Court Opinion

ID: 9727947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:53:26.194995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:44.515843
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARING Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE SULLIVAN delivered the opinion of the court: Both parties have filed petitions for rehearing in which matter has been raised requiring further discussion. In its petition Gerbing first suggests that in holding dismissal to be an excessively severe sanction, we did not consider the “totality of the circumstances.” It argues that in view of plaintiff’s failure to act diligently not only with respect to the bill of particulars but also as to other discovery matters, the dismissal was clearly warranted. The record, however, discloses, and in fact it was admitted by Gerbing on oral argument in this court, that the dismissal order was based solely on problems relating to its request for a bill of particulars. Thus, our inquiry was limited to whether dismissal was a proper sanction for delays in responding to the request with which plaintiff eventually complied, albeit by filing a duplicate of a bill of particulars previously found to be insufficient. On the facts, we found that dismissal was unwarranted, and Gerbing has not referred us to any information we may have overlooked which would indicate this conclusion to be ill-founded. Gerbing now urges that dismissal is the only effective sanction because an assessment of costs is incompatible with the nature of plaintiff’s conduct and, should plaintiffs on remand again ignore requests for a more complete bill of particulars, the effect of our opinion would be to limit the trial court to sanctions short of dismissal. While we held dismissal to be inappropriate under the facts and circumstances of the instant case, there is nothing in our opinion which would prevent the trial court in the exercise of its inherent power and within the bounds of judicial discretion to dismiss plaintiffs’ action if further court orders are disregarded. For the same reasons, we find no merit in Gerbing’s further contention that our opinion would hamper the efforts of future litigants to obtain effective sanctions. In their petition for rehearing, plaintiffs argue that the allegations in their complaint stated a cause of action. They refer us to the holding in Tweedy v. Wright Ford Sales, Inc. (1976), 64 Ill. 2d 570, 357 N.E.2d 449, where the court stated: They suggest that we should rule on whether the reasoning of Tweedy should be applied to the instant case. We note, however, that no question of substantive products liability law was involved in the dismissal order and, in fact, the trial court had previously denied a motion to strike plaintiffs’ fourth amended complaint on the ground that it did not state a cause of action. It is thus clear that the Tweedy principle is simply not relevant to the issues presented on appeal here, and there is no reason to consider the question of its application to the allegations of plaintiffs’ complaint. “A prima facie case that a product was defective and that the defect existed when it left the manufacturer’s control is made by proof that in the absence of abnormal use or reasonable secondary causes the product failed ‘to perform in the manner reasonably to be expected in light of [its] nature and intended function.’ ” (64 Ill. 2d 570, 574, 387 N.E.2d 449, 452.) Plaintiffs also vaguely assert that “the case ought not to be returned for the imposition of sanctions.” At one point they ask, “What is this ‘dilatoriness’ ” that requires the court to send the case back for sanctions; but, in the same paragraph, they answer this question by admitting that their bill of particulars was filed only “after successive orders.” They argue that Federenko v. Builders Plumbing Supplies, Inc. (1970), 123 Ill. App. 2d 129, 260 N.E.2d 41, cited in our opinion, does not support the imposition of sanctions because the attorney’s misconduct in that case was not comparable to that of counsel here. However, this attempt to so distinguish Federenko is meaningless, as we cited that case not because of its factual similarity to the instant case but as an example wherein remandment was ordered for reconsideration of the sanction. For the reasons stated, both petitions for rehearing are denied. MEJDA and WILSON, JJ., concur.