Aleckson v. Village of Round Lake Park
Annotate this Case
NOTICE: Under Supreme Court Rule 367 a party has 21 days after the filing of the opinion to
request a rehearing. Also, opinions are subject to modification, correction or withdrawal at
anytime prior to issuance of the mandate by the Clerk of the Court. Therefore, because the
following slip opinion is being made available prior to the Court's final action in this matter, it
cannot be considered the final decision of the Court. The official copy of the following opinion
will be published by the Supreme Court's Reporter of Decisions in the Official Reports advance
sheets following final action by the Court.
Docket No. 79668--Agenda 6--January 1997.
ROBERT ALECKSON et al., Appellees, v. THE VILLAGE OF ROUND LAKE
PARK et al. (Elizabeth Ohlinger et al., Appellants).
Opinion filed April 17, 1997.
JUSTICE FREEMAN delivered the opinion of the court:
The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the appellate
court may decline to apply one of its prior, published opinions to
a case which was pending at the time the previous decision was
issued. We conclude that the appellate court may.
BACKGROUND
The litigation between the parties in this case centers on a
promotional examination for the rank of sergeant in the Round Lake
Park police department. Plaintiffs, four members of the department,
filed an action for declaratory and injunctive relief in the
circuit court of Lake County on November 12, 1993. The complaint
named as defendants the board of fire and police commissioners of
the Village of Round Lake Park (Board); three board members in
their individual capacity; the Round Lake Park chief of police,
Daniel Veit and the Village of Round Lake Park. Plaintiffs alleged
that defendants violated various sections of the Illinois Municipal
Code (65 ILCS 5/10--2.1--1 et seq. (West 1992)) during a
promotional examination administered by defendants on November 12,
1992. Plaintiffs sought, inter alia, (i) a declaration that the
exam was void ab initio, (ii) an injunction against those who
passed the exam from holding the rank of sergeant, and (iii) an
injunction directing the Board to administer a promotional test
which comports with the requirements of the Municipal Code.
Defendants subsequently moved to dismiss the complaint
pursuant to section 2--619(a)(5) of the Code of Civil Procedure
(735 ILCS 5/2--619(a)(5) (West 1992)). In the motions, defendants
argued, among other things, that plaintiffs' action for declaratory
and injunctive relief was, in essence, an action for administrative
review. As such, the action was subject to the requirement that all
complaints seeking review of decisions of administrative agencies
be filed within 35 days of service of the final administrative
decision. 735 ILCS 5/3--103 (West 1992). Defendants, therefore,
asserted that plaintiffs' complaint, filed one year after the
promotional decisions were made, was untimely. According to
defendants, plaintiffs' decision to challenge the promotions by way
of a declaratory and injunctive action rather than proceeding under
administrative review resulted in the loss of their right to seek
judicial relief.
In response, plaintiffs argued that actions concerning police
promotions fell beyond the purview of administrative review and
that, therefore, the one-year statute of limitations for actions
against local public entities applied. In support of this argument,
plaintiffs pointed out that the Second District of the Appellate
Court considered the action outside the scope of the administrative
review law. See, e.g., Barrows v. City of North Chicago, 32 Ill.
App. 3d 960 (1975); Foster v. Board of Fire & Police Commissioners,
81 Ill. App. 3d 48 (1980). Plaintiffs noted that because the
circuit court of Lake County was situated in the Second District,
the circuit judge was bound to follow the law as set forth in
Barrows and its progeny. Barrows notwithstanding, the court ruled
that plaintiffs' action fell under the administrative review law
and dismissed the complaint with prejudice because plaintiffs had
not complied with the 35-day filing requirement contained in the
Administrative Review Act. 735 ILCS 5/3--103 (West 1992).
Plaintiffs appealed.
During the pendency of plaintiffs' appeal, the Second District
issued its opinion in Mueller v. Board of Fire & Police
Commissioners, 267 Ill. App. 3d 726 (1994). In Mueller, the court
"reconsidered [its] decisions in the Barrows line of cases and ***
decided to overrule them regarding the applicability of the Review
Law." Mueller, 267 Ill. App. 3d at 731. As a result, the issue in
the pending appeal was no longer whether the circuit judge erred by
not following Barrows and its progeny. Rather, the relevant inquiry
became whether the appellate court should apply the Mueller
decision retroactively. The appellate court declined to do so.
In reaching its conclusion, the appellate court initially
noted that plaintiffs here filed their complaint in a manner which
"complied with second district case law as it existed at the time."
No. 2--94--0987 (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23).
The court recognized that its opinion in Mueller broke with the
district's past precedent and that to give it retroactive effect
would cause injustice and hardship. Accordingly, the court
concluded that Mueller should not be given a retroactive
application in this case. We subsequently granted defendants leave
to appeal. 155 Ill. 2d R. 315.
On appeal before this court, defendants maintain solely that
the appellate court does not have the authority to apply Mueller
prospectively. In defendants' view, only this court may declare
whether a decision will apply prospectively. Alternatively,
defendants maintain that even if the appellate court possesses such
a power, the court improperly exercised it in this case.
