Illinois Notice Appeal: Fill & Download for Free

Having now corresponded with the Asker of this Question, I have this much to say.The tenant lives in Illinois.For future reference: Southern Ill. U. Law School has a website which spells out basic tenant-landlord laws in Illinois: Your Rights as a Landlord or Tenant in Illinois."Our landlord is asking for us to pay for the doors. Are we liable for those doors?"They want you to pay for the doors? These people don't have fire insurance?Like I said, I don't see how a landlord can expect a tenant to be liable for damage that is paid by the insurance company. As far as I'm concerned, YOUR LANDLORD OWES YOU A NEW LAPTOP.Case law in Illinois is filled with these tenant-burning-down-the-house stories.Because we live in the United States of America, we have tenant/landlord laws. Those renting in the Land of Lincoln will appreciate the 2011 post, "Illinois Court Expands Reach of Implied Co-insured Doctrine". It was written for insurance companies about a tenant-landlord case that addressed apartment building coverage.This blogger was referring to the Illinois case of John Ellis v Thomas W. Callaghan.Mr. Callaghan was a tenant who "negligently" caused $258K in fire damage to the house he was renting from Mr. Ellis at 677 East North Street in Manhattan, Illinois, for $1,350/month.Notice the word "negligently" is in quotes... although there is no information on how this fire was actually set. So we assume it was, indeed, an act of negligence which led to the house burning down.Mr. Callaghan got a bill for $258,000. Not from his landlord. From the landlord's insurance company. Everyone knew the fire was the fault of the Callaghan family. Mr. Callaghan needed a lawyer to fight this insurance company. He retained Michael J. O'Connor.The blogger reported:The tenant filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit based on Illinois’ implied co-insured doctrine. The trial court granted the tenant’s motion and the Third District Appellate Court affirmed.Dismissed.Let's take a closer look at that case.Note that Mr. Callaghan admits the fire was caused by him and his family.Paragraph one of the judge's decision says it all: A tenant in Illinois "cannot be sued for fire damage by either the landlord or the landlord’s insurer."Let's read that again: A tenant in Illinois cannot be sued for fire damage.See that?After the case against Mr. Callaghan was dismissed, the insurance company appealed. The decision against the insurance company was affirmed on appeal. They are done.Repeat: Tenants CANNOT BE SUED FOR FIRE DAMAGE.As for "negligently" starting a fire, I ask you: Madam, Did you light a match and set fire to the building?NO!There is nothing to discuss here.Next: Another Illinois case, Dix Mutual Insurance v Terrence LaFramboise.Mr. Terrence LaFramboise moves into a decrepit building and agrees to do repairs etc., in exchange for cheap rent.This is a friendly arrangement. The lease is so informal it's almost a handshake. Everyone's happy. All in all, thoroughly legal.But no one is perfect.Unfortunately, one day, while diligently preparing to paint the outside of this building that he rents, trying to hold up his part of the deal with his cool landlord, Mr. LaFramboise picks up a heat stripper. As he removes old, peeling paint, he accidentally sets fire to the building.And this building, which is in the middle of nowhere, far from the nearest fire hydrant and many miles from fire trucks, burns to the ground.Who do you think should pay for this mistake?Luckily, Mr. LaFramboise's landlord has fire insurance. The insurance company cuts a check. The landlord cashes the check for $40,579.That's what fire insurance is for. When you have a fire, they pay you for the fire damage.But then, the insurance company sues Mr. LaFramboise, the tenant, for the $40,579.WTF?Maybe they asked him nicely, first. Like they asked you.But Mr. LaFramboise did not have thousands of dollars sitting around waiting to send to some insurance company.I'll bet poor Mr. LeFramboise lost sleep over this. Just like you.I'll bet he worried about it. Just like you.I'll bet at night, he searched for something to be grateful for -- like, no one died in this fire. It could have been worse. Right?But where is Mr. LeFramboise going to get $40,000?So this distraught, broke tenant heads over to Collinsville, Illinois for a meeting with the lawyers at Satter Ewing Beyer & Spires and after a chat he retains John Beyer and Steven Ziegler. Because he just does not know what else to do.It's doubtful Mr. LaFramboise had the money to pay for any this damage.Of course, just because he can't afford it doesn't necessarily absolve him of responsibility for the fire, right? Even Mr. LaFramboise agrees he started the fire. He admits he's guilty. He's confessed. It was all his fault.Not on purpose, of course. This was an accident.Still, everyone knows that if Terrence LaFramboise hadn't been stripping paint with that heat stripper "negligently" there would still be a building.In fact, if Mr. LeFramboise had that money, being a decent person with a moral compass, he would probably have given it all to the insurance company. It would be the right thing to do, as far as he was concerned.But law is not always so simple. And