Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. v. Sedys , 2019 IL App (2d) 180188 ( 2019 )

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Appellate Court Date: 2019.07.22
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Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. v. Sedys, 2019 IL App (2d) 180188
Appellate Court DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY, Plaintiff-
Caption Appellee, v. JURGITA SEDYS, JUOZAS SEDYS, NONRECORD
CLAIMANTS, UNKNOWN TENANTS, and UNKNOWN
OWNERS, Defendants (Jurgita Sedys, Defendant-Appellant).–
DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY,
Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LEOPOLDO ARAUJO, SILVIA ARAUJO,
MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, INC.,
THE WILLOWS OF FOX VALLEY CONDOMINIUM
ASSOCIATION, UNKNOWN OWNERS, and NONRECORD
CLAIMANTS, Defendants (Leopoldo Araujo, Defendant-Appellant).
District & No. Second District
Docket Nos. 2-18-0188, 2-18-0330 cons.
Filed May 8, 2019
Decision Under Appeal from the Circuit Court of Du Page County, Nos. 08-CH-2141,
Review 08-CH-3321; the Hon. Robert W. Rohm, Judge, presiding.
Judgment Affirmed.
Counsel on Carla Sherieves, of CMS Law, LLC, of Chicago, for appellants.
Appeal
Rosa M. Tumialán, of Dykema Gossett PLLC, and Kimberly A.
Jansen and Adam Saper, of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP, both of
Chicago, and Dawn N. Williams, of Dykema Gossett PLLC, of Grand
Rapids, Michigan, for appellee.
Panel PRESIDING JUSTICE BIRKETT delivered the judgment of the
court, with opinion.
Justices Zenoff and Burke concurred in the judgment and opinion.
OPINION
¶1 In these consolidated cases, defendants, Jurgita Sedys and Leopoldo Araujo, brought
petitions under section 2-1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Code) (735 ILCS 5/2-1401
(West 2016)), alleging that the default judgments of foreclosure entered against them were
void for lack of personal jurisdiction in that plaintiff, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company,
failed to comply with the requirements for service by publication (id. § 2-206). The trial court
dismissed the petitions. In each appeal, defendant argues, as below, that the default judgment is
void because the record does not reflect that the clerk of the court mailed defendant a copy of
the published notice at the address listed in the affidavit that plaintiff prepared in support of
service by publication. We affirm because the records on appeal in both cases are insufficiently
complete to support defendants’ claims of error.
¶2 I. BACKGROUND
¶3 Sedys’s case was docketed below as No. 08-CH-2141, and Araujo’s case was docketed as
No. 08-CH-3321. The section 2-1401 proceedings in the cases were assigned to the same trial
judge and conducted simultaneously. The same counsel represented both defendants and raised
the same jurisdictional issue. On appeal, Sedys’s case was docketed as No. 2-18-0188, and
Araujo’s case was docketed as No. 2-18-0330. Defendants are represented on appeal by the
same counsel as below. We consolidated the appeals for decision on our own motion because
defendants raise the same issue and the underlying facts are similar in all relevant respects.
Plaintiff, however, has different counsel in the two appeals and does not raise all the same
arguments.
¶4 The following proceedings occurred in each case. Plaintiff brought a complaint for
foreclosure of a mortgage and filed an accompanying affidavit for service by publication. In
the affidavit, plaintiff identified defendant’s place of residence but claimed unsuccessful
attempts at personal service. Plaintiff provided the clerk of the court with a notice for
newspaper publication. The record contains no certificate from the clerk that the published
notice was mailed to defendant at the address listed in the affidavit.
¶5 When defendant failed to appear, plaintiff filed a motion for a default judgment of
foreclosure. Subsequently, the court entered judgments of default and for foreclosure. The
default judgment specified that the matter had “com[e] on to be heard” by the court. The
record, however, contains no report of proceedings of the hearing. In its foreclosure judgment,
the trial court found that it had personal jurisdiction over defendant. The property was later
sold, and the trial court entered an order approving the sale.
