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09/06/2006 FIRST DISTRICT PANELS DISAGREE ON THE EFFECT OF A VOLUNTARY DISMISSAL FOLLOWING PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT By: Anne Stalder Nelson, J.D. A voluntary dismissal taken after the court has issued a dispositive ruling may or may not dispose of the entire case in the wake of the Illinois Appellate Court’s recent decision in Piagentini v. Ford Motor Company, 852 N.E.2d 356 (Ill. App., 1st Dist. 2006). This decision marks a distinct departure from the First District’s earlier ruling in Estate of Cooper v. Humana Health Plan, Inc., 789 N.E.2d 361 (Ill. App., 1st Dist. 2003). To give the Piagentini decision its proper context, we must start with an Illinois Supreme Court case, Rein v. David A. Noyes & Co., 665 N.E.2d 1199 (Ill. 1996). The Rein plaintiffs filed a complaint against a securities dealer and salesman, alleging that the defendants fraudulently misrepresented the nature of the securities plaintiffs bought from them. The plaintiffs’ complaint asserted both statutory and common law causes of action set forth in separate counts. The trial court dismissed the statutory causes of action with prejudice as barred by the statute of limitations. The plaintiffs asked the court for a ruling pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 304(a) that would have allowed them to pursue an interlocutory appeal of that decision, but the trial court refused. Rather than wait until the common law counts were finally disposed of as well, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed them in order to immediately appeal the dismissal of the statutory counts. The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal. The Rein plaintiffs thereafter refiled the entire case, again pleading both statutory and common law causes of action. The trial court dismissed the plaintiffs’ entire refiled complaint, however, including the common law causes of action, on res judicata grounds, reasoning that the prior adjudication on the merits with respect to the statutory claims barred all claims that were or could have been asserted based on the same facts. First the Illinois Appellate Court and then the Supreme Courts affirmed the ruling. The Supreme Court explained that allowing the plaintiffs to proceed on the common law counts following their unsuccessful appeal of the statutory counts would set a precedent that fostered claim splitting and piecemeal appeals. It reasoned that “[s]uch a practice would impair judicial economy and effectively defeat the public policy underlying res judicata, which is to protect the defendant from harassment and the public from multiple litigation.” The First District Appellate Court subsequently applied the Rein ruling in the Cooper case to affirm dismissal of a refiled action on res judicata grounds. In a prior action, the trial court had granted partial summary judgments in favor of some of the Cooper defendants but refused to make its ruling immediately appealable under Rule 304(a). Shortly thereafter, as in Rein, the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed her case. Unlike Rein, the plaintiff did not appeal the adverse rulings. Instead, she refiled her complaint within six months later, and included in the refiling the claims that the trial court had previously disposed of in its partial summary judgment ruling. The trial court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss the entire case on res judicata grounds and the First District affirmed that ruling, citing Rein as mandating that result. The focus of the Cooper plaintiff’s argument – and therefore the First District’s ruling – was whether or not the trial court orders refusing to dispose of the claims in their entirety and granting only partial summary judgment constituted final judgments barring a refiled cause of action. The appellate court concluded that the trial court lost its jurisdiction when the original action was terminated by way of plaintiff’s voluntary dismissal, and that all previously interlocutory orders became final and appealable at that time. Those interlocutory orders were deemed adjudication on the merits, even though plaintiff chose not to appeal them. Therefore, under the rationale of Rein, those final but unappealed summary judgment rulings barred on res judicata grounds plaintiff’s subsequently refiled case against the same parties involving the same causes of action. Following the Cooper decision, Illinois case law seemed clear: A voluntary dismissal taken after the court has issued a dispositive ruling adjudicating some but not all of the claims asserted acts as a bar to any subsequent actions between the same parties on the same causes of action, even one purporting to be a permissible refiling of claims that were still viable at the time of voluntary dismissal. The recent Piagentini decision casts considerable doubt on that rule. Although the facts in Piagentini are virtually indistinguishable from Cooper, the result was far different. The Piagentini plaintiffs’ complaint against Ford Motor Company contained allegations that the Ford Bronco was designed with insufficient stability; that it was unreasonably susceptible to rollover; and that it lacked an adequate seatbelt/occupant protection system. Because the plaintiffs had no expert witness to support their claims of insufficient stability and a rollover defect, they agreed to the entry of partial summary judgment against them on those specific allegations of negligence. The court granted plaintiffs leave to replead their defective seatbelt allegations, however, and they did so in a second amended complaint that omitted the vehicle stability and rollover allegations. Subsequently, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their remaining claims and refiled them within one year. They did not appeal the court’s order of partial summary judgment. Initially they mistakenly filed a complaint mimicking the original complaint. After realizing their error, however, they filed an amended complaint, again omitting the vehicle stability and rollover allegations and asserting only the inadequate seatbelt/occupant protection claim that was still viable when they voluntarily dismissed the prior action. Three and a half years later, just three months before the trial date, Ford moved for summary judgment, invoking the res judicata doctrine as set forth in Rein and Cooper. The trial court granted Ford’s summary judgment motion. This time, however, the First District overturned the trial court’s ruling, distinguishing the Rein decision on equitable grounds. Rein was inapplicable, the Court explained, because of the crucial distinction that the Piagentini plaintiffs did not attempt to further litigate the claims dismissed by summary judgment, and then, after an unsuccessful appeal, attempt to litigate the remaining claims in another action. Instead, the Piagentini plaintiffs effectively did what any plaintiff does who voluntarily dismisses a case and later refiles. They pursued only a claim that was still viable at the time of the voluntary dismissal. Under these circumstances, the court reasoned, Ford was not subjected to the type of harassment that res judicata and the rule against claim-splitting are designed to prevent. In its written decision, the First District noted Ford’s contention that Cooper was dispositive, but declined to “mechanistically” follow it. The court based its departure on the Cooper Court’s failure to consider the equitable nature of the res judicata doctrine or the plaintiff’s failure to engage in the type of claim splitting that Rein condemned. Thus, while the Piagentini Court did not expressly overrule the Cooper decision, its ruling certainly casts doubt on the continuing viability of that ruling. This split in authority is one of the bases for a petition for leave to appeal currently pending before the Illinois Supreme Court. Most assuredly, should the Supreme Court deny the defendant’s petition for further review of the Piagentini decision, the end result of the Appellate Court’s departure from a seemingly hard and fast rule will be further litigation, as parties test the limits of that ruling. It remains to be seen whether Piagentini will be viewed as a specific and limited exception to the general rule that a voluntary dismissal after the court has issued a dispositive ruling as to some claims bars subsequent actions between the same parties on the same causes of action, to be invoked only where the plaintiff fails to appeal the court’s dispositive ruling, or whether courts will follow the First District’s lead and allow equitable considerations to dictate their rulings in other cases as well. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Previous Page |
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