the judge in fact did not see things this way at all.Citing a similar case -- a famous one in Illinois, Cerny-Pickas – the judge proposed that we all read Mr. LaFramboise's lease "as a whole" to figure out what the parties were thinking when they signed it.The insurance company, of course, was thinking that this "negligent" tenant should to pay for his own fire. The judge understood this argument. It was not an unreasonable position. You break it, you buy it. When one destroys property, one is liable for the damage."This, however, is not the law in Illinois."Nope. This is business.And because this is business, we assume there will be good business practices and that means you maintain fire insurance on your own building.In Illinois, public policy says that insurance is just another cost of doing business. Tenants are, by definition, "implied co-insureds" because they pay the owner of the insured building to live there.The one-page lease signed by Mr. LaFramboise (which means "the strawberries" or something in French), however, did not mention anything about a tenant being 100% responsible for damage that he "caused".True, Mr. LaFramboise agreed to “assume the risk for his own personal property.” In writing.True, the “landlord expressly placed minor duties on the tenant". They agreed on this. In writing.Not True, however, that their friendly lease made Mr. LaFramboise responsible for "fire damage" or that he must “pay an additional $40,579” to his landlord's insurance company if the building caught fire and burned down even if Mr. LaFramboise started the fire.Not a bolt of lightning. A heat stripper.While we're at it, let's look again for a moment at this word "negligently".How do you plug in a computer "negligently"?Seriously, who wants to set fire to their apartment?Was this your intention? Were you trying to burn your apartment up?Did you expect your computer to start a fire?Do you KNOW the wiring was GOOD?Is there ANY computer you could have plugged in that would not have ignited an electrical fire in that wall?Tell me, please: What did you do that was NEGLIGENT!?!?!Let's look at another Illinois case: Towne Realty, Inc. v. Shaffer, a landlord who goes after tenant John Shaffer.This lease was crystal clear: Tenants are responsible "for any damage to the premises, appliances, furniture" etc.Let's read that again: "ANY DAMAGE". ANY damage is Mr. Shaffer's fault.This lease -- which they both signed -- says the landlord is not responsible "for any loss or damage" caused by fire, water, rain, frost, ice, snow, gas... from ANY source whatsoever..."Signing this lease, the tenant agreed to get his own "insurance coverage for his personal property."The landlord had fire insurance.Ready? Here's what happened:On the night of March 9, 1998, Mr. Shaffer lit a "candle or oil lamp". Then he went to bed. By dawn, the building was in flames.Mr. Shaffer's landlord was, understandably, angry. Especially when he found out that this fire was set by Mr. Shaffer's candle.Here's another thing: Mr. Shaffer agreed.What do I owe you? asked Mr. Shaffer.The landlord sat down with a calculator and did the math. According to the landlord's calculations, Mr. Shaffer owed him $671,463.95.Around $10,000 of this fire damage was covered by the landlord's fire insurance. The rest was going to have to come out of Mr. Shaffer's pocket.You break it, you buy it.This is an interesting case. The lease says the tenant pays for “any loss or damage.” The landlord doesn't pay for “fire” damage. The tenant has to get his own insurance coverage. It does not look good for Mr. Shaffer.In fact, this tenant actually “waived” his right to sue the landlord after a fire. In writing. And this fire was his fault. On all this, we all agree.And by the way, I do think that leaving a candle burning is a lot worse than "negligently" plugging in a laptop and somehow, out of nowhere, there's a fire.Just sayin'...Here's what the Illinois court thought about this fire:"The lease ... did not expressly provide for the tenant's nonliability for fires it might negligently cause."The court dug up a different Illinois case. In that case, the judge "rejected the landlord's argument that the parties intended that the tenant was to remain liable for negligently caused fire damage." Blaming "negligent" tenants was an excuse. The judge wasn't buying it.In Illinois, all fires are assumed to have been started "negligently".Blaming a tenant for a fire that was started "negligently" was ridiculous, said the court. If "negligence" was a good reason to charge tenants for fires, every tenant "would have to insure against fires due to his negligence". Landlords would only take out insurance for "fires due to other causes", i.e., ARSON. Tenants -- not landlords -- would be the ones who get fire insurance on the buildings they rent from landlords.Of course, there is NO SUCH INSURANCE."The parties contemplated that the risk of loss by fire should be insured against and we see no reason to suppose that they did not contemplate the customary insurance policy which covers both accidental and negligent fires."It's not Mr. Shaffer's fault that the landlord insured his apartment building for $10K, they said.And it's not up to Mr. Shaffer to buy his landlord a new building, they