holding that defendants were immune from liability for “ordinary negligence” but not for “willful and wanton misconduct”
How later courts described this case
- holding that defendants were immune from liability for “ordinary negligence” but not for “willful and wanton misconduct”
- noting that courts “cannot restrict or enlarge the meaning of an unambiguous statute” or “rewrite statutes to make them consistent with the court’s idea of orderliness and public policy”
- holding the defendant school district had a “vested right” to the immunity provided by the statute before the amendment
- finding a school district’s right to the total immunity as a defense vested when the cause of action accrued
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JUSTICE McMORROW, also dissenting:
The General Assembly’s amendment to section 3 — 108 of the Tort Immunity Act (745 ILCS 10/3 — 108 (West 1994)), effective December 2, 1998, excludes willful and wanton conduct from the immunity granted by the statute. The amendment further fortifies the conclusion I advocated in this opinion and elsewhere (see Barnett v. Zion Park District, 171 Ill. 2d 378, 399 (1996) (McMorrow, J., dissenting)), namely, that our legislature never intended to immunize willful and wanton conduct in the immunity provisions of section 3 — 108.