¶6 Several years later, defendant filed a petition under section 2-1401, claiming that the
default judgment, and all successive judgments, were void. Defendant argued that the court
lacked personal jurisdiction over defendant because the clerk of the court failed to mail a copy
of the published notice to defendant’s address as listed in the affidavit for service by
publication. See id. § 2-206(a) (“The clerk shall ***, within 10 days of the first publication of
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the notice, send a copy thereof by mail, addressed to each defendant whose place of residence
is stated in [the affidavit for service by publication].”).
¶7 Plaintiff filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the petition was defective on its face and
also barred by affirmative matter. The trial court dismissed the petition because defendant
failed to provide an affidavit in support of the allegation that the clerk did not mail the notice.
See id. § 2-1401(b) (“The petition must be supported by affidavit or other appropriate showing
as to matters not of record.”).
¶8 Defendant filed an amended petition. Defendant removed the allegation that the clerk did
not, in fact, mail a copy of the published notice. Defendant instead alleged that the record
contained no indication that the clerk mailed a copy of the notice. Plaintiff moved to dismiss
the amended petition. The trial court granted the motion because the amended petition, like the
original, lacked a supporting affidavit.
¶9 Defendant in each case filed a timely appeal.
¶ 10 II. ANALYSIS
¶ 11 Defendants challenge the dismissal of their section 2-1401 petitions. Plaintiff not only
defends the grounds on which the trial court dismissed the petitions but also submits various
alternative grounds for affirming. See In re Estate of Funk, 221 Ill. 2d 30, 96 (2006) (a
reviewing court is not bound by the reasons given by the lower court for its judgment and may
affirm on any grounds that are called for by the record).
¶ 12 In their section 2-1401 petitions, defendants claimed that the trial court lacked personal
jurisdiction over them when it entered the default judgments. Personal jurisdiction is
established either by service of process in compliance with statutory requirements or by a
party’s submission to the court’s jurisdiction. Arch Bay Holdings, LLC-Series 2010B v. Perez,
2015 IL App (2d) 141117, ¶ 10. A judgment entered without personal jurisdiction over a party
is void and can be attacked at any time, directly or collaterally. Id. ¶ 9. Section 2-1401 provides
a process for seeking vacatur of a final judgment more than 30 days old. Id. ¶ 8; see 735 ILCS
5/2-1401 (West 2016). A section 2-1401 petition may be used to attack a judgment as void.
U.S. Bank National Ass’n v. Rahman, 2016 IL App (2d) 150040, ¶ 25. The petition “must be
supported by affidavit or other appropriate showing as to matters not of record.” 735 ILCS
5/2-1401(b) (West 2016).
¶ 13 The trial court dismissed defendants’ petitions because they did not include affidavits to
support their jurisdictional claims. This was error. The claim in each petition was based on an
omission in the record, namely the absence of evidence that the clerk mailed a copy of the
notice for publication to defendant at the address specified in the affidavit for service by
publication. This claim was restricted to the record as it stood, and therefore no affidavit was
required to support it.
¶ 14 Though we reject the ground on which the trial court dismissed the petitions, we
nonetheless affirm the dismissals. Plaintiff in No. 2-18-0330 argues that the record in that case
is insufficiently complete to support defendant’s contention that the clerk failed to mail the
published notice. We agree and find the same defect in No. 2-18-0188. We reach that
conclusion through the following textual analysis of section 2-206(a) of the Code and similarly
worded statutes.
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¶ 15 Section 2-206 of the Code (id. § 2-206) specifies the requirements for service by
publication. Subsection (a) provides that the party seeking service by publication must file
“an affidavit showing that the defendant resides or has gone out of this State, or on due
inquiry cannot be found, or is concealed within this State, so that process cannot be
served upon him or her, and stating the place of residence of the defendant, if known, or
that upon diligent inquiry his or her place of residence cannot be ascertained[.]” Id.
