Opinion
1-22-0003WC
04-21-2023
NADIA MASLAT, widow of Omar H. Maslat, deceased, Appellant, v. THE ILLINOIS WORKERS' COMPENSATION COMMISSION et al., (Super Sales, Inc. and The Illinois State Treasurer, as Ex Officio Custodian of the Injured Workers' Benefit Fund, Appellees).
This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County Nos. 2020 L 50241 Honorable Daniel Duffy, Judge, Presiding.
JUSTICE HOFFMAN delivered the judgment of the court. Presiding Justice Holdridge and Justices Hutchinson, Cavanagh, and Barberis concurred in the judgment.
ORDER
HOFFMAN, JUSTICE
¶ 1 Held: We vacated the judgment of the circuit court, vacated the decision of the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission (Commission) and remanded the matter back to the Commission with directions to resolve the issues involved in some logical sequence.
¶ 2 Nadia Maslat (Nadia) appeals from an order of the circuit court which confirmed a decision of the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission (Commission) denying her benefits pursuant to the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act (Act) (820 ILCS 305/1 etseq. (West 2014)) based upon the death of Omar H. Maslat. For the reasons which follow. We vacate the order of the circuit court, vacate the decision of the Commission, and remand the matter to the Commission with directions.
¶ 3 The decedent, Omar H. Maslat, was shot and killed while on the premises of Super Sales, Inc. (Super Sales) on April 1, 2014. On July 28, 2015, Ahmad Maslat (Ahmad), the decedent's son, as the petitioner, filed an application for adjustment of claim pursuant to the Act, naming Super Sales as the respondent and seeking benefits by reason of the shooting death of his father (herein referred to as the original application). Super Sales being uninsured, the Illinois State Treasurer, as Ex Officio Custodian of the Injured Workers' Benefit Fund (Treasurer), was added as a respondent.
¶ 4 On April 8, 2019, an arbitration hearing was held with all issues in dispute. Ahmad did not appear at the hearing. Present at the hearing and testifying were Nadia Maslat and Ala Maslat. Nadia testified that she is the widow of the decedent, and Ala testified that he is the decedent's son. At the end of the hearing, Ahmad's attorney of record moved to amend the application for adjustment of claim to reflect Nadia as the proper petitioner. The arbitrator granted the motion over the objection of Super Sales. Following the arbitration hearing, the arbitrator issued a written decision on June 27, 2019, denying benefits under the Act, finding, inter alia, that Nadia's claim was barred under the three-year limitation period set forth in section 6(d) of the Act (820 ILCS 305/6(d) (West 2018)) and that Nadia failed to prove that an employer-employee relationship existed between the decedent and Super Sales on April 1, 2014.
¶ 5 Nadia filed a petition for review of the arbitrator's decision before the Commission. On April 6, 2020, the Commission issued a unanimous decision affirming the arbitrator's decision on all issues. However, based upon what it described as "certain speculative and unwarranted inferences made by the arbitrator," the Commission set forth its own findings of fact and conclusions of law. The Commission found that Super Sales was prejudiced by the amendment of the application for adjustment of claim naming Nadia as the petitioner. According to the Commission, "[i]nstead of defending against a possibly dependent adult child, Respondent was confronted by an alleged widow, and a new issue arose as to whether the parties were married at the time of Mr. Maslat's death." The Commission found that it was error for the arbitrator to have granted the motion to amend the application for adjustment of claim to name Nadia as the petitioner. In its decision, however, the Commission never vacated the amendment, nor did it deny the motion to amend. Rather, it affirmed the arbitrator's finding that Nadia's claim was barred under the provisions of section 6(d) of the Act. The Commission held that "the substitution of the claimant in this action was made after the limitations period had expired and was an attempt to substitute an entirely different entity in place of the original named petitioner, Ahmad Maslat." The Commission concluded that "the doctrine of relation back does not apply." Although the Commission found that granting the motion to amend the application for adjustment of claim was error, it found that the "error was harmless because whether or not Respondents were prejudiced by the late amendment, Ahmad Maslat's timely claim for benefits still falls on one or more of the elements required to recover under the Act." The Commission then went on to hold that the petitioner, "whether Ahmad Maslat or Nadia Maslat," failed to establish that an employeremployee relationship existed between Super Sales and the decedent on the date of the accident.
¶ 6 Nadia sought a judicial review of the Commission's decision in the circuit court of Cook County. On November 30, 2021, the circuit court confirmed the Commission's decision in its entirety, and this appeal followed.
¶ 7 The manner in which the Commission framed the issues before it and the fact that it conflated the inquiries of whether the amendment of the application for adjustment of claim naming Nadia as the petitioner should have been allowed in the first instance and whether the amendment relates back to the timely filed original application, have made it impossible for this court to directly address the dispositive issues raised by Nadia in this appeal. Nadia's only argument that we are able to address is her assertion that the Commission erred in finding that the amendment to the application for adjustment of claim naming her as the petitioner did not cure a misnomer in the original application and, therefore, the amendment naming her as the petitioner was not time barred.
