People ex rel. Foreman v. Village of Round Lake Park

• Decision Date: 15 April 1988
• Docket Number: No. 2-87-0031,2-87-0031
• Parties: , 121 Ill.Dec. 561 THE PEOPLE ex rel. Fred L. FOREMAN, State's Attorney of Lake County, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. THE VILLAGE OF ROUND LAKE PARK et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 868

525 N.E.2d 868

171 Ill.App.3d 443, 121 Ill.Dec. 561

THE PEOPLE ex rel. Fred L. FOREMAN, State's Attorney of Lake County, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. THE VILLAGE OF ROUND LAKE PARK et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 2-87-0031.

Appellate Court of Illinois Second District.

April 15, 1988.

As Modified July 15, 1988.

Rehearing Denied July 15, 1988.

Burke, Bosselman & Weaver, Clifford L. Weaver (argued), Victor P. Filippini, Jr., Margaret R. Garcia, Chicago, for Village of Mundelein, Village of Libertyville, Grayslake Fire Protection Dist., Village of Grayslake, Village of Third Lake, Grayslake Community High School.

Fred L. Foreman, Lake County State's Atty., Larry M. Clark, Asst. State's Atty., Neil F. Hartigan, Atty. Gen., Waukegan, for People, ex rel Fred L. Foreman, County of Lake.

Gardner, Carton & Douglas, Dennis P. Ryan, Libertyville, Rudnick & Wolfe, Theodore J. Novak, James P. Chapman & Associates, Ltd., Chicago, James P. Chapman, Alan Mills (argued), for LaSalle Nat. Bank Trustee, William Alter.

Lord, Bissell & Brook, Diane I. Jennings, Robert J. Pugliese (argued), Chicago, Soffietti Johnson, Teegen & Phillips, Ltd., Fox Lake, Howard R. Teegen, for Village of Round Lake.

Justice DUNN delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, Village of Round Lake Park, annexed approximately 600 acres of farmland owned by defendants, La Salle National Bank, as Trustee, and William Alter. Round Lake Park also passed ordinances which approved an annexation agreement pertaining to the Alter property and which rezoned the property. Plaintiffs, several local governmental entities in Lake County, filed this action for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief, challenging the validity of the annexation agreement and the rezoning.

Approximately 4 1/2 years after this action was filed, defendants sought leave to amend their answers to include a statute of limitations defense. The trial court allowed defendants to so amend their answers. The trial court then denied plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration and granted judgment on the pleadings for defendants. Plaintiffs now appeal from the denial of the motion to reconsider the grant of defendants' motion to amend their answers and the entry of judgment on the pleadings. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

The ordinance annexing the Alter property was adopted on August 25, 1976. On the same date, Round Lake Park passed an ordinance rezoning the Alter property from agricultural to the 4-I "Light Industrial" zoning district of the Round Lake Park zoning ordinance. Round Lake Park also approved an annexation agreement relating to the Alter property which, among other things, waives certain provisions of the zoning ordinance.

This action began on June 3, 1981, when plaintiffs filed suit challenging Round Lake Park's annexation and rezoning of a separate 1,800-acre parcel known as the Heartland property. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on March 22, 1982, which, in addition to the Heartland action, challenged for the first time the validity of the Alter property annexation agreement and rezoning. Defendants' answers to the first amended complaint raised as an affirmative defense the statute of limitations.

In June 1983, the claims relating to the Heartland property and the Alter property were severed. On August 1, 1983, plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint relating only to the Alter property. Defendants' answers to the second amended complaint did not raise the statute of limitations defense. On September 16, 1986, defendants sought leave to amend their answers to include the statute of limitations defense. Defendants were allowed to amend, and discovery was reopened so that Round Lake Park could produce for plaintiffs the resolution approving the annexation petitions, but Round Lake Park informed the plaintiffs that it could not locate the resolution. Plaintiffs sought reconsideration of the order allowing defendants to amend, but the motion was denied, and judgment on the pleadings for defendants was granted. Plaintiffs filed a timely notice of appeal.

There have also been two motions taken with the case. The first is defendants' motion to supplement the record on appeal with certain documents pertaining to a related Federal case, to which plaintiffs have objected. The second is plaintiffs' motion to strike certain portions of defendants' brief.

Plaintiffs first argue that the trial court erred in allowing defendants to amend their answers to include a statute of limitations defense. Plaintiffs recognize that a trial court's decision to allow or deny amendments will not be disturbed on review absent an abuse of discretion (DiBenedetto v. County of Du Page (1986), 141 Ill.App.3d 675, 681, 96 Ill.Dec. 199, 491 N.E.2d 13), but plaintiffs contend that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the amendments here in several respects. After reviewing these arguments, however, we find no abuse of discretion.

