Appellate Law

Fifith District Illinois Appellate Court Looks At Waiver, Ex Parte Communication, And Trial Judge Misconduct. First District Appellate Court Reviews Completeness Of Appellate Record

By Steven R. Merican

A couple of quick hits today.

In a medical malpractice case, the Fifth District Illinois Appellate Court had this to say about the waiver rule: ??It is well established that both an objection at trial and a written post[ ]trial motion raising the issue are necessary to preserve an alleged error for review.? ? ?Application of the waiver rule, however, is less rigid where the basis for the objection is the trial judge's conduct.?"

In the same case, the court addressed the propriety of plaintiff?s ex parte communication with the trial judge. Ruling there was no reversible error, the appellate court stated: ?In the present case ? a reversal is unnecessary because there is no suggestion of bias or prejudice on the part of the trial judge, i.e., there is no suggestion that there was any outside influence or that the case was decided on any basis other than the evidence presented in the case. Accordingly, there was no appearance of impropriety. We therefore conclude that, under the circumstances of this case, any error committed by the trial court by conducting this brief ex parte communication was harmless.?

See the whole case, Bauer v. Memorial Hospital, No. 5-06-0291 (11/27/07), by clicking here.

And in a personal injury action, the First District Illinois Appellate Court reiterated the rule that: ?While we cannot determine whether the trial court reviewed this document, this court cannot consider documents that were not included in the record.? You can have the whole case, Babich v. River Oaks Toyota, No. 1-05-3728 (11/8/07), by clicking here.

Full post as published by Illinois Appellate Lawyer Blog on February 28, 2008 (boomark / email).