¶ 8 Nadia argues that the amendment to the application for adjustment of claim naming her as the petitioner was merely the correction of a misnomer. The Commission found that naming Ahmad as the petitioner in the original application was not a misnomer. We agree with the Commission.
¶ 9 Section 2-401(b) of the Code of Civil Procedure (Code) provides that:
"(b) Misnomer of a party is not a ground for dismissal but the name of the party may be corrected at any time, before or after judgment, on motion, upon any terms and proof that the court may require." 735 ILCS 5/2-401(b) (West 2018).
Misnomer can be corrected at any time, even after the statute of limitations has run. Id. at 156.
¶ 10 Misnomer is a mistake in the name or the provision of an incorrect name to the person in accusation or pleading. Bristow v. Westmore Builders, Inc., 266 Ill.App.3d 257, 260 (1994). Misnomer means that a party is styled in other than his or her own name. Id. Misnomer "does not encompass naming the wrong party but instead encompasses naming the right party by the wrong name." Vaughn v. Speaker, 126 Ill.2d 150, 158 (1988).
¶ 11 In this case, the original application designated Ahmad, the decedent's son, as the petitioner. The amended application for adjustment of claim designated Nadia, as the petitioner. The original application did not name Nadia by the wrong name; rather, it named the wrong party, Ahmad, as the petitioner. The error in naming Ahmad as the petitioner in the original application was not a misnomer.
¶ 12 In the alternative and relying on the relation back provision contained in section 2-616 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCE 5/2-616 (West 2018)), Nadia argues that the Commission erred in holding that the amendment to the application for adjustment of claim naming her as the petitioner is time barred under section 6(d) of the Act. She asserts that the original application was filed well within the 3-year limitation period set forth in section 6(d) of the Act and that the amendment to the application for adjustment of claim naming her as the petitioner grew out of the the same occurrence set forth in the original application.
¶ 13 The Commission held that "amended pleadings may be found to relate back to the original filings when that relation back does not prejudice the opposing party." In holding that the relation back doctrine does not apply in this case and that the amendment naming Nadia as the petitioner is time barred under section 6(d) of the Act, the Commission found that the respondents "were prejudiced by the last-minute substitution of Nadia Maslat for Ahmad Maslat *** after the limitation period had expired." We believe that the Commission's reasoning in this regard combines the inquiry of whether the amendment to the application should have been allowed in the first instance with the question of whether, once filed, the amendment relates back to the timely filing of the original application.
¶ 14 As the motion to amend the application was made after the commencement of the arbitration hearing, the determination of whether to allow the amendment is a matter committed to the discretion of the Commission. 50 Ill. Adm. Code 9020.20(e) (2016). Although the decision to allow an amendment after the commencement of a hearing is a matter committed to the discretion of the Commission, amendments should be allowed unless the respondent would be prejudiced. Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute v. Industrial Comm'n, 314 Ill.App.3d 149,158 (2000). The right to amend is not absolute. See Lee v. Chicago Transit authority, 152 Ill.2d 432, 467 (1992). Prejudice is a factor to be considered in determining whether or not to allow a motion to amend a pleading. Spurgeon v. Altonn Memorial Hospital, 285 Ill.App.3d 703, 712 (1996).
¶ 15 The Commission found that the arbitrator erred in allowing the amendment to the application for adjustment of claim to name Nadia as the petitioner, reasoning that Super Sales was prejudiced by the amendment. However, rather than reversing the arbitrator's decision to grant the motion to amend and itself denying the motion, the Commission concluded that the amended application did not relate back to the filing of the original application and was barred by the limitations period set forth in section 6(d) of the Act. The Commission's reasoning is internally inconsistent. Either it was denying the motion to amend, in which case, there was no amended application to relate back to the filing of the original application or it allowed the amendment to stand, giving rise to the question of whether the amended application relates back to the filing of the original application. Having found that Super Sales was prejudiced by the amendment and holding that the arbitrator erred in granting the motion to amend, one could conclude that the Commission was denying the motion to amend. That conclusion would be further supported by the fact that the Commission went on to rule that Ahmad's timely filed original application "fails on one or more of the elements required to recover under the Act." However, because the Commission addressed the issues of whether the amended application relates back to the filing of the original application and whether it was barred by reason of the limitation period set forth in section 6(d) of the Act, one could interpret its decision as having allowed the filing of the amended application to stand even though it had determined that the arbitrator erred in granting the amendment in the first instance. Either interpretation of the Commission's decision would be reasonable, but not both.
¶ 16 Addressing the issues in this case within the framework of the Commission's decision would be like separating spaghetti from the sauce after they had been mixed. When, as in this case, the Commission conflates issues to the extent that a meaningful review of its decision cannot be accomplished, we believe that the appropriate remedy is to vacate the decision and to remand the matter to the Commission with directions to enter a decision addressing the issues in a logical sequence.
¶ 17 For the reasons stated, we vacate the judgment of the circuit court which confirmed the Commission's decision; vacate the decision of the Commission; and remand the matter back to the Commission with directions to issue a decision consistent with the opinions expressed herein.
¶ 18 Circuit court judgment vacated.
Commission decision vacated and remanded with directions.