IVAN STANILA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. HARVEY JOE and UNKNOWN OCCUPANTS, Defendants (Harvey Joe, Defendant-Appellant).
No. 1-19-1890
Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Second Division
December 22, 2020
2020 IL App (1st) 191890
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 19-M1-701301; the Hon. Alison C. Conlon, Judge, presiding. Judgment: Appeal dismissed.
Philip M. Kiss, of Gurnee, for appellant.
Kurt H. Feuer, of Evanston, for appellee.
OPINION
¶ 1 Defendant, Harvey Joe,1 appeals from the circuit court‘s order denying his motion to reconsider an eviction judgment. On appeal, defendant contends that the circuit court erred in (1) finding that defendant did not timely raise the issue that his counsel lacked authority to enter into an agreed eviction order and (2) denying defendant an evidentiary hearing as to that issue. For the following reasons, this appeal is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction and plaintiff‘s request for sanctions is denied.
I. BACKGROUND
¶ 2 ¶ 3 On January 24, 2019, plaintiff, Ivan Stanila, filed an eviction suit against defendant in connection with a single-family home located in the 8600 block of South Indiana Avenue in Chicago, Illinois (the property). On April 3, 2019, the parties, through their respective counsels, executed an agreed eviction order whereby defendant would vacate the property by May 14, 2019. Later that month, on April 30, 2019, defendant filed motions to quash service and strike the agreed eviction order on the grounds that “plaintiff fraudulently presented [the] case to the court as a nonpayment of rent case when it wasn‘t” and that defendant‘s counsel exceeded his authority by agreeing to the order instead of contesting the “validity of the forcible [detainer] case.” A hearing on the motions was held on May 10, 2019, with only defendant‘s counsel present. After the hearing, the circuit court denied defendant‘s motion to quash service but granted the motion to strike the eviction order.
¶ 4 On May 17, 2019, plaintiff filed a motion to reconsider the court‘s May 10, 2019, order striking the agreed eviction order. Plaintiff argued that his counsel did not receive notice of the hearing and, therefore, the court “was not fully apprised of the facts in this matter or [p]laintiff‘s arguments against the motion, and that it was error to vacate the agreed order of eviction.” Plaintiff further argued that there was no fraudulent misrepresentation as “there was never any issue concerning unpaid rent” but rather, plaintiff was “seeking only possession of [the property].” On May 30, 2019, defendant filed two motions to dismiss pursuant to
¶ 5 On July 10, 2019, defendant refiled his motions to dismiss plaintiff‘s complaint with prejudice pursuant to
¶ 6 On August 16, 2019, defendant filed a motion styled “Defendant‘s Motion to Amend Motion to Vacate and Defendant‘s Motion to Reconsider.” The motion sought to amend the July 25 “motion to vacate order” to recharacterize it as a “[m]otion to [r]econsider the June 25, 2019 order.” The August 16 motion argued that the court should reconsider its June 25 order because (1) defense counsel did not have authority to enter into an agreed eviction order, (2) plaintiff improperly named him as “Joe Harvey,” and (3) plaintiff did not have “capacity to sue.” At the hearing on the motion to reconsider, the circuit court agreed with plaintiff‘s counsel that there was a “serious timeliness problem” as it was already “September.” With respect to defendant‘s argument that his initial counsel acted without authority in entering the agreed eviction order, the court noted that after nearly five months of litigation, it “had yet to receive a motion that properly tees up that argument.” After the hearing, on September 3, 2019, the circuit court denied defendant‘s motion and ordered that “no further motions attacking the eviction order [be] filed in the case.”3 Defendant then filed his notice of appeal on September 18, 2019.
II. ANALYSIS
¶ 7 ¶ 8 On appeal, defendant contends that the circuit court erred by (1) finding that the issue of whether defense counsel had authority to enter into the agreed order was not raised in a timely manner and (2) denying defendant the opportunity to have an evidentiary hearing with regards to that issue.
A. Jurisdiction
¶ 10 As a preliminary matter, we must address our jurisdiction over the instant appeal. In his opening brief, defendant‘s jurisdictional statement provides that this court has jurisdiction pursuant to
¶ 11 Generally, “[e]very final judgment of a circuit court in a civil case is appealable as of right.”
¶ 12 To confer jurisdiction on this court, a notice of appeal must generally be filed within 30 days after the entry of the final judgment from which the appeal is taken.
¶ 13 Where, as here, a civil case is decided without a jury,
¶ 14 Plaintiff urges that our jurisdiction to hear this appeal is lacking. Relying on Won, 2013 IL App (1st) 122523, plaintiff argues that because defendant‘s motion for reconsideration of the circuit court‘s June 25, 2019, judgment order was not filed until August 16, 2019, more than 30 days after the judgment order, the motion for reconsideration was untimely and likewise defendant‘s notice of appeal. In an attempt to defeat plaintiff‘s jurisdictional challenge, defendant counters that “[t]he [m]otion was filed on July 25, 2019,” an “[o]rder was entered on July 26, 2019,” and the time to appeal began to “run from the date that order was entered.” Therefore, defendant argues that “the motion for reconsideration, which was filed on August 16, 2019, was clearly timely filed and preserved
¶ 15 Initially, we note that the record belies defendant‘s account of the procedural history in this case. The record shows that the circuit court ruled solely on defendant‘s motions to dismiss on July 26 and did not rule on defendant‘s “motion to vacate.” The court‘s final ruling on the “motion to vacate” did not come until later, on September 3, 2019. Further, because there was no ruling on the “motion to vacate” on July 26, there was no basis for a motion for reconsideration of that ruling, even a proper one, which even a cursory reading of the August 16 motion demonstrates that it was not. See Liceaga v. Baez, 2019 IL App (1st) 181170, ¶ 25 (purpose of a motion for reconsideration is to bring to the court‘s attention (1) newly discovered evidence, (2) changes in the law, or (3) errors in the trial court‘s application of existing law).