Plaintiffs, on the other hand, argue that the appellate court does
have such a power and that it exercised it properly in the instant
case. We agree with plaintiffs and, therefore, affirm the judgment
of the appellate court.
ANALYSIS
I
Generally, when a court issues an opinion, the decision is
presumed to apply both retroactively and prospectively.
Deichmueller Construction Co. v.. Industrial Comm'n, 151 Ill. 2d 413, 416 (1992); 21 C.J.S. Courts 148 (1990). That presumption can
be overcome in two types of circumstances. First, the issuing court
itself may expressly state that its decision will be applied
prospectively only. See, e.g., Molitor v. Kaneland Community Unit
District No. 302, 18 Ill. 2d 11 (1959). Second, a later court may,
under certain circumstances, override the presumption by declining
to give the previous opinion retroactive effect, at least with
respect to the parties appearing before the later court. The
present case falls under the latter category. Accordingly, we will
confine our discussion to cases which involve situations in which
a later court is deciding whether to give a previous decision
prospective effect only.
We begin our analysis with the seminal case concerning the
prospective application of a civil decision, Chevron Oil Co. v.
Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 30 L. Ed. 2d 296, 92 S. Ct. 349 (1971). As in
this case, the issue before the United States Supreme Court in
Chevron concerned whether a previous decision, which shortened a
statute of limitations, should be applied to a party who had filed
his action prior to the issuance of the opinion. Specifically,
plaintiff Huson brought a personal suit for damages three years
after he was injured. His complaint, when filed, was timely under
existing law. While the matter was pending in the trial court, the
United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Rodrigue v.
Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 395 U.S. 352, 23 L. Ed. 2d 360, 89 S. Ct. 1835 (1969). In Rodrigue, the Court determined that actions
such as Huson's were governed by a different statute of
limitations, one which gave plaintiffs only one year to bring suit.
The court in Rodrigue was silent as to its retroactive effect, but
an application of its holding to Huson would have rendered his
cause of action time-barred. Huson, therefore, argued that Rodrigue
should be applied prospectively because he had relied on the
previous law in bringing his action and suffered a hardship as a
result of that reliance. Huson took his case to the Supreme Court,
which ultimately agreed with his arguments.
The Court constructed a three-prong analysis to consider the
question of prospective application to Huson's case. The analysis
focused on whether "the decision to be applied nonretroactively ***
establish[ed] a new principle of law, either by overruling clear
past precedent on which litigants may have relied [citation] or by
deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution was not
clearly foreshadowed." Chevron, 404 U.S. at 106-07, 30 L. Ed. 2d at
306, 92 S. Ct. at 355. Once this threshold requirement is
satisfied, the question of prospective or retroactive application
turns on considerations of (i) whether, given the purpose and prior
history of the new rule, its operation will be retarded or promoted
by prospective application, and (ii) whether prospective
application is mandated by the balance of equities. Chevron, 404 U.S. at 106-07, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306, 92 S. Ct. at 355. Noting that
plaintiff had followed the law as it existed at the time he filed
suit, the Court concluded that notions of equity and fairness
warranted a prospective application under the specific facts of the
case.
We note that in recent years, the United States Supreme Court
has attempted to limit the applicability of the Chevron test with
respect to its own decisions which announce a new rule of federal
law. See Reynoldsville Casket Co. v. Hyde, 514 U.S. 1745, 131 L. Ed. 2d 820, 115 S. Ct. 1745 (1995); Harper v. Virginia Department
of Taxation, 509 U.S. ___, 125 L. Ed. 2d 74, 113 S. Ct. 2510
(1993). In these cases, the Court has held that, under the
supremacy clause, state courts could not change a legal outcome
that federal law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, otherwise
dictates. See Reynoldsville, 514 U.S. at ___, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 826-
27, 115 S. Ct. at 1749; Harper, 509 U.S. at 96-97, 125 L. Ed. 2d at
86, 113 S. Ct. at 2517. Although we recognize this limitation on
using the Chevron test, these later statements by the Court have no
application to the case at bar. In this case, the appellate court
did not purport to disregard a federal rule announced by the
Supreme Court. Rather, the appellate court was concerned solely
with deciding the effect of one of its own prior decisions.
Therefore, our decision today is strictly confined to decisions of
Illinois courts concerning Illinois law.
The three-part prospectivity analysis utilized in Chevron was
adopted for the first time in Illinois by our appellate court in In
re Petition of Negron, 33 Ill. App. 3d 112 (1975). In Negron, the
appellate court addressed whether Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 31 L. Ed. 2d 551, 92 S. Ct. 1208 (1972), and People ex rel.
Slawek v. Covenant Children's Home, 52 Ill. 2d 20 (1972), should be
applied retroactively to adoption proceedings which were held a few
months before the two decisions were issued. These higher court
decisions had declared unconstitutional the conclusive presumption
that an unwed father was unfit to retain custody of a child after
the mother's death. In ruling that a prospective application was
warranted, the appellate court specifically focused upon the
litigants' reliance on the previously existing law and the
substantial burdens caused by the change in law. Like the United
States Supreme Court in Chevron, the appellate court based its
decision on notions of equity and fairness. Negron, 33 Ill. App. 3d
at 115-16.
