Cochran v. Perry County Road District No. 1

JUSTICE CHAPMAN,

dissenting:

I dissent.

As the majority points out, plaintiffs’ counsel gave actual notice to the proper defendant, Perry County Road District No. 1, before the statute of limitations ran. There was no question over an assumed name or of corporate versus individual status or of answers to interrogatories filed in the name of the wrong defendant. All of the above were mentioned by the court in Campbell v. Feuquay, 140 Ill. App. 3d 584, 488 N.E.2d 1111 (1986), and any or all of them may have played a part in convincing two members of the Campbell court that filing that claim against the wrong defendant met the inadvertence requirement of section 2 — 616(d).

None of the above is present in this case. Instead, there is absolutely no question that plaintiff knew both the name and the location of the proper defendant before the statute of limitations ran. Under these circumstances, I cannot agree that plaintiff’s failure to join the proper defendant was inadvertent. See Webb v. Ambulance Service Corp., 262 Ill. App. 3d 1039, 635 N.E.2d 643 (1994); Evans v. Graber, Inc., 115 Ill. App. 3d 532, 450 N.E.2d 482 (1983) (and cases cited therein).

Therefore, I respectfully dissent.