§ 2-206(a).
Upon the filing of such an affidavit, the clerk of the court shall publish notice of the pendency
of the action. Id. Section 2-206(a) further provides:
“The clerk shall also, within 10 days of the first publication of the notice, send a copy
thereof by mail, addressed to each defendant whose place of residence is stated in such
affidavit. The certificate of the clerk that he or she has sent the copy in pursuance of this
Section is evidence that he or she has done so.” Id.
A party defending service by publication must demonstrate strict compliance with all
requirements of the statute. Concord Air, Inc. v. Malarz, 2015 IL App (2d) 140639, ¶ 34.
¶ 16 Illinois cases have long held that personal jurisdiction over a party through service by
publication is not successful if the clerk fails to mail a copy of the published notice to each
defendant listed in the affidavit filed in support of service by publication, as required by
section 2-206(a). See Anderson v. Anderson, 229 Ill. 538, 539-40 (1907); In re Marriage of
Wilson, 150 Ill. App. 3d 885, 889 (1986); Markham v. Markham, 50 Ill. App. 3d 1061, 1065
(1977). According to defendants, a certificate of mailing from the clerk is indispensable
evidence of mailing, and they rely on the absence of such a certificate from the records in both
cases as sufficient grounds for reversal.
¶ 17 In their briefs, defendants make passing references to this court’s decision in Wilson. At
oral argument, counsel for defendants addressed Wilson more extensively, arguing that the
case holds that a clerk’s certificate of mailing is necessary proof of mailing under section
2-206(a).
¶ 18 In Wilson, the petitioner moved for a default judgment of dissolution because the
respondent failed to appear. The trial court granted the motion, finding that it had personal
jurisdiction over the respondent through service by publication in compliance with section
2-206. Later, the respondent moved to vacate the default on the basis “that no certificate of
publication appeared in the record.” Wilson, 150 Ill. App. 3d at 887. The trial court denied the
motion. Id. On appeal, this court “agree[d] with the respondent that the service by publication
was defective and that as a result the court lacked jurisdiction over him.” Id. at 888. One fatal
defect was that “the court clerk failed to mail a copy of the publication to respondent’s last
known address as stated in the affidavit and as required by section 2-206.” Id. at 889. However,
we did not explain the basis for our finding that the published notice had not been mailed.
Perhaps the absence of a clerk’s certificate of mailing was of itself enough for us to conclude
that the notice had not been mailed. It is equally possible, however, that we would have
accepted alternative methods of proof, yet found those lacking as well.
¶ 19 We have found no published cases construing section 2-206(a) to determine what
constitutes acceptable evidence that the clerk mailed a copy of the published notice. To resolve
this issue of first impression, we turn to the language of the statute. The primary goal of
statutory interpretation is to ascertain and effectuate the intent of the legislature, the best
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evidence of which is the statutory language when given its plain and ordinary meaning.
Lutkauskas v. Ricker, 2015 IL 117090, ¶ 36. Where the statutory language is clear and
unambiguous, it must be applied as written without resort to other aids of construction. Palm v.
Holocker, 2018 IL 123152, ¶ 21. Language is considered ambiguous when it is susceptible to
more than one reasonable interpretation. In re E.B., 231 Ill. 2d 459, 469 (2008).
¶ 20 Under section 2-206(a), the clerk must mail the defendant a copy of the published notice,
and “[t]he certificate of the clerk that he or she has sent the copy [of the published notice] in
pursuance of this Section is evidence that he or she has done so.” 735 ILCS 5/2-206(a) (West
2016). It is unclear if the legislature is mandating a certificate or simply identifying it as one
means of proof. Therefore, we resort to extrinsic aids. One such aid directs courts to give
consistent constructions to statutes on the same or related subjects. JPMorgan Chase Bank,
N.A. v. Earth Foods, Inc., 238 Ill. 2d 455, 470 (2010).
