Knuepfer v. Fawell

JUSTICE SIMON, dissenting:

While this court’s original decision to allow Mr. Knuepfer to file this unusual action was understandable at the time, I feel compelled to point out that the parties reached an agreement in this case a few months thereafter. The agreement provided for the 18th judicial circuit to receive substantially all of the additional court space it needed in the Du Page Center. This agreement was reached a few days before this court filed the opinion in this case, and we knew of the settlement before the filing date. I feel we should not have been so eager to issue and publish this opinion when nothing remained in controversy and in the face of the initial reluctance to decide the case which my colleagues themselves so clearly express (96 Ill. 2d at 287).

This case had its genesis in the rapid population growth of Du Page County, a situation of concern to the county’s legislative and executive institutions as well as to its judiciary. While nothing in the record indicates that the space needs of the Du Page county board were expanding as rapidly in 1982 as those of the circuit court, it is fair to assume that in many cases the expansion of a county’s court system will be accompanied by a corresponding increase in the personnel or facilities which the county board will require; I am unwilling to exalt the former’s needs over the latter’s as unilaterally as the majority has done here. In this case the board made several offers of space which the circuit court rejected, apparently because of the time it would have required to reinforce the masonry of the part of the building in which the space was located. The majority makes no finding of bad faith on the part of the board, however, but merely finds that no court space was provided.

I feel that we as judges must be aware that the public purse is not bottomless and that needs of many agencies of government must be accommodated out of that purse. I believe that an administrative order compelling a county board to provide court space should be allowed to stand only when the circumstances of the particular case clearly and strongly warrant it and only if the board is financially able to comply with the order while performing its other fundamental obligations. To suggest that circuit courts have a general inherent power to issue and enforce such orders, whether justified by considerations of judicial efficiency, decorum or any other goal, is in my judgment to come dangerously close to sanctioning an imperial judiciary, a judiciary that is oblivious to the needs of other public agencies and the fiscal realities that are the everyday concern of those agencies, and particularly those such as county boards which are charged with the responsibility of appropriating and expending public funds.

Good government requires accommodation between its branches. A circuit court is not an independent fiefdom but is a part of government, like the county board. Its particular function is to administer justice to the many people who require the assistance of the courts, a function which is performed best if parties are encouraged to resolve as many controversies as possible outside of court. I question whether the instant litigation, initiated by the circuit court itself against a co-equal branch of government, does not undermine this function by the example it presents, and whether it will not thereby continue to impede the functioning of government even after it is concluded. The majority opinion, far from resolving this problem, fosters its recurrence by acknowledging the authority of the judicial branch to provide by court order for full performance in cases such as this. This may encourage circuit courts to be adamant in presenting demands to county boards instead of attempting to compromise their needs and settle for the best accommodation possible under mutually agreeable terms. This is all the more regrettable because we did not have to issue an opinion in this case at all; we had the option of simply declaring the case moot (Madison Park Bank v. Zagel (1982), 91 Ill. 2d 231, 235-36 ; In re Marriage of Wright (1982), 89 Ill. 2d 498, 500 ) and trusting, as we should, that similar disagreements in the future will also be settled short of formal court proceedings.