said.Which meant that Mr. Shaffer “was not to be liable for loss by fire regardless of the cause of the fire.” The landlord "should look solely to insurance as compensation for damage caused by any kind of fire."The judge by the way called this "ancient law". He said "the cost of insurance to the landlord or the value of the risk enters into the amount of rent." THIS IS BUSINESS.It was clear to these judges that despite what it says in his lease, "[T]he lease absolved the tenant of any liability for negligently causing fire damage to the building."I'll bet Mr. Shaffer was happy with that decision.His case was won by Kirk W. Laudeman of Drake, Narup & Mead, P.C., in Springfield, Illinois.Returning now to your situation....As you can see, there is much to discuss. The key here is your lease, public policy, and Illinois law.In Illinois, "Prospective tenants ordinarily rely upon the owner of the dwelling to provide fire protection for the realty (as distinguished from personal property) absent an express agreement otherwise."If some clause in your landlord's insurance policy doesn't pay for doors on everyone's apartment after a fire, that's just too bad for them.Agree to nothing. Read your lease. See your lawyer. Price new laptops.

Well, because I got a request to answer this question, I'm gonna tell you my story…I joined the Republican party on my 18th birthday, the week before I graduated from high school. In our US History and US Government classes, everything I learned seemed to point me in the direction of conservative leanings because it just seemed as if it was a better fit for me. Even though I had a very different social view than Republicans, their fiscal policies made a whole lot more sense to me at the time.I joined the US Navy in 1979 when Carter was president. Life in the US military under Carter seemed to be pretty relaxed and tolerant of things that a lot of people, if they knew what I knew, would barely believe what they let us get away with. Then Reagan took office and the hammer came down. Hard. The military culture changed overnight and we saw that stricter policies concerning drugs made for a better manned Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Although I didn't change my heathen ways, I could see that it was a change for the better in the military arena.But when I got out of the Navy in 1983 and went to work in the civilian world, I found out just how bad Reagan's trickle down economics policy was. Despite the company I was working for increasing its business every single year, my paychecks never seemed to do so. I even remember when the company began making us pay part of our insurance premiums to the tune of 15% of our weekly pay, even while doubling and tripling its sales. That was a salary cut for me and it never got better until I quit and found another job. It didn't pay quite as much in salary, but without having to pay for the insurance, I actually brought home more because of performance bonuses. And it was a far smaller family owned and operated company but looked out for its employees, unlike the last place I had worked which only catered to its board of directors and shareholders.I saw the rise of the religious right begin in the 1980s (I suppose that I wasn't aware enough in the late '70s of the beginnings). My mother used to drag me to her Southern Baptist Church as a kid, visited once in a while to stay in contact with people, and in the '80s I began noticing a distinct change in some people's views of certain socio-political issues, especially abortion. Before Roe vs. Wade was ruled on in 1973, the SBC had come out (actually 1971 was their first endorsement of abortion, even though it was limited) and supported the decision. Two more times in the '70s they reaffirmed their position on it. In the '80s that all changed. I noticed. Many other changes in how my religious friends saw things in the political world quickly followed. All of a sudden you weren't a christian unless you voted the way they did. Sad.I watched over the next three decades as my party of choice slowly eroded into the party of 'No'. No social progress. No fiscal restraint. And no good candidates other than George the first, who I thought could right the wrongs but couldn't, and John McCain, a man who, like Barack Obama, was willing to reach across the aisle and work together with their peers in Congress.But once Barack Obama became president, the ugliness really came out. The refusals to work together because now the Democratic party was looked at as the 'enemy' instead of as representatives of almost half of America. It made me sick to see people like Mitch McConnell spouting nonsense about how they couldn't work with Democrats. Why not? The Democrats were fully willing to work with us!Then came 2016. I thought trump didn't have a shot in hell of winning the nomination for the Republican party. Boy, was I ever surprised. The party forgot everything the man had done to cause his name to be associated with crime and lies and voted him into office.So I hung around for a couple of more years as a Republican, hoping he might change his stripes and maybe not make a mockery of our nation's highest office. I watched. And I listened. And I heard lies upon lies. I saw the way he treated those in our Armed Forces, both past and present. I witnessed the idiocy daily until I couldn't stand it anymore.When the Mueller Report came out, I read it because I wanted to know what it said. After reading it, and re-reading it, I knew. But the icing on the cake that finally pushed me beyond my limit to remain in the Republican party for even a moment longer was the Republican response to Mueller's statement on the report.