¶ 21 Defendants direct our attention to Thormeyer v. Sisson, 83 Ill. 188 (1876), where the
supreme court construed the service-by-publication requirements in section 22 of the
attachments statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1874, ch. 11, ¶ 22 (now codified at 735 ILCS 5/4-127 (West
2016))). In No. 2-18-0330, plaintiff cites Belleville Toyota, Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A.,
Inc., 199 Ill. 2d 325 (2002), to argue that Thormeyer is inapposite because it was decided prior
to the 1964 amendments to the Illinois Constitution, when the trial court’s jurisdiction over
attachment matters derived wholly from statute and, therefore, strict compliance with statutory
requirements was required. See id. at 336-37 (prior to the 1964 amendments to the Illinois
Constitution, compliance with statutory requirements was necessary to establish jurisdiction in
purely statutory causes of action); Thormeyer, 83 Ill. at 189 (“Attachment is a remedy given by
statute ***.”).
¶ 22 If indeed Thormeyer was insisting on strict compliance with the attachments statute’s
service-by-publication requirements, this would—contrary to plaintiff’s position—confirm
Thormeyer’s pertinence here because, under current Illinois law, the same strict-compliance
standard is required for service by publication under section 2-206(a) of the Code (Concord
Air, 2015 IL App (2d) 140639, ¶ 34).
¶ 23 Incidentally, we observe that plaintiff in No. 2-18-0330 does not maintain a consistent
stance on the relevance of pre-1964 cases on jurisdiction. Plaintiff relies on the supreme
court’s interpretation, in People ex rel. Fitton v. Ehler, 338 Ill. 67 (1929), of a service-by-
publication provision of the drainage statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1929, ch. 42, ¶ 3). Proceedings
under the drainage statute were creatures of statute just like proceedings under the attachments
statute. See Wetaug Drainage District v. Illinois Central R.R. Co., 297 Ill. 350, 352 (1921).
¶ 24 As noted, having found an ambiguity in section 2-206(a), we are justified in consulting
judicial interpretations of other service-of-process statutes. We begin with Thormeyer. Section
22 of the attachments statute dictated when the plaintiff in an attachment proceeding could
resort to publication in order to serve the defendant with the order for attachment that the
plaintiff previously obtained. Service of the order, by whatever acceptable means, was
necessary for personal jurisdiction. Thormeyer, 83 Ill. at 189. Section 22 permitted service by
publication only when the plaintiff established by affidavit or return of service that the
defendant could not be personally served. Upon the filing of the affidavit or return, the clerk of
the court was required to publish, for a certain time, notice of the attachment. Further,
“such clerk shall, within ten days after the first publication of such notice, send a copy
thereof, by mail, addressed to such defendant, if the place of residence is stated in such
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affidavit; and the certificate of the clerk that he has sent such notice in pursuance of this
section, shall be evidence of that fact.” Ill. Rev. Stat. 1874, ch. 11, ¶ 22.1
¶ 25 The supreme court said of the mailing requirement:
“The duty to send such copy of notice to defendants is as imperative as the publication
of the notice for the length of time specified in the statute, and is just as essential to
confer jurisdiction on the court, in the absence of defendants, to try the cause. Neither
may be omitted, and the reason is, both are positively required to give the court
jurisdiction, where there is no appearance by defendants. Sending such notice is one of
the means the law has adopted to inform non-resident defendants of proceedings
instituted against them that may ultimately deprive them of their property. Like the
proof of the publication of the attachment notice, the fact the clerk sent such notice to
defendants must affirmatively appear in the record. That proof is wanting in this case,
and hence the court failed to acquire jurisdiction to pronounce the judgment it did. Nor
is there anything in the recitals of the record of the judgment, that shows any proof was
made in the court below, that such notice was addressed to defendants at their place of
residence ***.” Thormeyer, 83 Ill. at 190.
¶ 26 Notably, the Thormeyer court did not suggest that a certificate from the clerk was the only
acceptable proof of mailing under section 22. The court relied on the absence of “proof”
generally rather than the absence of the clerk’s certificate specifically.
