Court Opinion

ID: 9819179
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:19:27.284945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:29.189539
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GORDON, specially concurring: I concur with the majority that this appeal should be affirmed. However, my concurrence is predicated upon the second reason advanced, namely, that the proffers of the verdict forms were misleading and the court was therefore justified in rejecting them. I am not persuaded, however, that the defendant is bound to a single verdict because only a single class was certified. Section 2 — 1201 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2 — 1201 (West 1992)), which provides for separate verdict forms, does not purport to interface with the class action provisions and section 2 — 801 et seq. of the Code (735 ILCS 5/2 — 801 et seq. (West 1992)). Moreover, in this case, plaintiff did request two separate subclasses, which the court denied. While the failure to certify two subclasses would create administrative problems in the event two separate verdict forms were submitted and resulted in disparate verdicts, the prospect of such administrative difficulty would not justify ignoring the separate verdict requirement under section 2 — 1201. Under the reasoning of the majority, two wrongs would make a right in that a wrongful failure to certify two classes would justify a wrongful failure to submit separate verdicts under section 2 — 1201. I would rather adhere to the notion that if having been wrongfully denied the certification of two subclasses, a party can still prevail at the verdict stage, if two verdict forms are otherwise necessary. However, since appellant failed to properly tender the two verdict forms, the court was justified on that ground alone to reject their tender.