“If we had had the confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”The words in bold are Mueller's own emphasis, not mine.And the Republican leadership response? All standing behind the orange fool except for Rep. Amash.Are you freaking serious? Every single Republican should have been on their feet in protest of the fool that sits in the White House. Every single Republican should have shouted at the tops of their voices that we would not stand by and allow this jackass to remain in office. Every single Republican should have been mortified that our party put forth this sorry excuse of a man to be our best candidate for office.But it didn't happen. Now, I haven't actually voted for a Republican president since George H.W. in 1992. I almost voted for John McCain in 2008, but Barack Obama was like a breath of fresh air. I couldn't not vote for the Senator from Illinois. I even voted for Clinton in 2016 because I knew trump would be a disaster. So many of my fellow Republicans at the time viewed me as being in the enemy camp. But the thing is, the Republican party had moved so far right that it no longer resembled the party I had joined in 1978. The Democrats seem to be the party I had joined.So I did. I went online and got rid of the Greed Over People party in my life and joined the 'enemy'.And according to people like my extremely conservative, evangelical christian, multiple gun owning, anti-abortionist, more than slightly racist older brother, I am now a godless socialist commie who will burn in hell for all eternity.But you know what? I went to college in Florida. Bring it the freak on, baby, because I am finally free.Edit: Just to let people know, someone turned the original, potty-mouthed version of this answer into the Quizard of Quora, so I had to tone it down. It doesn't have the same strong effect as before because my cuss words are like putting an emphasis on my ideas. I write exactly the way I think and speak and don't try to censor myself. After 3,700 Upvotes, somebody must have been a little too sensitive in my critique of the Republican party and fat donny. So, if you read this and find the only cuss words being in the last paragraph, good for you. Because I farkin' hate to be censored. So to whoever turned me in, I honor you with a one finger salute and add, “Kiss my hiney!”Edit #2: I think someone really has it in for me since this is the second time this answer has been collapsed. I believe that the “deep state” has found me to be a never-trumper and is working against me in my quest to enlighten others on the evils of the Greedy Old People party. 5,100 Upvotes and collapsed again? To the Quizard of Oz at Quora, all profanity has been taken out, even that of the final paragraph and first edit. I don't understand why you have collapsed it this time, but no more bad words, just a freak and a farkin'. Hope this works for you.Edit #3: Collapsed again after 6,700 Upvotes, and this time I had zero profanity! I asked the moderator why my answer was collapsed. I never got a response, but they uncollapsed it upon appeal. Somebody really hates the fact that trump drove me out of the Republican party…

As the other answers noted, much depends on how your State or local court handles these issues. In my area (east-central Illinois), I don't think the court sends anything to the defendant. A notice of the warrant will go to the defendant's lawyer, if one is listed on court records.Most of the time, for basic traffic violations, if prosecutors are ready for trial and have witnesses available, they will simply ask for the defendant to be found guilty ex parte (without having the defendant present). Witnesses are not called to testify. If the judge agrees, the defendant is found guilty and the judgment is recorded. A notice of the failure to appear and ex parte judgment is sent to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State may suspend the defendant's driving privileges, especially if the defendant has a significant prior traffic history. The defendant can appeal an ex parte judgment and request an actual trial.There is also the option of trying a defendant in absentia. Again, in my area, a trial in absentia consists of the prosecutor actually calling witnesses and presenting testimony and evidence. As long as the State proves their burden that the offense occurred and the defendant was the violator, the defendant is found guilty. Notice also goes to the Secretary of State. The main difference is that it is harder to appeal an in absentia verdict.But, to answer the specific question asked, a driver's first notice of a bench warrant for failure to appear at a traffic trial may well be when they are pulled over for another violation and arrested. It's even possible that an officer just running plates as s/he drives around will find an attached warrant.