that plaintiff failed to comply; and that on the 8th day the court dismissed plaintiff’s complaint for failure to comply as ordered. Such a sequence would, in effect, be the same as the circumstances that we have before us. Either course would have been within the sound discretion of the trial court.  Petitioner further asserts that our review failed to note that defendant also had been tardy with respect to discovery. We have, at petitioner’s suggestion, compared the parties’ compliance with discovery and find them to be poles apart. Even if defendant’s pretrial cooperation was worthy of sanction or constituted an excuse for plaintiff’s poor showing, those are arguments which plaintiff should have presented at the hearing on defendant’s motion to compel her compliance or on her own motion for compliance. Plaintiff did not, however, present such arguments or otherwise indicate to the trial court that defendant had been dilatory in any way.  Another fact we are said to have omitted in our review was the fact that petitioner failed to receive a copy of the November 1 order of conditional dismissal. This fact, of course, does not speak to the propriety of that November 1 order. It speaks, rather, to the propriety of the court’s denial of plaintiff’s section 72 petition and is a fact that should have been pleaded and proved by the plaintiff in that petition — but never was. As further indication of plaintiff’s failure to meet time limitations, we note that plaintiff’s notice of appeal of this November 1 order was untimely, and as we indicated in our opinion, the propriety of this order was not properly at issue in her appeal. We chose, however, to address the issue in light of the sanctions invoked for the sake of pointing up the necessity for compliance with reasonable order of trial courts to forestall delays in judicial proceedings.  Petitioner’s other argument in her petition for rehearing is that we misapprehended her diligence in pursuing her claim prior to its dismissal. Her petition outlines all her actions in connection with the litigation. Of course, eager pursuit of one’s lawsuit in the early stages of litigation does not establish diligence or excuse for lack of it with respect to the party’s failure to comply with discovery in later stages. We would simply reiterate that neither her section 72 petition nor any of the verified statements on record at the time that her petition was ruled upon pleaded or showed due diligence with respect to the discovery matters. On June 24, 1977, the court continued the hearing on her petition so as to allow plaintiff 5 days to prepare and file a supplemental affidavit setting forth due diligence on her part. On July 19,1977, the supplemental affidavit not having been filed, the petition was dismissed. Petitioner’s November 14, 1977, affidavit (which finally addressed her excuse for failure to comply with the discovery procedures), besides being tardy, was insufficient in that she failed to allege that notice of the November 1 dismissal order was not sent. (Fennema v. Vander Aa (1969), 42 Ill. 2d 309, 311, 247 N.E.2d 409, 410.) In any event, plaintiff’s failure to keep abreast of her case will not excuse the delay as shown in this record. Accordingly, the plaintiff’s petition for rehearing is denied. KARNS and JONES, JJ., concur.