Court Opinion

ID: 9719341
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:49:16.840712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:06.241263
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE LEWIS, specially concurring: Many attorneys and circuit judges do not realize the considerable amount of time that an appellate judge spends ruling on various motions and petitions. One of the most common petitions and probably the most time-consuming petition to the appellate courts is the petition for leave to appeal under Supreme Court Rule 306(aXlXü) (134 HI. 2d R. 306(aXlXü)) from an order entered as to forum non conveniens. The battle over the forum is also very costly and time consuming for the circuit courts and the litigants. I will leave the research, as to what the cost is to the taxpayers and the litigants, to some enterprising law professor or student. Suffice it to say that any time an appeal can be taken before trial of a cause there has to be a delay in the litigation that costs all the parties and the taxpayers. See McAllen, Deference to the Plaintiff in Forum Non Conveniens, 13 S. Ill. U. L.J. 191 (1989) (for an extensive history, criticism and recommendation for change as to forum non conveniens). What the appellate courts are confronted with in these appeals are reviews of the trial judge’s decision as to whether witnesses have better access to the forum from Lambert International Airport in St. Louis than they have from some regional or local airport. In this case we had to decide if St. Clair County can try the case as quickly as Pike County and whether the trial judge erred in deciding that the jury might be helped by viewing the pipeline-storage facility. The battle over the forum results in a battle over minutiae. Justice Joseph Goldenhersh was clairvoyant when he wrote in his dissent in the Torres case: “I need not lengthen this dissent by pointing out the confusion which the utter disregard of the venue statutes evidenced by this opinion will cause in the administration of justice in this jurisdiction. To destroy in one stroke the stability created by a long history of deference to legislative governance of venue is an unfortunate mistake which should be immediately corrected.” Torres v. Walsh (1983), 98 Ill. 2d 338, 355, 456 N.E.2d 601, 609 (Goldenhersh, J., dissenting). We now find out that somehow the intent of the legislature, as expressed in section 2 — 108, has been overlooked by the courts this past decade. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1991, ch. 110, par. 2 — 108 (now 735 ILCS 5/2— -108 (West 1992)).) The majority opinion allows the supreme court of Llinois to rectify this oversight, if it so desires. It is not our intent to be presumptuous or disrespectful toward the supreme court. The section 2 — 108 discussion in the majority opinion obviously can be ignored by the court if it so chooses. Perhaps, however, the supreme court is looking for a way out of the quagmire of forum non conveniens and has not had a good reason or opportunity to reconsider the doctrine. The issue is now respectfully tendered to the proper forum.