Although this court has never expressly recognized the
appellate court's authority to give nonretroactive effect to a
previous decision, we implicitly recognized it in Board of
Commissioners of Wood Dale Public Library District v. County of
Du Page, 103 Ill. 2d 422 (1984). In Board of Commissioners, this
court, for the first time, adopted the Chevron test. In doing so,
we specifically cited the appellate court's decision in Negron and
its reference to Chevron. Board of Commissioners, 103 Ill. 2d at
429. Notably, this court, in no way, evinced any disapproval of the
appellate court's action in Negron in reviewing the prospectivity
of either a United States Supreme Court opinion or an opinion of
this court. Nor did this court indicate that the appellate court's
review was inappropriate. Rather, this court ultimately concluded
that its own previous decision should be given a prospective
application to the case before it in the interests of equity and
fairness, so as to avert the hardship and injustice caused by the
losing litigant's reliance on previously existing law. Board of
Commissioners, 103 Ill. 2d at 430-32.
Parenthetically, we note that this court, in Lannon v. Kosco,
158 Ill. 2d 535 (1994), recently addressed the question of whether
to give a prospective application to one of its earlier opinions.
Lannon, however, does not address the precise issue presented in
this case because the previous decision in question there, i.e.,
Kotecki v. Cyclops Welding Corp., 146 Ill. 2d 155 (1991), contained
what this court considered an express statement concerning its
retroactive effect, namely, our denial of the petition for
rehearing which specifically requested that the decision be given
prospective effect (see Kotecki, 146 Ill. 2d at 174 (Freeman J.,
dissenting upon denial of rehearing)). Lannon, 158 Ill. 2d at 539.
Lannon is inapposite to the case at bar because it did not involve
a situation in which the decision to be given nonretroactive effect
was silent as to its retroactive application.
Notwithstanding the above, defendants insist that language
contained in some of our previous decisions indicates that it is
only within the power of the highest court of this state to give a
decision prospective or retroactive application. See, e.g., Gilbert
v. Sycamore Municipal Hospital, 156 Ill. 2d 511, 529 (1993);
Deichmueller Construction Co. v. Industrial Comm'n, 151 Ill. 2d 413, 416 (1992); Castaneda v. Illinois Human Rights Comm'n, 132 Ill. 2d 304, 328 (1989); Molitor v. Kaneland Community Unit
District No. 302, 18 Ill. 2d 11, 28 (1959). Ironically, defendants
even cite Board of Commissioners as authority for this contention.
We stress, however, that in none of these cases did this court ever
expressly limit to the Illinois Supreme Court alone the power to
determine the prospective application of a prior decision to a case
which was pending at the time the prior decision was issued.
Indeed, whether the appellate court has the authority to so act was
never an issue for our review in any of the cases cited by
defendants for this proposition. Moreover, our review of the
decisions in Chevron, Board of Commissioners, and Negron reveals
that, in each case, the reviewing court applied the previous
decision prospectively to the later case in the interests of equity
and fairness and not because it possessed any "power" with respect
to the retroactive question. Therefore, past decisional law
indicates that the appellate court in this case did not, as
defendants suggest, usurp a power exclusively vested in this court.
Additional support for the appellate court's power to act in
this case can be found in Supreme Court Rule 366. That rule
provides in pertinent part:
"In all appeals the reviewing court may, in its
discretion, and on such terms as it deems just ***
* * *
enter any judgement and make any order that ought to
have been given or made, and make any other and further
orders and grant any relief, including a remandment, a
partial reversal, the order of a partial new trial, the
entry of a remittitur, or the enforcement of a judgment,
that the case may require." (Emphasis added.) 155 Ill. 2d
R. 366(a)(5).
Implicit in Rule 366 is the recognition that all reviewing courts
enjoy the power to exercise discretion in a just manner so as to do
equity, factors which, as we have already noted, play a great role
in considering whether to apply a previous decision prospectively.
To hold that the appellate court could not apply its own prior
decision prospectively in this case would frustrate that court's
ability to do equity in the cases it reviews. We decline to
handcuff our appellate court in such a manner.
In view of the foregoing principles, we hold that the
appellate court in this case had the authority to apply its
decision in Mueller prospectively.
II
In their final contention, defendants maintain that even if
the appellate court had the power to apply Mueller prospectively,
the appellate court erred in concluding that a prospective
application was warranted under the facts of this case. We
disagree.
