Court Opinion

ID: 9745675
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 23:17:06.383421+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:03.943832
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION UPON DENIAL OF MOTION FOR REHEARING Mr. JUSTICE EBERSPACHER delivered the opinion of the court:  In the petition for rehearing plaintiff has urged that since defendant pled the statutes, defendant put into issue the validity of the statute pled, and that the trial court, since it relied on the statute as grounds for the dismissal, impliedly upheld the constitutionality thereby raising the constitutional question in the trial court. Plaintiff then contends that under the doctrine of Muscarello v. Peterson, 20 Ill.2d 548, 170 N.E.2d 564, this Court has a duty to consider the constitutional question in order to protect the rights of the infant plaintiff. In that case not only were the rights of an infant involved, but unlike the present case, there was “affirmative misconduct by the insurer of the opposite party”. Here the lack of attack on the constitutionality of the statute was not invited by any wrongdoing on the part of the opposing party and there was not any act “calculated to deceive the plaintiff and her counsel”. We therefore, do not consider Muscarello sufficiently in point, and consider failure to make a constitutiinal attack below more than a technicality of procedure; and in view of the position of our Supreme Court in People v. Amerman, 50 Ill.2d 196, 279 N.E.2d 353, as well as earlier cases cited, in our opinion, do not consider that there is a lack of substantial justice in our refusing to review the constitutional question initially raised in this Court. Our review of the attack on plaintiffs pleadings by the motions of the defendant satisfies us that defendant’s motions adequately raised the question of the lack of averment of facts, sufficient to state a cause of action. JONES, J., concurs. G. MORAN, P. J., dissents.