Mendoza v. Herzog, 2026 IL App (2d) 250330-U
This is another case where a clerk rejected a filing on the last day of the statute of limitations and the Illinois courts, as they typically do, blamed the lawyers for their own technological problems. Respectfully, the Illinois courts have developed a ready-made excuse for these issues – Blame the Lawyers. Put me down on the side of the excellent dissent in this case. If the clerk screws up, the client should not lose the cause of action.
Facts
Plaintiff was involved in an auto accident on September 12, 2022. His attorney attempted to e-file the complaint on September 12, 2024 (the last day of the two-year limitations period), but the clerk rejected it for four reasons: wrong county in the caption, an attorney address mismatch, an improperly included jury demand, and inclusion of a civil action cover sheet. The complaint also misstated the accident date as September 15, 2022.
The corrected complaint was rejected again that day as a duplicate submission. A third filing was accepted on Monday, September 16, 2024 — after the limitations period had run — and still contained the incorrect accident date.
Defendant moved to dismiss under section 2-619(a)(5) (limitations) and (a)(9) (the misstated date). Only in response to the motion, filed six months later, did plaintiff first argue the complaint should be backdated nunc pro tunc under the version of Illinois Supreme Court Rule 9(d)(2) then in effect, which allowed relief upon a showing of good cause for a clerk rejection that rendered a filing untimely.
The trial court granted dismissal, adopting defendant’s brief in full. On the motion to reconsider, the court explained that plaintiff’s six-month silence after the September 16 acceptance showed counsel mistakenly believed the complaint was timely (based on the wrong accident date), not that counsel was diligently pursuing Rule 9 relief. The court found no good cause and denied reconsideration, while noting it “probably would have granted relief” had a Rule 9 motion been filed promptly.
Issues on Appeal
- Whether the trial court abused its discretion in finding no good cause under former Rule 9(d)(2).
- Whether the relation-back doctrine permitted correction of the accident date — an issue the court did not reach because it requires an underlying timely-filed complaint.
Majority Holding and Reasoning
The court reviewed the good-cause determination for abuse of discretion, characterizing that standard as highly deferential (“next to no review at all”).
On forfeiture: Plaintiff’s opening brief asserted, without developed argument, that none of the 22 authorized rejection bases in the Illinois Supreme Court’s Electronic Filing Rejection Standards applied to his complaint. Because he did not meaningfully develop this argument (citing only a catch-all provision) and did not rebut defendant’s point-by-point defense of the rejection until his reply brief, the majority held the argument forfeited under Rule 341(h)(7). The court therefore presumed the rejection was valid, attributable to plaintiff’s own avoidable errors rather than any e-filing system flaw.
On good cause: The panel held it was not unreasonable for the trial court to weigh the six-month delay in seeking Rule 9(d)(2) relief as part of the totality of the circumstances, citing Miller v. Thom for the proposition that timing of a request is a proper consideration. Because the trial court could reasonably infer that plaintiff’s inaction stemmed from a mistaken belief that the complaint was timely (due to the wrong accident date), rather than active pursuit of relief from the rejection, the denial of good cause was not arbitrary or unreasonable.
The court distinguished its own recent decision in Skarbek v. Woodman’s Food Market, which applied de novo review to a clerk-rejection question, on the ground that Skarbek turned on interpreting the scope of the Standards themselves, whereas this case did not require rule construction once the forfeiture was found.
Dissent (Presiding Justice Kennedy)
The dissent would reverse, on the theory that the case never should have reached the good-cause stage because the clerk’s rejection was unauthorized and void ab initio, meaning the original September 12, 2024 complaint should be deemed timely filed regardless of any good-cause showing. Key points:
- Forfeiture: The dissent disputes the majority’s forfeiture finding, noting plaintiff’s opening brief devoted four paragraphs to arguing the clerk lacked authority to reject the filing, including an explicit citation to Rule 9(f), which the dissent says is enough to preserve the issue under Rule 341(h)(7) and Quezada (forfeiture binds parties, not courts).
- Standard of review: The dissent argues review should be de novo rather than abuse-of-discretion, since the case requires interpreting Rule 9’s scope, consistent with Skarbek.
- Merits: The dissent walks through the Standards and concludes none of the clerk’s four stated reasons was actually authorized. The “wrong county in the header” ground contradicts the Standards’ express instruction that a caption error should not cause rejection if the case is filed in the correct court. The “address mismatch” ground conflates a mismatch with missing information, which is the actual authorized basis; a differing address on file is not the same as no address at all.
- Because the rejection standards had been adopted only eleven days before the filing and the clerk cited no authorized basis, the dissent views the rejection as invalid, meaning the complaint should be treated as timely filed as of September 12, 2024, consistent with Skarbek’s holding that a complaint rejected without proper basis is “deemed filed” as of its original submission date.
- The dissent also invokes the general instruction that supreme court rules be liberally construed to resolve controversies on the merits rather than through dismissal for nonprejudicial technical defects.
Practical Takeaways
- Under the pre-May 2025 version of Rule 9(d)(2), a plaintiff seeking to backdate a rejected e-filing bears the burden of good cause, and unexplained delay in seeking that relief — even several months — can defeat the showing, particularly where the delay is attributable to the plaintiff’s own mistaken belief about timeliness rather than genuine reliance on Rule 9.
- Appellate counsel should fully brief arguments about the clerk’s authority to reject a filing under the Electronic Filing Rejection Standards in the opening brief; the majority treated underdeveloped argument on this point as forfeited, while the dissent would have reached the merits.
- The amended Rule 9(d) (effective May 21, 2025) eliminated the good-cause standard in favor of mandatory relief where the rule’s requirements are met, though the court declined to apply that amendment retroactively here.
- Practitioners should note the case underscores the risk of relying on the clerk’s acceptance of a filing as confirmation of accuracy — the erroneous accident date here undercut plaintiff’s good-cause argument even though it was not itself a stated rejection reason.
Since this is a Rule 23(b) order, it is non-precedential except as allowed under Rule 23(e)(1) (e.g., for res judicata, collateral estoppel, or law of the case).