The first factor of the Chevron test is whether the decision
to be applied nonretroactively established a new principle of law,
either by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants have
relied or by deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution
was not clearly foreshadowed. See Chevron, 404 U.S. at 106, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306, 92 S. Ct. at 355. In our view, it is beyond dispute
that plaintiffs relied on "clear past precedent" when they filed
their complaint in this action. At that time, Barrows had been the
controlling authority in the Second District for 20 years. In fact,
the decision had been consistently reaffirmed by the Second
District. See Foster v. Board of Fire & Police Commissioners, 81
Ill. App. 3d 48 (1980); Sullivan v. Board of Fire & Police
Commissioners, 103 Ill. App. 3d 167 (1981). Nevertheless,
defendants argue that plaintiffs' reliance on the Barrows line of
cases was unjustified because it represented a minority viewpoint
in Illinois--the First, Third and Fifth Districts of the Appellate
Court had taken the opposite view. Defendants, however, ignore the
fact that when conflicts arise amongst the districts, the circuit
court is bound by the decisions of the appellate court of the
district in which it sits. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v.
Yapejian, 152 Ill. 2d 533, 539-40 (1992). In view of these
circumstances, we do not think it was unreasonable for plaintiffs,
faced with conflicting appellate authority, to rely upon the
authority from their home appellate district.
The second Chevron factor consists of " `weigh[ing] the merits
and demerits in each case by looking to the prior history of the
rule in question, its purpose and effect, and [determining] whether
retrospective operation will further or retard its operation.' "
Chevron, 404 U.S. at 106-07, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306, 92 S. Ct. at 355,
quoting Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 629, 14 L. Ed. 2d 601,
608, 85 S. Ct. 1731, 1738. In its decision in Mueller, the
appellate court rejected the analysis contained in Barrows and its
progeny because of the split of authority on the question of the
applicability of the administrative review law to actions
concerning police promotions. See Mueller, 267 Ill. App. 3d at 731.
Moreover, the court noted that its departure from the "prior
settled rule" in the district was warranted in order to promote
incongruous results. Mueller, 267 Ill. App. 3d at 732-33. A
nonretroactive application of Mueller to the parties in this case
does not frustrate these concerns. The appellate court here noted
that it was applying Mueller prospectively to the parties "because
the facts of the instant case and its timing vis a vis Mueller are
so unique." No. 2--94--0987 (unpublished order under Supreme Court
Rule 23). Therefore, the nonretroactive application was expressly
limited to the facts of the case and could not have "retarded" the
future operation of Mueller. In addition, the appellate court
issued its decision as an unpublished order under Supreme Court
Rule 23 (134 Ill. 2d R. 23). As a result, the appellate court's
decision in this case has no precedential value and does not in any
way "overrule" or modify the rule announced by the Second District
in Mueller. That decision remains intact in the absence of a
contrary ruling from this court. For these reasons, prospective
application of Mueller in this case will not dilute the operation
of the rule announced in Mueller in the Second District.
The final element of the Chevron test concerns whether
substantial inequitable results would be produced if the former
decision is applied retroactively. Chevron, 404 U.S. at 107, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306, 92 S. Ct. at 355. In this case, the effect of a
retroactive application of Mueller would be that plaintiffs'
lawsuit is time-barred. More important, such an application would
deprive plaintiffs of any remedy whatsoever due to a superseding
legal doctrine that was unforeseeable. In this respect, this case
is similar to Chevron, in which a plaintiff's cause of action was
terminated by the retroactive application of the former case. The
United States Supreme Court there noted that it would be
"substantial[ly] inequitable *** to hold that the [plaintiff]
`slept on his rights' at a time when he could not have known the
time limitations that the law imposed upon him." Chevron, 404 U.S.
at 108, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306-07, 92 S. Ct. at 356. We share this
view in this case and find that the balance of equities falls in
plaintiffs' favor.
In view of the circumstances of this case, we reject
defendants' contention that the appellate court erred in finding
that plaintiffs satisfied the criteria for a prospective
application of Mueller to their cause of action.
CONCLUSION
Having found no merit to each of defendants' assignments of
error, we hereby affirm the judgment of the appellate court.
Affirmed.
JUSTICE HARRISON, specially concurring:
Illinois has but one appellate court. People v. Granados, 172 Ill. 2d 358, 371 (1996). Although the state is divided into five
judicial districts, those districts have nothing whatever to do
with the court's authority. Their sole purpose is to define the
political units from which judges of the supreme and appellate
courts are selected. Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, 2.
Because there is only one appellate court, a decision by any
division of that court is binding precedent on all circuit courts
throughout the state, regardless of locale. People v. Harris, 123 Ill. 2d 113, 128 (1988). That being so, I fail to see how the
majority can hold "that when conflicts arise amongst the districts,
the circuit court is bound by the decisions of the appellate court
of the district in which it sits." Slip op. at 8. Such a rule makes
sense in the federal judiciary, where there are various courts of
appeal which are autonomous, but it is wholly inconsistent with the
principle that the appellate court in Illinois is a single body
whose decisions are binding on every circuit court in the state.
Given the unitary nature of the Illinois appellate court and
the reach of its decisions, what circuit courts should be doing is
following the most recent appellate court decision on point. That
is so even if the decision conflicts with a prior decision of an
appellate court division located within the circuit court's
particular district. The geography is simply irrelevant.
Subject to this qualification, I agree with the majority's
analysis and with the result it reaches.
