Court Opinion

ID: 9743194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:27:54.988478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:39.868449
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARING JUSTICE LINDBERG delivered the opinion of the court:  Plaintiff seeks a rehearing on the set-off issue. His petition for rehearing relies upon McDaniel v. Hoge (1983), 120 Ill. App. 3d 913, 458 N.E.2d 1063, for the proposition that, in the absence of a designation by the parties to the settlement agreement, the decision as to which of several claims a settlement award should be attributed to is a decision best left to the discretion of the trial court. McDaniel, in turn, relied upon Gramse v. Royal Crest Enterprises, Inc. (1981), 100 Ill. App. 3d 100, 426 N.E.2d 614. The facts of McDaniel and Gramse are very similar. In each, a settlement was reached and approved prior to any jury verdict (at the close of the plaintiff’s case-in-chief in McDaniel; before trial in Gramse). A third party attempted to attach a workmen’s compensation lien to the settlement proceeds. The settlement did not specify which of the counts it was meant to satisfy, but did specifically exclude the workmen’s compensation lien from its coverage. The trial court found that the settlement was meant to satisfy only those counts whose theory of recovery (Public Utility Act in McDaniel; Structural Work Act in Gramse) would not be subject to workers’ compensation liens. Those counts based on theories subject to lien attachment (wrongful death in McDaniel; Survivor’s Act in Gramse) were found to be excluded from the settlement. In each case, the appellate court affirmed, deferring to the trial court’s discretion. These cases do not control the present one. First, the trial courts in McDaniel and Gramse had some indication of the settling parties’ intent upon which to base their exercise of discretion: the settlements’ specific exclusion of the workers’ compensation liens. Here, the trial court found that there was no allocation of the settlement to particular counts until after the trial. Second, McDaniel and Gramse involved settlements completely resolved prior to a trial verdict. Thus, the two policies we relied upon to reverse the trial court here were not at issue in McDaniel and Gramse. The trial courts were not unfair to a nonsettling defendant, as the trial court here was, by permitting the settling defendants to stand by and await the outcome of the trial against their codefendants before indicating the full details of their settlement. Double recovery was not evident in McDaniel and Gramse because there was no jury verdict measuring full damages to which the total recovery by the plaintiff could be compared. In denying plaintiff’s petition for rehearing, we adhere to our original opinion. NASH and HOPF, JJ., concur.