Supreme Court Addresses Administrative Adjudication Notice Case
The Illinois Supreme Court recently
issued its opinion in Stone Street Partners, LLC v. City of Chicago, 2017 IL 117720. This case involved an administrative
adjudication decision issued by Chicago in 1999 and a motion by Stone Street
Partners, LLC to set aside that judgment in 2009. The issue centered on whether or
not Stone Street Partners had received adequate notice in 1999 of the case
filed against it for certain code violations at a property it owned. A person named Keith Johnson appeared at the
hearing in 1999, but the record did not disclose whether he was authorized to
represent Stone Street Partners.
In determining whether or not Stone
Street Partners had adequate notice, the trial court and the court of
appeals considered whether or not a corporation has to be represented by an
attorney in administrative adjudication matters. If a corporation does have to be represented by an
attorney, then the appearance of Keith Johnson (a non-attorney) in 1999 would
not have been binding on the corporation.
If a corporation can appear by a non-attorney, then the appearance of
Mr. Johnson would be binding on the corporation to establish it had received
notice of the hearing.
The Illinois Supreme Court
side-stepped the issue as to whether or not a corporation must be represented
by an attorney in an administrative adjudication proceeding finding no
evidence in the record that Johnson represented Stone Street Partners in any capacity. Mr. Johnson failed to
complete the appearance form that asked him to identify the capacity by which
he appeared (attorney, officer, agent, owner, agent, etc.) Consequently the Supreme Court held there was no evidence linking Mr. Johnson to Stone Street and no record evidence of other notice of the
hearing to Stone Street. The Court held that in an administrative adjudication proceeding, the notice requirements are "jurisdictional prerequisites" that must be followed in order for the hearing body to have authority to hear the case and
adjudicate the charges against someone. In this case, because Stone Street was never properly served with notice and because
Johnson had no authority to appear on the company’s behalf, the hearing body had no jurisdiction to decide the code violations against Stone Street.
The Court also vacated that portion
of the appellate court decision holding that a corporation must be
represented by an attorney in administrative adjudication matters. Consequently it is now unclear
whether or not corporations may be represented by non-attorneys in
administrative adjudication.
The three dissenting judges would
have held that, like small claims court, corporations may be represented by
officers, agents, owners, or other non-attorneys in administrative
adjudication proceedings.
Post Authored by Steve Mahrt, Ancel Glink
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