¶ 16 Defendant‘s August 16 motion for reconsideration, which sought to recharacterize the “motion to vacate,” was a second, and redundant, motion purportedly directed against the circuit court‘s June 25, 2019, judgment order. However, a second postjudgment motion has no tolling effect. See
¶ 17 A motion tolls the time for filing a notice of appeal and qualifies as a proper postjudgment motion if it requests one or more of the types of relief authorized in
¶ 18 However, in order to toll the time for filing an appeal,
¶ 19 In Kingbrook, our supreme court considered the degree of specificity that must be included in a motion to reconsider for such a motion to qualify as a postjudgment motion. Id. at 25-26. The motion at issue in Kingbrook was titled ” ‘Motion for Reconsideration’ ” and the body consisted of one sentence in which the plaintiff requested ” ‘the Court to reconsider its decision granting severing [sic] judgment in favor of the Defendants.’ ” Id. at 26-27. Although the motion consisted of a single sentence, the court held that the motion was sufficient for purposes of tolling the time for filing a notice of appeal. Id. at 26-27, 31. In its final ruling, the supreme court held that neither the plain language of the Code nor the supreme court rules require that a postjudgment motion (in a case decided without a jury) contain any detail or argument. Id. at 31. As such, under Kingbrook, a single sentence would suffice if it requests the appropriate type of relief. See Muirfield Village-Vernon Hills, LLC v. K. Reinke, Jr., & Co., 349 Ill. App. 3d 178, 186 (2004) (“Under Kingbrook, a motion that does no more than request to strike or vacate the ‘with prejudice’ portion of the order would be sufficient to toll the 30-day time period in which to file a notice of appeal.“).
¶ 20 Although defendant‘s motion here was labeled as a “motion to vacate order,” requested the court vacate the June 25 order of possession, and the “summary of the argument” section consisted of a single sentence stating that plaintiff‘s “order of possession should be vacated because [p]laintiff altered the name of the defendant on the order,” the motion appears to challenge the complaint. For example, in the “argument” section of the motion, defendant argued that plaintiff did not have “capacity to sue” because the recent recorded deed indicated a different owner. The motion provided the standard of review for dismissals under
¶ 21 This case presents a unique issue from Kingbrook—what happens when a party presents a motion with some detail, but the motion substantively is directed toward and requests relief in the form of dismissing a complaint. The issue here is
¶ 22 In Shutkas Electric, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 366 Ill. App. 3d 76, 81 (2006), another post-Kingbrook case, the caption of the motion in question requested modification, but the body of the motion sought relief in the form of adding a party plaintiff and leave to file a second amended complaint. This court dismissed the motion because the substance of the motion lacked a form of
¶ 23 These cases illustrate the principle that in determining whether a postjudgment motion is properly directed at the judgment, we must look at the substance of the motion rather than its caption. See Heiden, 396 Ill. App. 3d at 140; see also Shutkas Electric, Inc., 366 Ill. App. 3d at 81 (citing J.D. Marshall International, Inc. v. First National Bank of Chicago, 272 Ill. App. 3d 883, 888 (1995)). Here, defendant‘s filing invited the court to treat the “motion to vacate” as a motion to dismiss a complaint, not as a postjudgment motion directed at the final judgment. Although defendant‘s motion was labeled as a “motion to vacate” and the introductory paragraph repeated this request, the body of the motion clearly attacked plaintiff‘s complaint rather than the court‘s June 25 final order. Defendant‘s motion did not request the court to vacate its order granting plaintiff‘s motion to reconsider nor did it request the court to vacate its judgment as to the entry of a new eviction order. Instead, the motion contained arguments for dismissal of plaintiff‘s complaint, set forth a standard of review for its dismissal, and further requested dismissal of the complaint in its prayer for relief without referencing the circuit court‘s final judgment. As such, we find that the substance of the motion sought a different type of relief: dismissal of plaintiff‘s complaint rather than vacation of the circuit court‘s final judgment. Accordingly, we find that defendant‘s motion to vacate was not a proper postjudgment motion and, thus, did not toll the time for filing a notice of appeal. Therefore, we must dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
B. Sanctions
¶ 25 Finally, we address plaintiff‘s request for sanctions. See Gilkey v. Scholl, 229 Ill. App. 3d 989, 993 (1992) (noting that we still have jurisdiction to decide the question of appellate sanctions where the appeal is dismissed for want of jurisdiction). Plaintiff argues that defendant‘s “brief to this [c]ourt is a jumbled mess of unsupported factual allegations and baseless arguments, omissions from and misrepresentations of the record, and a failure to comply with the Supreme Court Rules that mirrors its pleadings, arguments, and tactics in the trial court.” As such, plaintiff requests this
¶ 26
¶ 27 Here, the circuit court record demonstrates that defendant raised the same issues repeatedly through various filings, and each time, the court rejected his arguments. Defendant also appears to have incorrectly stated the record to support his arguments on appeal. Further, we note that defendant‘s brief falls short of satisfying the requirements for appellate briefs as set forth in
III. CONCLUSION
¶ 29 In sum, the record before us does not establish this court‘s jurisdiction to consider defendant‘s appeal and we must, therefore, dismiss it.
¶ 30 Appeal dismissed.