Quick Takes on Illinois Supreme Court Opinions Issued Friday, October 18, 2024

Leading appellate attorneys review the two Illinois Supreme Court opinions handed down Friday, October 18.

James v. Geneva Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, LLC, 2024 IL 130042

By Michael T. Reagan, Law Offices of Michael T. Reagan

This Supreme Court Rule 308 appeal relates to Governor Pritzker’s disaster proclamations during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which were in force from March 9. 2020, until May 11, 2023.  During that time, the Governor issued  Executive Order No. 2020-19 directing healthcare facilities, including private nursing homes such as this defendant, to “render assistance” to the state by providing healthcare services in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.  The Governor’s stated purpose in issuing that Executive Order was to “ensure that the State of Illinois had adequate bed capacity, supplies, and providers to treat patients afflicted with COVID-19, as well as patients afflicted with other anomalies.”

A section of that Executive Order addressed immunity.  The Order stated that pursuant to sections of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act (“Act”), and during the pendency of the Disaster Proclamation, the defined healthcare facilities “shall be immune from civil liability for any injury or death alleged to have been caused by any act or omission by the Health Care Facility, which injury or death occurred at a time when a Health Care Facility was engaged in the course of rendering assistance to the State by providing healthcare services in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, unless it is established that such injury or death was caused by gross negligence or willful misconduct … .”

The plaintiffs in these five consolidated cases are representatives of the estates of deceased former residents of the defendant nursing home.  Generally stated, plaintiffs alleged that defendant failed to control the spread of COVID-19 which led to the deaths of the decedent residents.  Among the general allegations were a failure to properly quarantine symptomatic staff members and residents, failure to have effective procedures for hygiene, and inadequate personal protective equipment.  Defendant moved to dismiss, alleging it was “rendering assistance to the State” when the residents died and that they were therefore immune from suits for ordinary negligence.

The circuit court denied the motions to dismiss but permitted defendant leave to file a motion to certify a question under Rule 308.  The appellate court granted leave to appeal pursuant to that question.  On appeal, the appellate court reworded the certified question, under the authority recognized in Rozsavolgyi v. City of Aurora, 2017 IL 121048.  The question as modified by the appellate court asked “Does Executive Order No. 2020-19, which triggered the immunity provided in (the Act), grant immunity for ordinary negligence claims to healthcare facilities that rendered assistance to the State … .”  The appellate court answered that question in the affirmative, and remanded the case to the circuit court to determine questions such as whether the defendant qualified for immunity on the basis of “rendering assistance.”

The supreme court allowed plaintiffs’ Petition for Leave to Appeal, allowed the Attorney General to file a brief amicus curiae, and allowed other amici briefs from the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and multiple healthcare-related entities. 

Justice Holder White delivered the opinion of court, with Justice Cunningham writing a lengthy dissent.  The supreme court affirmed the appellate court’s affirmative answer to the certified question that the specified immunity existed.  However, the supreme court differed with the appellate court as to whether the analysis was properly focused on the language of the Act or the Executive Order.  In turn, Justice Cunningham’s dissent differed with the majority on that question as well.  The court held that the certified question requires construction of the language of the Executive Order “to determine whether it grants immunity for ordinary negligence claims to healthcare facilities that rendered assistance to the State.”  A point of agreement between the appellate and supreme courts was the acknowledgement that the Act did not define “rendering assistance,” but that the elaboration within the Executive Order was not inconsistent with the Act.” 

Presaging a difference with the dissent, the opinion states that the plain language of the Executive Order provides immunity for “any injury or death” caused by “any act or omission” when the facility was “engaged in the course of rendering assistance” to the State.  Further, “The language does not state that a healthcare facility is only immune from ordinary  negligence if the negligence relates to COVID-19.”  The court did not find an ambiguity in the Executive Order and stated that a broad reading of it was appropriate and consistent with its language.  In answering the certified question in the affirmative, the court additionally concluded that “We agree with the appellate court that (defendant} would have immunity from ordinary negligence claims arising during the Governor’s Disaster Declaration if and only if it can show it was “rendering assistance” to the State during this time.”  The case was remanded to the circuit court to determine the factual question of whether defendant was rendering such assistance.