CHIEF JUSTICE HEIPLE joins in this special concurrence.
request a rehearing. Also, opinions are subject to modification, correction or withdrawal at
anytime prior to issuance of the mandate by the Clerk of the Court. Therefore, because the
following slip opinion is being made available prior to the Court's final action in this matter, it
cannot be considered the final decision of the Court. The official copy of the following opinion
will be published by the Supreme Court's Reporter of Decisions in the Official Reports advance
sheets following final action by the Court.
Docket No. 79668--Agenda 6--January 1997.
ROBERT ALECKSON et al., Appellees, v. THE VILLAGE OF ROUND LAKE
PARK et al. (Elizabeth Ohlinger et al., Appellants).
Opinion filed April 17, 1997.
JUSTICE FREEMAN delivered the opinion of the court:
The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the appellate
court may decline to apply one of its prior, published opinions to
a case which was pending at the time the previous decision was
issued. We conclude that the appellate court may.
BACKGROUND
The litigation between the parties in this case centers on a
promotional examination for the rank of sergeant in the Round Lake
Park police department. Plaintiffs, four members of the department,
filed an action for declaratory and injunctive relief in the
circuit court of Lake County on November 12, 1993. The complaint
named as defendants the board of fire and police commissioners of
the Village of Round Lake Park (Board); three board members in
their individual capacity; the Round Lake Park chief of police,
Daniel Veit and the Village of Round Lake Park. Plaintiffs alleged
that defendants violated various sections of the Illinois Municipal
Code (65 ILCS 5/10--2.1--1 et seq. (West 1992)) during a
promotional examination administered by defendants on November 12,
1992. Plaintiffs sought, inter alia, (i) a declaration that the
exam was void ab initio, (ii) an injunction against those who
passed the exam from holding the rank of sergeant, and (iii) an
injunction directing the Board to administer a promotional test
which comports with the requirements of the Municipal Code.
Defendants subsequently moved to dismiss the complaint
pursuant to section 2--619(a)(5) of the Code of Civil Procedure
(735 ILCS 5/2--619(a)(5) (West 1992)). In the motions, defendants
argued, among other things, that plaintiffs' action for declaratory
and injunctive relief was, in essence, an action for administrative
review. As such, the action was subject to the requirement that all
complaints seeking review of decisions of administrative agencies
be filed within 35 days of service of the final administrative
decision. 735 ILCS 5/3--103 (West 1992). Defendants, therefore,
asserted that plaintiffs' complaint, filed one year after the
promotional decisions were made, was untimely. According to
defendants, plaintiffs' decision to challenge the promotions by way
of a declaratory and injunctive action rather than proceeding under
administrative review resulted in the loss of their right to seek
judicial relief.
In response, plaintiffs argued that actions concerning police
promotions fell beyond the purview of administrative review and
that, therefore, the one-year statute of limitations for actions
against local public entities applied. In support of this argument,
plaintiffs pointed out that the Second District of the Appellate
Court considered the action outside the scope of the administrative
review law. See, e.g., Barrows v. City of North Chicago, 32 Ill.
App. 3d 960 (1975); Foster v. Board of Fire & Police Commissioners,
81 Ill. App. 3d 48 (1980). Plaintiffs noted that because the
circuit court of Lake County was situated in the Second District,
the circuit judge was bound to follow the law as set forth in
Barrows and its progeny. Barrows notwithstanding, the court ruled
that plaintiffs' action fell under the administrative review law
and dismissed the complaint with prejudice because plaintiffs had
not complied with the 35-day filing requirement contained in the
Administrative Review Act. 735 ILCS 5/3--103 (West 1992).
Plaintiffs appealed.
During the pendency of plaintiffs' appeal, the Second District
issued its opinion in Mueller v. Board of Fire & Police
Commissioners, 267 Ill. App. 3d 726 (1994). In Mueller, the court
"reconsidered [its] decisions in the Barrows line of cases and ***
decided to overrule them regarding the applicability of the Review
Law." Mueller, 267 Ill. App. 3d at 731. As a result, the issue in
the pending appeal was no longer whether the circuit judge erred by
not following Barrows and its progeny. Rather, the relevant inquiry
became whether the appellate court should apply the Mueller
decision retroactively. The appellate court declined to do so.
In reaching its conclusion, the appellate court initially
noted that plaintiffs here filed their complaint in a manner which
"complied with second district case law as it existed at the time."
No. 2--94--0987 (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23).
The court recognized that its opinion in Mueller broke with the
district's past precedent and that to give it retroactive effect
would cause injustice and hardship. Accordingly, the court
concluded that Mueller should not be given a retroactive
application in this case. We subsequently granted defendants leave
to appeal. 155 Ill. 2d R. 315.
On appeal before this court, defendants maintain solely that
the appellate court does not have the authority to apply Mueller
prospectively. In defendants' view, only this court may declare
whether a decision will apply prospectively. Alternatively,
defendants maintain that even if the appellate court possesses such
a power, the court improperly exercised it in this case.