¶ 27 Dennison v. Taylor, 142 Ill. 45 (1892), is another case in which the supreme court found
insufficient evidence that a copy of the published notice was mailed as required under section
22 of the attachments statute. Unlike in Thormeyer, a clerk’s certificate of mailing was in the
record in Dennison. However, the certificate could be construed to reflect mailing to only one
of the two defendants in the case. The plaintiffs relied alternatively on the trial court’s written
finding that they presented, at a hearing, “ ‘due proof of publication of notice to the defendants
of the pendency of this suit.’ ” Id. at 55. The plaintiffs urged the supreme court to presume (as
there was no report of proceedings in the record) that they presented, at the hearing, sufficient
evidence of mailing under section 22. The court refused, noting that the order mentioned only
proof of publication: “But ‘due proof’ of what was made to the court? Why, manifestly, due
proof of the ‘publication of notice to the defendants.’ ” Id. The court therefore declined to
presume that the parties presented not only evidence of publication but also evidence of
mailing.
¶ 28 Ehler, cited by plaintiff, was decided several decades after Thormeyer. Ehler construed
another statute with relevant text similar to section 2-206(a), namely section 3 of the drainage
statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1929, ch. 42, ¶ 3 (now codified at 70 ILCS 605/3-6 (West 2016))).
Section 3 governed service of a petition for the formation of a drainage district. A party filing
such a petition was required to provide an affidavit furnishing the names and, if known, the
addresses of persons who owned land within the proposed drainage district but resided outside
the county or counties in which the proposed district would lie. When such a petition and
1
The Thormeyer court only paraphrased the “certificate” language in section 22. The parties on
appeal work from the paraphrase and do not quote the actual text. (As it happens, the paraphrase was
faithful to the text.)
We note that section 4-127 of the Code retains the “certificate” language of section 22 except for
the addition of a feminine pronoun. See 735 ILCS 5/4-127 (West 2016).
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affidavit were filed, the clerk of the court was required to publish notice of the petition. The
clerk was also required, within three days of the initial publication of the notice, to send copies
of the notice to the addressees listed in the petitioner’s affidavit. Section 3 further provided:
“The certificate of the clerk, or the affidavit of any other creditable person, affixed to a copy of
said notice, shall be sufficient evidence of the posting, mailing and publication of said
notices.”2 Id. Compliance with section 3 was necessary for personal jurisdiction. Ehler, 338
Ill. at 79.
¶ 29 Before discussing Ehler, we examine two earlier cases applying section 3: People ex rel.
Williams v. Darst, 265 Ill. 354 (1914) (Darst I), and People ex rel. Williams v. Darst, 285 Ill.
533 (1918) (Darst II). In Darst I, the petitioners filed a petition to form a drainage district. The
trial court, after “finding the jurisdictional facts as to the sufficiency of the petition and the
giving of notice, etc.,” appointed commissioners, pursuant to statute, to lay out and construct
the improvements contemplated in the petition (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1913, ch. 42, ¶ 5). Darst I, 265
Ill. at 360. The commissioners filed their statutorily mandated report about the cost and impact
of the improvements (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1913, ch. 42, ¶ 9). The trial court ultimately declared the
drainage district organized, but the supreme court reversed because the trial court had failed to
hold a hearing on the commissioners’ report before issuing its order. Darst I, 265 Ill. at 360-61.
¶ 30 Upon remand, the petition was refiled. The trial court twice continued the hearing because
the petition failed to sufficiently describe the proposed district and, therefore, did not provide
proper notice. Darst II, 285 Ill. at 536-37. When the trial court finally held a hearing on the
petition, it issued an order stating:
“ ‘[T]hat due notice had been given to all persons interested, for the length of time and
in the manner required by law, of the filing of said petition, both by posting notice and
publication, as provided by statute; and the court, having duly examined said petition
and the proof of posting and the publication and mailing of notices in said cause, and
having heard the arguments of counsel, doth find said petition in due form of law and
that said notices were duly posted, published and mailed and that proof of the same was
duly made, and that the court has jurisdiction of the subject matter of this cause and of
the owners of the land embraced in said district proposed to be organized.’ ” Id. at 536.