Justice Cunningham wrote a measured and detailed dissent, the length of which is of the same order and of magnitude as the opinion of the court.  That dissent opens by describing the holding of the court to be that the defendant is immune from all claims of negligence that arose during the time of the Disaster Declaration “even if the claims of negligence had nothing whatsoever to do the provision of any COVID-19 assistance to the State.”  Justice Cunningham found it to be of relevance that even if the defendant were rendering assistance to the State, both the Executive Order and the Act granted immunity only for claims that arose out of the act of providing assistance, not for all claims of negligence that happened to occur at the time the assistance was provided.  Plaintiffs also maintain that there was no causal relationship between any assistance rendered and the alleged negligent failure to protect the decedents.  The dissent notes that the plaintiffs point out that the certified question asks whether there is immunity “for all negligent conduct during that time, including conduct that was completely unrelated” to providing COVID-19 assistance.  The dissent posited a hypothetical fire at the nursing home caused by repairs to the boiler, injuring many residents, none of whom are COVID-19 patients.  The dissent asserts that whether healthcare facilities are immune for negligent conduct that is unrelated to the provision of any COVID-19 assistance is the question that should be the focus of this appeal.  In the service of that idea, the dissent disagrees with the actions of both the appellate court and the majority in removing the term “blanket immunity” in reformulating the certified question.

The dissent notes that the appellate court concluded that the source of any immunity had to be the language of the Act, rather than that of the Executive Order.  The majority disagreed, and in turn the dissent disagrees with the majority on that question.  Although the complete reasoning of the dissent cannot be duplicated in this summary, among other points the dissent contended that the Governor cannot define the immunity provided because he was not empowered to do so by the legislature, and that therefore a potential violation of the separation of powers principle would exist.  The dissent would read the Act to immunize the defendant only from negligence arising out of rendering assistance to the State.  The dissent also disagreed with the majority’s reading of the Executive Order, saying that it too must be read as immunizing only negligent conduct arising out of the act of providing assistance.  The dissent concluded that “the majority bars recovery for any number of deserving plaintiffs throughout the State, for reasons that have nothing to do with the COVID-19 Disaster Declaration.”

People v. Harvey, 2024 IL 129357

By Jay Wiegman, Office of the State Appellate Defender

Near midnight on February 19, 2021, two Chicago police officers observed a minivan being driven with an obstructed windshield. Pulling the van over, the officers saw the passenger, Anthony Harvey, reach down toward the center of the floorboard. Smelling alcohol and seeing two cups in the van’s holders, the officers asked Harvey and the driver to step out of the van. As Harvey exited the van, the officers saw that his pants were undone, as if he was trying to conceal or remove an item from his pants. The officers searched the van for alcohol; while they did not find any, they located a 9-mm semiautomatic pistol near where Harvey had been reaching. The officers asked if he had a Firearm Owner Identification Card (FOID) or a concealed carry license (CCL), and Harvey said he did not. Harvey was convicted of misdemeanor unlawful use of a weapon, in violation of 720 ILCS 5/24-1(a)(10)(iv) (2018)), which provides, in pertinent part:

“(a) A person commits the offense of unlawful use of a weapon when he knowingly: * * * (10) Carries or possesses on or about his or her person, upon any public street, alley, or other public lands within the corporate limits of a city, village or incorporated town, *** any pistol, revolver, stun gun or taser or other firearm, except that this subsection (a) (10) does not apply to or affect transportation of weapons that meet one of the following conditions: * * * (iv) are carried or possessed in accordance with the Firearm Concealed Carry Act by a person who has been issued a currently valid license under the Firearm Concealed Carry Act.” 720 ILCS 5/24-1(a)(10)(iv) (West 2018).