Plaintiffs, on the other hand, argue that the appellate court does
have such a power and that it exercised it properly in the instant
case. We agree with plaintiffs and, therefore, affirm the judgment
of the appellate court.
ANALYSIS
I
Generally, when a court issues an opinion, the decision is
presumed to apply both retroactively and prospectively.
Deichmueller Construction Co. v.. Industrial Comm'n, 151 Ill. 2d 413, 416 (1992); 21 C.J.S. Courts 148 (1990). That presumption can
be overcome in two types of circumstances. First, the issuing court
itself may expressly state that its decision will be applied
prospectively only. See, e.g., Molitor v. Kaneland Community Unit
District No. 302, 18 Ill. 2d 11 (1959). Second, a later court may,
under certain circumstances, override the presumption by declining
to give the previous opinion retroactive effect, at least with
respect to the parties appearing before the later court. The
present case falls under the latter category. Accordingly, we will
confine our discussion to cases which involve situations in which
a later court is deciding whether to give a previous decision
prospective effect only.
We begin our analysis with the seminal case concerning the
prospective application of a civil decision, Chevron Oil Co. v.
Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 30 L. Ed. 2d 296, 92 S. Ct. 349 (1971). As in
this case, the issue before the United States Supreme Court in
Chevron concerned whether a previous decision, which shortened a
statute of limitations, should be applied to a party who had filed
his action prior to the issuance of the opinion. Specifically,
plaintiff Huson brought a personal suit for damages three years
after he was injured. His complaint, when filed, was timely under
existing law. While the matter was pending in the trial court, the
United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Rodrigue v.
Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 395 U.S. 352, 23 L. Ed. 2d 360, 89 S. Ct. 1835 (1969). In Rodrigue, the Court determined that actions
such as Huson's were governed by a different statute of
limitations, one which gave plaintiffs only one year to bring suit.
The court in Rodrigue was silent as to its retroactive effect, but
an application of its holding to Huson would have rendered his
cause of action time-barred. Huson, therefore, argued that Rodrigue
should be applied prospectively because he had relied on the
previous law in bringing his action and suffered a hardship as a
result of that reliance. Huson took his case to the Supreme Court,
which ultimately agreed with his arguments.
The Court constructed a three-prong analysis to consider the
question of prospective application to Huson's case. The analysis
focused on whether "the decision to be applied nonretroactively ***
establish[ed] a new principle of law, either by overruling clear
past precedent on which litigants may have relied [citation] or by
deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution was not
clearly foreshadowed." Chevron, 404 U.S. at 106-07, 30 L. Ed. 2d at
306, 92 S. Ct. at 355. Once this threshold requirement is
satisfied, the question of prospective or retroactive application
turns on considerations of (i) whether, given the purpose and prior
history of the new rule, its operation will be retarded or promoted
by prospective application, and (ii) whether prospective
application is mandated by the balance of equities. Chevron, 404 U.S. at 106-07, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306, 92 S. Ct. at 355. Noting that
plaintiff had followed the law as it existed at the time he filed
suit, the Court concluded that notions of equity and fairness
warranted a prospective application under the specific facts of the
case.
We note that in recent years, the United States Supreme Court
has attempted to limit the applicability of the Chevron test with
respect to its own decisions which announce a new rule of federal
law. See Reynoldsville Casket Co. v. Hyde, 514 U.S. 1745, 131 L. Ed. 2d 820, 115 S. Ct. 1745 (1995); Harper v. Virginia Department
of Taxation, 509 U.S. ___, 125 L. Ed. 2d 74, 113 S. Ct. 2510
(1993). In these cases, the Court has held that, under the
supremacy clause, state courts could not change a legal outcome
that federal law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, otherwise
dictates. See Reynoldsville, 514 U.S. at ___, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 826-
27, 115 S. Ct. at 1749; Harper, 509 U.S. at 96-97, 125 L. Ed. 2d at
86, 113 S. Ct. at 2517. Although we recognize this limitation on
using the Chevron test, these later statements by the Court have no
application to the case at bar. In this case, the appellate court
did not purport to disregard a federal rule announced by the
Supreme Court. Rather, the appellate court was concerned solely
with deciding the effect of one of its own prior decisions.
Therefore, our decision today is strictly confined to decisions of
Illinois courts concerning Illinois law.
The three-part prospectivity analysis utilized in Chevron was
adopted for the first time in Illinois by our appellate court in In
re Petition of Negron, 33 Ill. App. 3d 112 (1975). In Negron, the
appellate court addressed whether Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 31 L. Ed. 2d 551, 92 S. Ct. 1208 (1972), and People ex rel.
Slawek v. Covenant Children's Home, 52 Ill. 2d 20 (1972), should be
applied retroactively to adoption proceedings which were held a few
months before the two decisions were issued. These higher court
decisions had declared unconstitutional the conclusive presumption
that an unwed father was unfit to retain custody of a child after
the mother's death. In ruling that a prospective application was
warranted, the appellate court specifically focused upon the
litigants' reliance on the previously existing law and the
substantial burdens caused by the change in law. Like the United
States Supreme Court in Chevron, the appellate court based its
decision on notions of equity and fairness. Negron, 33 Ill. App. 3d
at 115-16.