Section 2-616(a) of the Code of Civil Procedure specifically provides that amendments adding new defenses may be allowed at any time prior to final judgment. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 110, par. 2-616(a).) This court has consistently held that the provisions of that section are to be liberally construed. (Adams v. Zayre Corp. (1986), 148 Ill.App.3d 704, 710, 102 Ill.Dec. 121, 499 N.E.2d 678; Hoffman v. Nustra (1986), 143 Ill.App.3d 259, 265, 97 Ill.Dec. 322, 492 N.E.2d 981.) Furthermore, "[d]oubts should be resolved in favor of allowing amendments." Blazina v. Blazina (1976), 42 Ill.App.3d 159, 165, 1 Ill.Dec. 164, 356 N.E.2d 164.

Plaintiffs argue that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing defendants to add a defense which was available from the day the action was filed, nearly 4 1/2 years before the amendment in question was sought. Plaintiffs note that the decision on which defendants base their amended affirmative defense should have been known to defendants at the time their original answer was filed. Plaintiffs also point to numerous opportunities defendants had to attack the complaint during the 4 1/2 years and argue that defendants should have been required to explain why their statute of limitations defense was not offered earlier.

It is true that courts often disapprove of late amendments regarding matters of which the pleader knew at the time of the original pleading and for which the pleader offers no good reason for omitting in the original pleading. (Hoffman v. Nustra (1986), 143 Ill.App.3d 259, 266, 97 Ill.Dec. 322, 492 N.E.2d 981; Blazina v. Blazina (1976), 42 Ill.App.3d 159, 165, 1 Ill.Dec. 164, 356 N.E.2d 164.) This is especially so if the opposing party would be prejudiced by the amendment or the nature and quality of proof required would be altered. ( Blazina, 42 Ill.App.3d at 165, 1 Ill.Dec. 164, 356 N.E.2d 164.) Conversely, courts have upheld amendments regarding such matters if the opposing party would not be prejudiced thereby. Adams v. Zayre Corp. (1986), 148 Ill.App.3d 704, 711, 102 Ill.Dec. 121, 499 N.E.2d 678.

We do not believe that plaintiffs were unduly prejudiced by the amendment allowed here. Cases where prejudice has been found most often concern amendments made during or immediately before trial or where it is too late for the opposing party to adequately respond to the amendment. (See, e.g., DiBenedetto v. County of Du Page (1986), 141 Ill.App.3d 675, 681-82, 96 Ill.Dec. 199, 491 N.E.2d 13.) In this case, although a motion for summary judgment was pending, trial had not begun. The statute of limitations defense raised by defendants did not require additional investigation by either party since the relevant dates were not in question. Although plaintiffs counter that they were prejudiced because they had spent substantial time and resources investigating the claims and preparing prosecution in reliance on the pleadings, parties naturally incur a variety of expenses in the course of any litigation. While plaintiffs' expenses would certainly have been less if defendants had earlier raised the statute of limitations defense, it does not appear that the additional expenses incurred constitute the prejudice necessary to require denial of defendants' motion to amend. See, e.g., Marcus v. National Life Insurance Co. (7th Cir.1970), 422 F.2d 626.

Plaintiffs also argue that they were prejudiced because evidence critical for their response to the statute of limitations defense--the resolution of the Round Lake Park Board of Trustees approving the annexation petitions--was lost during the delay. Once again, however, plaintiffs have failed to establish prejudice requiring reversal. Plaintiffs have not indicated how the resolution is relevant to the limitations issue. The unavailability of a document, which has not been shown to be relevant to the defense raised, cannot be deemed so prejudicial that defendants should be denied the opportunity to raise the defense.

Finally, plaintiffs argue that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the amendment because defendants' course of conduct throughout this case shows a program of delay. True, defendants have often missed filing deadlines during this case, sometimes by substantial periods. Such delays do not seem related, however, to the motion to amend. The case plaintiffs cite Cvengros v. Liquid Carbonic Corp. (1981), 99 Ill.App.3d 376, 54 Ill.Dec. 833, 425 N.E.2d 1050, does not stand for the proposition that a party should be denied an opportunity to amend pleadings for unrelated delays.

In light of the policy favoring liberal allowance of amendments, it does not appear to us that the trial court abused its discretion here in allowing defendants to amend their answers to raise a statute of limitations defense. It has been said that a test for whether a trial court's discretion has been properly exercised is whether the amendment furthers the ends of justice. (DiBenedetto v. County of Du Page (1986), 141 Ill.App.3d...