Court Opinion

ID: 9714061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:29:45.441923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:23.021998
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE TURNER, specially concurring: Although I concur with the conclusion reached by the majority, I write separately because the majority opinion appears to conclude Travell did stand in loco parentis to Phillips. However, this case comes to us at the summary-judgment stage, and as our supreme court recently pronounced, “[t]he purpose of summary judgment is not to try a question of fact, but rather to determine whether a genuine question of material fact exists” (Bagent v. Blessing Care Corp., 224 Ill. 2d 154, 162 (2007)). Thus, our analysis in section D should have ended when we found “a genuine issue of fact as to whether Travell stood in loco parentis to Phillips.” 371 Ill. App. 3d at 553. Also, the majority opinion need not cite and should not have cited the Scott case, a 1911 appellate court opinion. See 371 Ill. App. 3d at 552, 554-55. First, appellate court decisions issued before 1935 are not binding authority. Bryson v. News America Publications, Inc., 174 Ill. 2d 77, 95, 672 N.E.2d 1207, 1217 (1996); see also Young v. Bryco Arms, 213 Ill. 2d 433, 451-52, 821 N.E.2d 1078, 1089 (2004). Second, due to its age, the case has limited applicability today given the development of family law since it was rendered and the current complexity of family law. Last, regardless of age, the Scott court’s general statements regarding a stepfather’s obligation to support a stepchild lend little to our analysis of the facts before us.