We note that a motion to transfer a case from one Illinois county to another Illinois county on grounds of improper venue is not a dispositive motion because a ruling on the motion will not result in a final disposition of the case. 735 ILCS 5/2-104(a) (West 2002); Winn v. Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, Inc., 308 Ill. App. 3d 1054, 1060, 721 N.E.2d 819, 823-24 (1999). •2 Provisions regarding amendments to the pleadings are set forth in section 2-616 of the Code. 735 ILCS 5/2-616 (West 2002).
However, Brouwer Brothers' reliance on Dominique F. is misplaced. A right to a substitution of judge pursuant to section 2-1001 because of judicial prejudice is absolute ( Dominique F., 145 Ill. 2d at 318-19, 583 N.E.2d at 558) because it relates to a party's entitlement to an impartial hearing, which is a basic tenet of our jurisprudence ( Winn v. Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, Inc., 308 Ill. App. 3d 1054, 1061-62, 721 N.E.2d 819, 825 (1999)). In contrast, a transfer of venue based on forum non conveniens in accordance with Supreme Court Rule 187 (134 Ill. 2d R. 187) is a measure designed to relieve the unnecessary burden of defending a lawsuit in an inconvenient forum.
A plaintiff is generally entitled to voluntarily dismiss his or her case at any time before trial or hearing begins. Winn v. Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, Inc., 308 Ill. App. 3d 1054, 1058, 721 N.E.2d 819, 822 (1999). Plaintiffs have an almost absolute right to take a voluntary dismissal absent an unequivocal conflict between a specific rule of the supreme court and section 2-1009 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure.
Id. at 606. Here, "and" makes more sense conjunctively, because a disjunctive use renders one or two of the components occasionally superfluous, in violation of the canon of construction that every part of a statute be given meaning and effect (Winn v. Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, Inc., 308 Ill. App. 3d 1054, 1059 (1999)); likewise, if the legislature meant the disjunctive, it certainly could have easily used "or" to indicate a disjunctive construction (as it did in the first component of this very provision). See In re Jaime P., 223 Ill. 2d 526, 538 (2006).
Accordingly, as AHC argues, the circuit court had the discretion to allow discovery to proceed to determine whether venue was proper. See Winn v. Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, Inc., 308 Ill. App. 3d 1054, 1058 (1999). The plaintiff did not request that the circuit court defer its ruling on the venue motion until she had completed discovery.
This logic defies the principle of inclusio unius est exclusio alterius, which means that the mention of one thing implies the exclusion of another. Winn v. Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing, 308 Ill. App. 3d 1054, 1060 (1999). Under this maxim of construction, the supreme court would not have used such narrow language had it intended to exempt all civil contempt petitions, pending, denied, or otherwise, from Rule 304(a).
No decision, prior to this one, has ever allowed a trial court to deny plaintiff his "unfettered" right to voluntarily dismiss his claim without prejudice, on the basis that defendant should be allowed to file a section 2-615 motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action. See Bochantin v. Petroff, 145 Ill. 2d 1, 5-7, 582 N.E.2d 114, 116-17 (1991) (previously filed motion to dismiss for failure to produce experts is a motion which could result in a final disposition of the case); Winn v. Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, Inc., 308 Ill. App. 3d 1054, 1058-60, 721 N.E.2d 819, 822-24 (1999) (Fourth District, holding trial judge generally has no discretion to deny motion to voluntarily dismiss; trial judge may not rule on previously filed motion to transfer venue before ruling on motion for involuntary dismissal). In the present case, the trial court, when it granted defendants' motion to dismiss with leave to amend, did not rule it was apparent that there was no set of facts that would entitle plaintiff to recover.