Articles Posted in Standard of Review

Shane Kolody was traveling on Amtrak with $280,000 in small bills. The government seized the money, then sued to keep it pursuant to the Illinois Drug Forfeiture Act. Kolody’s motion to dismiss the State’s amended complaint was denied. But his motion for reconsideration, based on misapplication of the forfeiture law, was granted.

The State appealed from the order granting reconsideration and dismissing the complaint. Kolody and the State agreed that the standard of review was “abuse of discretion.” But the appellate court disagreed, and applied the less deferential “de novo” standard. “When reviewing a motion to reconsider that was based only on the trial court’s application (or purported misapplication) of existing law, as opposed to a motion to reconsider that is based on new facts or legal theories not presented in the prior proceedings, our standard of review is de novo … ‘Where a party’s motion for reconsideration merely asks the trial court to reexamine its earlier application of existing law,’ this court’s review is de novo …”

The whole case, People v. $280,020 United States Currency, 1-04-3633 (4/20/07), is available by clicking here.

In this election law case, the incumbent disputed her challenger’s petition signatures. The incumbent claimed that the challenger sat in her car while others approached voters’ houses and obtained nomination petition signatures. The incumbent signed the petitions as the circulator, who the statute requires to be present when the petition is signed by a voter.

The election board ruled that the challenger satisfied the “presence” requirement. But the circuit court ruled otherwise, and threw out a sufficient number of signatures to disqualify the challenger from being placed on the election ballot. The First District Appellate Court — reviewing the Election Board’s decision, not the circuit court’s, as it is required by statute to do — affirmed the Election Board and restored the challenger to the election ballot.

The appellate court’s majority viewed the dispute as presenting a mixed question of law and fact, prompting a “clearly erroneous” standard of review. The case illustrates the problems courts have defining “mixed question of law and fact.” The court explained that a mixed question of law and fact “asks the legal effect of a given set of facts . . . To resolve a mixed question of law and fact, ‘a reviewing court must determine whether established facts satisfy applicable legal rules.’ . . . Here, we must decide whether the established facts — that Andrade watched from a car while her campaign workers obtained some signatures for her nominating petition —satisfy the presence requirement of section 10-4 of the Code.” The majority stated that the “clearly erroneous” standard applied only to review of administrative agency decisions.

A prison inmate filed a class action complaint against the Illinois Department of Corrections. He asserted that a co-payment charged to indigent inmates for non-emergency medical and dental services was improper. The issue was whether the DOC’s definition of “indigent” (unable to pay the co-payment for the entire time of incarceration) conflicted with Illinois’ Unified Code of Corrections.

The circuit court dismissed the complaint. But the appellate court reversed. Affirming the appellate court, the Illinois Supreme Court first considered the standard of review. The Supreme Court acknowledged the typical standard of review of a motion to dismiss is de novo. Further, “Whether plaintiff’s complaint was properly dismissed turns on whether plaintiff sufficiently alleged a certain and clearly ascertainable right that needs protection.’”

The standard of review gets clouded in this case because the Supreme Court also stated that the DOC’s interpretation of the Code of Corrections gets a deferential review. “We acknowledge that where, as here, an agency is charged with the administration and enforcement of the statute, courts will give deference to the agency’s interpretation of any statutory ambiguities.”

The Illinois State Board of Elections found that Victor Santana violated the state Election Code in connection with his financial support of a judicial candidate in a primary election. Santana did not file appropriate organizational or disclosure statements even though he paid in excess of $3,000 for a campaign mailing.

On direct appeal to the appellate court, Santana disputed that he was required to file the reports. The appellate court identified the standard of review of the Elections Board decision and attempted to define the contours of the standard:

This court reviews the decision of an administrative body as a “mixed question of law and fact,” on a “clearly erroneous” standard . . . A mixed question of law and fact involves an analysis of the application of the rule of law to the established facts; the ultimate determination is whether the rule of law is violated . . . The “clearly erroneous” standard is “significantly deferential” to administrative decisions and requires that an agency’s determination will be reversed “only where the reviewing court, on the entire record, is ‘left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed’ . . . The decision of an election board is subject to such deference . . .

Pierre Petrich had tickets to an NSYNC concert. She arrived quite late because, she said, automobile traffic at and near the concert venue was poorly handled. Angry about missing part of the concert, Petrich filed a class action lawsuit against, it seems, almost everyone who had anything to do with the production of the concert. The gist of her complaint was that defendants “breached their contractual duty to ensure her timely arrival to the Route 66 Raceway concert venue.”

After the trial court denied a class certification motion, Petrich appealed. Affirming the order denying class certification, the court stated the difficult standard of review: “Class certification is entirely within the province of the trial court and its determination will not be disturbed absent a clear abuse of discretion or the application of ‘impermissible legal criteria.’”

The whole case, Petrich v. MCY Music World, No. 1-05-1903 (2/8/07), is available by clicking here.

The City of Chicago and the Chicago Board of Education were denied leave to intervene in a valuation dispute. Reversing the trial court, the First District Appellate Court deviated from the usual standard of review on intervention matters. Here’s the court’s reasoning:

An order denying leave to intervene as of right is generally reviewed for a clear abuse of discretion as to timeliness, inadequacy of representation, and sufficiency of interest . . . In the instant case, however, the trial court did not base its decision upon, nor even address, any of these factors. Rather, the trial court denied the petitions to intervene based upon its decision that the Property Tax Code . . . was a complete and comprehensive statute that enumerates all of the parties who are involved and all of their rights. The trial court concluded that the legislature did not intend to permit taxing bodies to intervene in specific tax objection cases, i.e., cases involving challenges to property assessments (as opposed to rate challenges), because the Property Tax Code does not expressly provide for a right of intervention by taxing bodies in specific tax objection cases. In order to determine whether the trial court applied the correct legal criteria in the exercise of its discretion, we must construe the pertinent statutes. Thus, the issue on appeal involves a question of law and our standard of review is de novo . . .

The case was remanded for a hearing on whether the intervenors met the usual standards. For the whole case, Madison Two Associates v. Pappas, No. 1-04-0911 (2/9/07), click here.

Abraham Flagg was convicted of distributing cocaine and cocaine base, and of conspiracy to distribute. After a plea deal, he received concurrent sentences of 180 months of imprisonment and 60 months of supervised release.

As soon as he began serving it, Flagg violated the terms of his supervised release. He was sentenced to 30 months additional prison time for the violation.

Flagg appealed the additional sentence. He claimed that the standard of review was whether the sentence was “plainly unreasonable.” The issue was whether the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in U.S. v. Booker required a change in the standard of review merely to “reasonableness.” The opinion noted a split among the federal circuits on this question. But the 7th Circuit left the question unanswered, ruling that Flagg’s additional sentence was correct under either standard of review.

A property owner, Burtley, moved to vacate an order of foreclosure that was entered without an evidentiary hearing. He appealed the trial court’s denial of the motion. The parties disputed the appellate standard of review.

Burtley asserted review should be de novo “or what he labels an ‘ends of justice’ standard.” He argued that a motion to vacate should be reviewed by the same de novo standard as a motion to dismiss.

The bank argued that the standard of review was ”whether the trial court abused its discretion by failing to promote substantial justice between the parties . . .”