South Chicago Community Hospital v. Industrial Commission
| Decision Date | 26 November 1969 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 41670,41940,s. 41670 |
| Citation | 254 N.E.2d 448,44 Ill.2d 119 |
| Parties | SOUTH CHICAGO COMMUNITY HOSPITAL, Appellant, v. The INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al. (Agustin Gargullo et al., Appellees.) |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Klohr, Braun, Lynch & Smith, Chicago (Mark A. Braun, Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.
Wachowski & Wachowski, Chicago (Casimir R. Wachowski and Stephen J. Schlegel, Chicago, of counsel), for appellees.
These two consolidated appeals arise out of workmen's compensation cases in which the Industrial Commission, over objections by the employer, granted the claimants' motions for an indefinite continuance of the hearings. To review this decision the employer sued out writs of Certiorari in the circuit court of Cook County. The court dismissed the writs on the ground that the Commission's orders were not final ones, and the first appeal (No. 41670) comes from this action of the circuit court.
The employer also filed a petition in the circuit court for a writ of Mandamus to compel the members of the Industrial Commission to hear these claims. This petition was denied and the employer appeals directly to this court (No. 41940) on the theory that refusal to grant a prompt hearing creates a denial of constitutional rights.
The applications for adjudgment of claim were filed against the South Chicago Community Hospital by the surviving dependents, respectively, of two Filipino exchange nurses murdered by an intruder on July 14, 1966. The matters were called for hearing on March 15, 1967, continued at that time to June 15, on which date they were again continued and ordered for hearing on October 23. On the latter date motions were made by the claimants to continue the cases generally. The motions recited that an action had been filed in the circuit court by the administrator of the estates of the two nurses, seeking damages against the hospital, Richard Franklin Speck, the intruder, and others on a basis of fault, and that the hospital had pleaded in defense that the deaths arose out of and in the course of employment and therefore that the sole action was under the Workmen's Compensation Act. The motions further recited the claimants' desire to proceed first with the circuit court actions and to have the workmen's compensation cases held in abeyance until disposition of the wrongful death case. The request was granted over the hospital's objection. It insists that the object of the Workmen's Compensation Act is to provide a Prompt remedy and that the Commission has a duty to designate an arbitrator for trial as soon as it is advised of the parties' failure to agree.
Before reaching the principal issue, however, we must consider a motion by the claimants to dismiss the appeal in No. 41670, the workmen's compensation cases, on the ground that the order appealed from is not final and appealable. In the absence of a Supreme Court rule providing for interlocutory review, none being applicable here, an appeal does not lie from an order which is not final. To be final and appealable an order must dispose of the rights of the parties, either upon the entire controversy or upon some definite and separate part of it. Village of Niles v. Szczesny, 13 Ill.2d 45, 147 N.E.2d 371.
The order which dismissed writs of Certiorari, brought to review, in turn, the granting of a continuance, is plainly interlocutory. It did not decide the right to compensation, nor did it determine a separate issue of the litigation which would result in its final disposition. The claims for compensation are still pending and the rights of the parties remain undetermined. We have recently pointed out that 'when the circuit court remands a compensation case to the Commission, the action of the court is interlocutory and not appealable.' (Mayrath Co. v. Industrial Comm., 33 Ill.2d 224, 210 N.E.2d 529, 530). While the order...
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