Court Opinion

ID: 9531325
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:09:47.927692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:24.953688
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Schwartz specially concurring : A dissenting opinion has been filed in this case on the theory that as the trial court refused, on remandment after appeal, to dissolve the temporary injunction, the order denying the petition for damages was not final. This depends upon the status of the temporary injunction order at the time. An order which is interlocutory is not appealable. However, in the case of temporary injunctions, the statute has provided a method of appeal, and this is the only way in which such an order can be reviewed. Defendant did not appeal from the interlocutory order. It stood upon its motion to strike the complaint, and when the court overruled that motion, did not ask to answer or to take any other proceeding. Thereupon, the trial court entered a final order granting a permanent injunction. The Supreme Court of this State so understood the order when in its decision in this case, 400 Ill. 38, it said: “The defendants elected to stand by this motion, [that is, this motion to dismiss the complaint] and the court issued a permanent injunction * * * .” Upon the entry of this order, the temporary injunction ceased to exist, because certainly a temporary and permanent injunction cannot exist at the same time. The opinions of both the Appellate and Supreme Courts clearly indicate that they were considering an appeal from the final order and not from the temporary order. There is, however, the following language in the concluding part of the Appellate Court decision > “For the reasons stated, the decrees of the Superior Court of Cook County of June 25, 1945 and July 6, 1945 are reversed and the cause is remanded with directions to dismiss the complaint for want of equity.” What the court must have meant by this language is that by its reversal of the final order, the basis of the temporary injunction likewise fell. It could not act upon the temporary order, because no appeal was taken from that order, none of the requirements of the particular statute relating to appeals from orders granting temporary injunctions having been complied with. We have examined the docket and find no order consolidating two appeals in this court. The statute which provides for appeals from orders granting temporary injunctions limits such appeals to review in the Appellate Court only, but in this case the appeal was prosecuted to the Supreme Court. The final direction in the Appellate Court opinion was “to dismiss the complaint for want of equity, ’ ’ and did not direct any action with respect to dissolution of the temporary injunction. All this shows that the Appellate Court on the prior appeal did not and could not have acted on the order granting a temporary injunction. In his dissenting opinion, our colleague holds that since the temporary injunction was not set aside by the trial court, therefore the order dismissing the first petition for the assessment of damages for the wrongful issuance of that order could not be considered final. If that be true, then the order which is now in review is likewise not a final order. The order on the first petition for damages has in all respects the same finality as the order which is now before us. Defendant is not deprived by this procedure from prosecuting its claim for damages. It has its suit on the bond. It may see certain advantages to the procedure in equity which may not exist in a suit on a bond. That we cannot say. The question, for example, arises as to whether or not one of the disadvantages is that the bond is in the penalty of $1,000. It can well be questioned whether this limitation would apply to the principal in the bond, but we cannot pass on that now. Defendant has devoted a considerable portion of his brief to urging upon us that this was an injunction issued in a labor dispute and that it was unjustly issued. Both the Appellate and Supreme Courts have already so decided in favor of defendant. That question is settled. Moreover, what this court thinks of the care and caution which should guide a court in the issuance of temporary injunctions has been stated often, and only recently in the cases of Skarpinski v. Veterans of Foreign Wars of United States, 343 Ill. App. 271; Republican Central Committee v. Cook County Regular Republican Organisation, No. 45867 [348 Ill. App. 189], decided October 17, 1952; and Chicago Motor Coach Co. v. Budd, 346 Ill. App. 385. While both the legislature and the courts have recognized that the jurisdiction of the court to issue injunctions in a labor dispute should be circumscribed within definite limitations, what is now before us is a question of procedure which must be applied to all litigants alike. The question here is whether defendant, after having previously presented a petition for the assessment of damages to the trial court and obtained a final decision, can again present a substantially identical petition. Some place, some time, there must be an end to litigation, and we cannot see how a proceeding such as this could ever be terminated if the parties were permitted to refile their petitions after an adverse decision. Any error in denying the first petition should have been tested on appeal from that order, as the opinion of the Presiding Justice holds.