Although this court has never expressly recognized the
appellate court's authority to give nonretroactive effect to a
previous decision, we implicitly recognized it in Board of
Commissioners of Wood Dale Public Library District v. County of
Du Page, 103 Ill. 2d 422 (1984). In Board of Commissioners, this
court, for the first time, adopted the Chevron test. In doing so,
we specifically cited the appellate court's decision in Negron and
its reference to Chevron. Board of Commissioners, 103 Ill. 2d at
429. Notably, this court, in no way, evinced any disapproval of the
appellate court's action in Negron in reviewing the prospectivity
of either a United States Supreme Court opinion or an opinion of
this court. Nor did this court indicate that the appellate court's
review was inappropriate. Rather, this court ultimately concluded
that its own previous decision should be given a prospective
application to the case before it in the interests of equity and
fairness, so as to avert the hardship and injustice caused by the
losing litigant's reliance on previously existing law. Board of
Commissioners, 103 Ill. 2d at 430-32.
Parenthetically, we note that this court, in Lannon v. Kosco,
158 Ill. 2d 535 (1994), recently addressed the question of whether
to give a prospective application to one of its earlier opinions.
Lannon, however, does not address the precise issue presented in
this case because the previous decision in question there, i.e.,
Kotecki v. Cyclops Welding Corp., 146 Ill. 2d 155 (1991), contained
what this court considered an express statement concerning its
retroactive effect, namely, our denial of the petition for
rehearing which specifically requested that the decision be given
prospective effect (see Kotecki, 146 Ill. 2d at 174 (Freeman J.,
dissenting upon denial of rehearing)). Lannon, 158 Ill. 2d at 539.
Lannon is inapposite to the case at bar because it did not involve
a situation in which the decision to be given nonretroactive effect
was silent as to its retroactive application.
Notwithstanding the above, defendants insist that language
contained in some of our previous decisions indicates that it is
only within the power of the highest court of this state to give a
decision prospective or retroactive application. See, e.g., Gilbert
v. Sycamore Municipal Hospital, 156 Ill. 2d 511, 529 (1993);
Deichmueller Construction Co. v. Industrial Comm'n, 151 Ill. 2d 413, 416 (1992); Castaneda v. Illinois Human Rights Comm'n, 132 Ill. 2d 304, 328 (1989); Molitor v. Kaneland Community Unit
District No. 302, 18 Ill. 2d 11, 28 (1959). Ironically, defendants
even cite Board of Commissioners as authority for this contention.
We stress, however, that in none of these cases did this court ever
expressly limit to the Illinois Supreme Court alone the power to
determine the prospective application of a prior decision to a case
which was pending at the time the prior decision was issued.
Indeed, whether the appellate court has the authority to so act was
never an issue for our review in any of the cases cited by
defendants for this proposition. Moreover, our review of the
decisions in Chevron, Board of Commissioners, and Negron reveals
that, in each case, the reviewing court applied the previous
decision prospectively to the later case in the interests of equity
and fairness and not because it possessed any "power" with respect
to the retroactive question. Therefore, past decisional law
indicates that the appellate court in this case did not, as
defendants suggest, usurp a power exclusively vested in this court.
Additional support for the appellate court's power to act in
this case can be found in Supreme Court Rule 366. That rule
provides in pertinent part:
"In all appeals the reviewing court may, in its
discretion, and on such terms as it deems just ***
* * *
enter any judgement and make any order that ought to
have been given or made, and make any other and further
orders and grant any relief, including a remandment, a
partial reversal, the order of a partial new trial, the
entry of a remittitur, or the enforcement of a judgment,
that the case may require." (Emphasis added.) 155 Ill. 2d
R. 366(a)(5).
Implicit in Rule 366 is the recognition that all reviewing courts
enjoy the power to exercise discretion in a just manner so as to do
equity, factors which, as we have already noted, play a great role
in considering whether to apply a previous decision prospectively.
To hold that the appellate court could not apply its own prior
decision prospectively in this case would frustrate that court's
ability to do equity in the cases it reviews. We decline to
handcuff our appellate court in such a manner.
In view of the foregoing principles, we hold that the
appellate court in this case had the authority to apply its
decision in Mueller prospectively.
II
In their final contention, defendants maintain that even if
the appellate court had the power to apply Mueller prospectively,
the appellate court erred in concluding that a prospective
application was warranted under the facts of this case. We
disagree.