On direct appeal of his conviction and 30-day jail sentence, the defendant contended that the evidence was insufficient to prove his constructive possession of the weapon found in the van, and that the State failed to establish the corpus delicti of the offense because it failed to corroborate his statement to the police that he did not possess a CCL. The Appellate Court, First District, with one justice dissenting, found that Harvey’s furtive movement, coupled with the recovery of the gun, sufficiently proved the offense, and rejected the corpus delicti argument, finding that a person who had a CCL “would not have behaved in this manner.” The Illinois Supreme Court granted defendant’s petition for leave to appeal.

Writing for the majority of the Court, Justice Cunningham first noted that Defendant was not challenging the trial court’s finding that he was in constructive possession of the firearm on a public street. Rather, he contended that, to sustain his conviction for UUW, the State had to prove that he did not fall within the concealed carry exception by showing he had not been issued a currently valid CCL at the time of the stop. Conversely, though not disputing that it had the burden of showing defendant did not fall within the concealed carry exception under subsection (a)(10)(iv), the State asserted that it was not required to show that defendant had not been issued a currently valid CCL, but instead only had to show that Harvey failed to produce a CCL at the time of the traffic stop, as the State interpreted the language of Section 70(f) of the Carry Act, which provides:

“A licensee convicted or found guilty of a violation of this Act who has a valid license and is otherwise eligible to carry a concealed firearm shall only be subject to the penalties under this Section and shall not be subject to the penalties under *** paragraph *** (10) of subsection (a) of Section 24-1 *** of the Criminal Code of 2012.”

The Court disagreed, and determined that to establish liability under section 24-1(a)(10) and to meet its burden of showing that the CCL exception did not apply, the State had to show that defendant had not been issued a valid CCL. However, the Court went on to find that “the trial court could reasonably have construed Harvey’s answers to the police officers’ questions as confirmation that he had not been issued a CCL.

As an alternative, Harvey argued that the State failed to establish the corpus delicti of the UUW offense because the only evidence that Harvey lacked a CCL came from his own out-of-court statements made to the police officers at the time of the traffic stop. Acknowledging that, as a general rule, the corpus delicti of an offense generally cannot be proven solely by a defendant’s confession, but that the State must also provide independent, corroborating evidence that the crime occurred, the Court found that “Harvey did not ‘confess’ to the police that he committed the offense of UUW,” in that he did not make an extrajudicial statement admitting to all of the elements of the crime, but rather had “admitted to only one element of the UUW offense – not owning a valid CCL.”  In support of its rejection of the proposition that all out-of-court admissions must be independently corroborated in order to form a part of the State’s proof at trial, the Court cited its decision in People v. Dalton, in which it held that a defendant’s admission as to the “immutable characteristic” of his age did not need to be independently corroborated. had. Id.

Justice Neville, joined by Justice Rochford, specially concurred, setting forth his disagreement with the majority’s holding on the question of statutory interpretation, which he termed inconsistent with the plain language of the statute. Justice Neville concluded that the phrase “in accordance with the Firearm Concealed Carry Act” had effectively been read out of the UUW Act and that the exemption provisions which provide that defendants bear the burden of proving the presence of a currently valid CCL had been rendered inoperable by the majority’s holding. Justice Neville also considered the majority to have violated established rules of interpretation, which make clear that, by employing certain language in one instance and wholly different language in another, the legislature indicates that different results were intended, and that more specific statutes (in this case the UUW statute) control over the more general statute (here, the Carry Act).

Justice O’Brien, though agreeing with the majority’s holding that the State bears the burden of proving defendant had not been issued a valid concealed carry license (CCL), and that, when viewing the evidence in, the trial court could reasonably have construed defendant’s response of “no” to the police officers’ inquiry as an incriminating admission establishing that he had not been issued a CCL, wrote separately to address the majority’s finding that the corpus delicti rule does not require the State to present independent evidence corroborating this admission. Justice O’Brien considered the majority’s reasoning to be a drastic departure from well-settled precedent in which the Illinois Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the corpus delicti cannot be proved by a defendant’s confession, admission, or out-of-court statement alone. Further, Justice O’Brien stated that the majority opinion improperly expanded the narrow exception to the rule that was set forth in Dalton.