Rule 23 Disposition of Cases in the Appellate Court

(January 1, 2021) Rule 23(e), in its prior form, mandated that case dispositions under Rule 23(b) were “not precedential and may not be cited by any party except to support contentions of double jeopardy, res judicata, collateral estoppel or law of the case.” That provision of the rule was enacted in 1994. At that time, there was an “avalanche of opinions” from our appellate court (see comments of Chief Justice Bilandic), and many were simply “too long” (see comments of Justice Heiple). In 1994, electronic legal research databases were in their relative infant stages, and the majority of legal research was done using books. Today, book-based legal research has rapidly diminished, and with it, the justifications for the prior version of Rule 23(e) have diminished. Text-searchable electronic legal research databases typically include both published opinions and Rule 23(b) orders. The amended rule makes these cases available to litigants for persuasion without expanding the body of binding precedent. M.R. No. 10343 (Amended November 21, 2017) (October 4, 2011) Under the general administrative and supervisory authority granted the Illinois Supreme Court over the courts of this state (Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, §16), the order entered under Supreme Court Rule 23, dated May 31, 2011, is amended as follows:

(A) Assignment of Public-Domain Case Designators The Districts of the Illinois Appellate Court shall assign a public-domain case designator to those opinions filed on or after July 1, 2011. This designator number for an opinion must be unique to that opinion and shall include the year of decision, the court abbreviation, and an identifier number comprised of the final six digits of the docket number, or the final six digits of the initial docket number in a consolidated appeal, without use of the hyphen. In the case of opinions by the Workers’ Compensation Commission Division of the Appellate Court, the letters “WC” shall be added as a suffix. The public-domain identifier shall appear at top of the first page of an opinion and shall be in the following form: [year] IL App (1st) [no.] [year] IL App (2d) [no.] [year] IL App (3d) [no.] [year] IL App (4th) [no.] [year] IL App (5th) [no.] Workers’ Compensation Commission Division 2011 IL App ([dist.]) [no.]WC By way of example, should the First District file an opinion in cause No. 1-10-1234 in 2011, the public-domain case designator will be “2011 IL App (1st) 101234.” Where a second opinion is filed under the same docket number after remand, a capital letter “B” will be appended to the case-designator number, regardless of the year-designator portion of the citation: 2011 IL App (1st) 101159 2012 IL App (1st) 101159-B Any further opinions arising from the same appeal shall be assigned an alphabetic letter consecutive to the preceding opinion. However, where an opinion is withdrawn while jurisdiction has been retained by the issuing court, the new opinion or order in the matter shall be given the same case-designator number as the withdrawn opinion without the addition of a sequential alphabetic designator. Orders filed under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23(b) shall have the letter “U,” preceded by a hyphen, appended to the case-designator number: 2011 IL App (5th) 101160-U A subsequently filed unpublished order in the same cause of action will result in use of both a “U” and an alphabetic designator: 2011 IL App (5th) 101160-UB Use of the “U” designator for unpublished decisions and use of an alphabetic designator (“B,” “C,” etc.) for a subsequent opinion or order are independent elements of the case-designator number: 2011 IL App (5th) 101160-U [unpublished; initial decision] 2011 IL App (5th) 101160-B [published; decision after remand] 2011 IL App (5th) 101160-UC [unpublished; decision after second remand] Should an unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23 be converted to a published opinion, the “U” designation shall be deleted.

(B) Internal Paragraphing of Opinions Illinois reviewing court opinions shall include internally numbered paragraphs as directed below. Use of internal paragraph numbers allows a pinpoint citation to the appropriate portions of an opinion when cited for a specific proposition. Such a citation will include the case name, the public-domain designator number, and the specific, or pinpoint, paragraph or paragraph numbers within the opinion: People v. Doe, 2011 IL App (1st) 101157, ¶ 15 People v. Doe, 2011 IL App (1st) 101157, ¶¶ 21-23 People v. Doe, 2011 IL App (1st) 101157, ¶¶ 57, 68 Except for the materials denoted in paragraph below, each paragraph of text is to be numbered consecutively beginning after the heading “OPINION” or “ORDER” (including the lead-in line to a separate opinion and any joiner lines thereto).

(2) The numbering of paragraphs within a separate opinion shall be consecutive to the final paragraph number of the opinion that precedes it, beginning with the lead-in line to the separate opinion, as shown in the example below: ¶ 43 CONCLUSION ¶ 44 For the reason stated, the judgment of the circuit court is reversed and the cause is remanded to that court for further proceedings. ¶ 45 Judgment reversed; ¶ 46 cause remanded. ¶ 47 JUSTICE DOE, dissenting: ¶ 48 Because I believe the circuit court correctly resolved the issues presented in the motion to suppress, I would affirm. The following portions of an opinion do not constitute new paragraphs and shall not be numbered: (a) indented (blocked) text, regardless of the nature material (e.g., quotation, listing of issues, etc.) or the length of the material; (b) text immediately following indented text, unless such text begins a new paragraph; (c) text within footnotes; (d) appendices or other attachments. If quoted text, including indented quotations, is derived from a source that uses numbered paragraphs under a public-domain system of citation, the numbers from the original source shall not be shown in the quoted material but in the citation only. If a supplemental document is filed, the paragraph numbering in the original document shall be continued into the supplemental document, including any lead-in lines and document headings (e.g., “Supplemental Opinion”; “Dissent Upon Denial of Rehearing”). Each paragraph number shall be shown using the paragraph symbol, followed by a space, and then the number (e.g., ¶ 1). The paragraph number is placed at the left margin, followed by a tab that indents the paragraphed text, as follows: ¶ 23 The appellate court found that Grant supported its conclusion that the designation of the NAF in the agreement to arbitrate was integral to the agreement. Specifically, citing Grant, the court noted: “[The NAF] has a very specific set of rules and procedures that has implications for every aspect of the arbitration process.” Thus the court found that section 5 of the Arbitration Act could not be used to reform the arbitration provision. ¶ 24 The defendant argues that the appellate court erroneously determined there is a split in federal case law as to the proper application of section 5 of the Act. M.R. 10343 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Order entered December 18, 2006. In re Administrative Order No. M.R. 10343 On the court’s own motion, effective January 1, 2007, the administrative order entered in M.R. No. 10343, on June 27, 1994, is hereby vacated. Order entered by the Court. (June 27, 1994) By this amendment, Rule 23 creates a presumption against disposing of Appellate Court cases by full, published opinions and authorizes a third type of disposition by summary order in select circumstances. The concept of the traditional “Rule 23 order” remains, but conciseness is encouraged. Disposition by order rather than by opinion reflects the precedential value of a case, not necessarily its merits. Two of the criteria upon which a case could qualify for disposition by opinion and the preference for publishing cases which include concurring and/or dissenting opinions have been eliminated consistent with the presumption against publication.