The first factor of the Chevron test is whether the decision
to be applied nonretroactively established a new principle of law,
either by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants have
relied or by deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution
was not clearly foreshadowed. See Chevron, 404 U.S. at 106, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306, 92 S. Ct. at 355. In our view, it is beyond dispute
that plaintiffs relied on "clear past precedent" when they filed
their complaint in this action. At that time, Barrows had been the
controlling authority in the Second District for 20 years. In fact,
the decision had been consistently reaffirmed by the Second
District. See Foster v. Board of Fire & Police Commissioners, 81
Ill. App. 3d 48 (1980); Sullivan v. Board of Fire & Police
Commissioners, 103 Ill. App. 3d 167 (1981). Nevertheless,
defendants argue that plaintiffs' reliance on the Barrows line of
cases was unjustified because it represented a minority viewpoint
in Illinois--the First, Third and Fifth Districts of the Appellate
Court had taken the opposite view. Defendants, however, ignore the
fact that when conflicts arise amongst the districts, the circuit
court is bound by the decisions of the appellate court of the
district in which it sits. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v.
Yapejian, 152 Ill. 2d 533, 539-40 (1992). In view of these
circumstances, we do not think it was unreasonable for plaintiffs,
faced with conflicting appellate authority, to rely upon the
authority from their home appellate district.
The second Chevron factor consists of " `weigh[ing] the merits
and demerits in each case by looking to the prior history of the
rule in question, its purpose and effect, and [determining] whether
retrospective operation will further or retard its operation.' "
Chevron, 404 U.S. at 106-07, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306, 92 S. Ct. at 355,
quoting Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 629, 14 L. Ed. 2d 601,
608, 85 S. Ct. 1731, 1738. In its decision in Mueller, the
appellate court rejected the analysis contained in Barrows and its
progeny because of the split of authority on the question of the
applicability of the administrative review law to actions
concerning police promotions. See Mueller, 267 Ill. App. 3d at 731.
Moreover, the court noted that its departure from the "prior
settled rule" in the district was warranted in order to promote
incongruous results. Mueller, 267 Ill. App. 3d at 732-33. A
nonretroactive application of Mueller to the parties in this case
does not frustrate these concerns. The appellate court here noted
that it was applying Mueller prospectively to the parties "because
the facts of the instant case and its timing vis a vis Mueller are
so unique." No. 2--94--0987 (unpublished order under Supreme Court
Rule 23). Therefore, the nonretroactive application was expressly
limited to the facts of the case and could not have "retarded" the
future operation of Mueller. In addition, the appellate court
issued its decision as an unpublished order under Supreme Court
Rule 23 (134 Ill. 2d R. 23). As a result, the appellate court's
decision in this case has no precedential value and does not in any
way "overrule" or modify the rule announced by the Second District
in Mueller. That decision remains intact in the absence of a
contrary ruling from this court. For these reasons, prospective
application of Mueller in this case will not dilute the operation
of the rule announced in Mueller in the Second District.
The final element of the Chevron test concerns whether
substantial inequitable results would be produced if the former
decision is applied retroactively. Chevron, 404 U.S. at 107, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306, 92 S. Ct. at 355. In this case, the effect of a
retroactive application of Mueller would be that plaintiffs'
lawsuit is time-barred. More important, such an application would
deprive plaintiffs of any remedy whatsoever due to a superseding
legal doctrine that was unforeseeable. In this respect, this case
is similar to Chevron, in which a plaintiff's cause of action was
terminated by the retroactive application of the former case. The
United States Supreme Court there noted that it would be
"substantial[ly] inequitable *** to hold that the [plaintiff]
`slept on his rights' at a time when he could not have known the
time limitations that the law imposed upon him." Chevron, 404 U.S.
at 108, 30 L. Ed. 2d at 306-07, 92 S. Ct. at 356. We share this
view in this case and find that the balance of equities falls in
plaintiffs' favor.
In view of the circumstances of this case, we reject
defendants' contention that the appellate court erred in finding
that plaintiffs satisfied the criteria for a prospective
application of Mueller to their cause of action.
CONCLUSION
Having found no merit to each of defendants' assignments of
error, we hereby affirm the judgment of the appellate court.
Affirmed.
JUSTICE HARRISON, specially concurring:
Illinois has but one appellate court. People v. Granados, 172 Ill. 2d 358, 371 (1996). Although the state is divided into five
judicial districts, those districts have nothing whatever to do
with the court's authority. Their sole purpose is to define the
political units from which judges of the supreme and appellate
courts are selected. Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, 2.
Because there is only one appellate court, a decision by any
division of that court is binding precedent on all circuit courts
throughout the state, regardless of locale. People v. Harris, 123 Ill. 2d 113, 128 (1988). That being so, I fail to see how the
majority can hold "that when conflicts arise amongst the districts,
the circuit court is bound by the decisions of the appellate court
of the district in which it sits." Slip op. at 8. Such a rule makes
sense in the federal judiciary, where there are various courts of
appeal which are autonomous, but it is wholly inconsistent with the
principle that the appellate court in Illinois is a single body
whose decisions are binding on every circuit court in the state.
Given the unitary nature of the Illinois appellate court and
the reach of its decisions, what circuit courts should be doing is
following the most recent appellate court decision on point. That
is so even if the decision conflicts with a prior decision of an
appellate court division located within the circuit court's
particular district. The geography is simply irrelevant.
Subject to this qualification, I agree with the majority's
analysis and with the result it reaches.
CHIEF JUSTICE HEIPLE joins in this special concurrence.
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