Court Opinion

ID: 9724758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:11:54.722955+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:05.608561
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, dissenting. The majority holds that the City of Carbondale’s complaint was properly dismissed because it did not adequately allege facts which, if true, would establish that Carbondale had standing to bring this action. In so doing, the majority assumes that the burden of alleging standing lay "with Carbondale. This is not so. Under our supreme court’s ruling in Greer v. Illinois Housing Development Authority (1988), 122 Ill. 2d 462, 494, 524 N.E.2d 561, 575, Carbondale had no burden to plead and prove standing. Rather, it was defendants’ burden to plead and prove lack of standing. There is nothing in the allegations in Carbondale’s complaint which would entitle defendants to the judgment that Carbondale lacks standing to bring this action. To the contrary, I believe that those allegations are sufficient to show that such standing exists. Carbondale avers that the illegal use of tax financing to subsidize the proposed regional shopping mall will result in a substantial decline in its tax revenues because the new mall will lure customers and merchants from an existing mall located within the city’s boundaries. In making this plea, Carbondale does not claim that it is entitled to be protected from competition as such. Its point, rather, is that it should not be forced to suffer the adverse economic effects of a competition made possible only through violation of State law. Such adverse economic consequences are, in my view, no less distinct and palpable an injury and are no less traceable to the defendants’ actions than the damages alleged in Greer v. Illinois Housing Development Authority (1988), 122 Ill. 2d 462, 524 N.E.2d 561, and Village of Barrington Hills v. Village of Hoffman Estates (1980), 81 Ill. 2d 392, 410 N.E.2d 37. The majority contends that Carbondale cannot be said to have sustained injury to a legally cognizable right because it is neither a resident nor a taxpayer of Marion. In advancing this position, the majority has, in effect, embraced the very “zone-of-interests” test which our supreme court expressly declined to adopt in Greer v. Illinois Housing Development Authority (1988), 122 Ill. 2d 462, 491-92, 524 N.E.2d 561, 574. The majority also attempts to make much of the fact that the economic injury feared by Carbondale remains speculative. Our supreme court has made quite clear, however, that a party need not have sustained actual damage before being entitled to bring suit and that the lack of immediate, ascertainable damages is not itself a barrier to the grant of declaratory and injunctive relief. Allegations that an injury is threatened will suffice. 122 Ill. 2d at 493-94, 524 N.E.2d at 575. The majority’s “public policy” analysis is similarly flawed. Under Illinois law, standing requires only some injury in fact to a legally cognizable interest, and the claimed injury must be (1) distinct and palpable, (2) fairly traceable to the defendant’s actions, and (3) substantially likely to be prevented or redressed by the grant of the requested relief. (122 Ill. 2d at 492-93, 524 N.E.2d at 575.) These are the factors we must consider. Where, as here, those factors are adequately alleged, it seems to me that, by definition, public policy mandates that a plaintiff be permitted to pursue his cause of action. The majority raises the spectre of “torrents” of litigation which will follow if standing is found here, but we should not look for a way around the law simply because we are concerned that other litigation involving other litigants may result. If those litigants have also been injured, they, too, are entitled to seek redress, and it is the obligation of the courts of this State to hear their complaints. We exist to resolve disputes, not to avoid them. The majority asserts that if Carbondale were permitted to proceed, the result would “foster a climate ripe for economic warfare between competing municipalities.” Even if there were some basis in the record for this claim, and there is not, I could not understand the majority’s concern. I have always thought that competition between economic rivals was supposed to be a good thing. In any case, I scarcely see how fostering competition can possibly harm the public interest when it results from enforcement of State law. The majority attempts to find solace for its result in the fact that another action by different plaintiffs is now pending in the same circuit court for the same wrongful conduct alleged here. The existence of this second action raises the possibility that the litigation could be consolidated into a single proceeding, but I do not understand how it bears on the issue of Carbondale’s standing. Nothing in the Illinois law of standing, indeed, no principle of American jurisprudence, sanctions the abridgement of a party’s right to seek redress for a legally cognizable injury simply because other injured parties have also sued for the same wrong. For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the circuit court and remand to permit Carbondale to proceed with its cause of action.