¶ 31 The supreme court rejected the respondents’ argument that they did not receive proper
notice under section 3 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1913, ch. 42, ¶ 3). The court acknowledged the absence
from the record of a clerk’s certificate as described in section 3, but the court noted that the trial
court was “not confined to such forms of proof and may hear other evidence.” Darst II, 285 Ill.
at 538. The court held that, because there was no report of proceedings in the record, “the
finding of the court in regard to the notices will be presumed to be in accordance with the
evidence.” Id. The court commented, “The previous notices having been defective, it may well
be that at the hearing, four months later, proof was made of the publication and posting of due
notice in the manner and for the time required by law as found by the court.” Id.
¶ 32 The facts in Ehler were similar to Darst II. Following a hearing on the petition for
organization of a drainage district, the trial court found that notice of the petition was posted,
published, and mailed in accord with section 3 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1929, ch. 42, ¶ 3). There was no
2
The language in its current version remains substantively unchanged. See 70 ILCS 605/3-6 (West
2016) (“The certificate of the clerk of the court or the affidavit of any other credible person, affixed to a
copy of the notice, is sufficient evidence of the mailing of notice.”).
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clerk’s certificate in the record, yet there was also no report of proceedings of the hearing. The
supreme court held that section 3 “does not require the certificate of the publication or mailing
to be filed, but only provides that the certificate of the clerk or the affidavit of any other
reputable person affixed to a copy of the notice shall be sufficient evidence of the posting,
mailing and publication of the notices.” Ehler, 338 Ill. at 75. Under Darst II, the trial court’s
finding of compliance with section 3 “may be based on testimony heard in open court.” Id.
(citing Darst II, 285 Ill. 533).
¶ 33 To facilitate comparison, we juxtapose the relevant language of section 2-206(a) of the
Code, section 3 of the drainage statute, and section 22 of the attachments statute:
(1) “The clerk shall also, within 10 days of the first publication of the notice, send a
copy thereof by mail, addressed to each defendant whose place of residence is stated in
such affidavit. The certificate of the clerk that he or she has sent the copy in pursuance
of this Section is evidence that he or she has done so.” 735 ILCS 5/2-206(a) (West
2016).
(2) “[T]he clerk shall send a copy of the notice aforesaid to each of said
non-residents, whose residence is known, within three (3) days after the first
publication of the same. The certificate of the clerk, or the affidavit of any other
creditable person, affixed to a copy of said notice, shall be sufficient evidence of the
posting, mailing, and publication of said notices.” Ill. Rev. Stat. 1929, ch. 42, ¶ 3.
(3) “[S]uch clerk shall, within ten days after the first publication of such notice,
send a copy thereof, by mail, addressed to such defendant, if the place of residence is
stated in such affidavit; and the certificate of the clerk that he has sent such notice in
pursuance of this section, shall be evidence of that fact.” Ill. Rev. Stat. 1874, ch. 11,
¶ 22.
¶ 34 The only textual difference of note in the quoted portions is that section 2-206(a) of the
Code states that the clerk’s certificate “is evidence” of mailing, while sections 3 and 22 stated
that the certificate (or affidavit) “shall be evidence” of mailing. Plaintiff contends, based on
that difference, that section 22 had stricter proof requirements than section 2-206(a). The case
law reviewed above shows otherwise. In Thormeyer, the supreme court noted the lack of
evidence that the clerk mailed the notice, but the court did not express or imply that a clerk’s
certificate was the only acceptable evidence of mailing under section 22. Thormeyer, 83 Ill. at
190. Nor did the supreme court adopt a stricter stance later in Dennison. The supreme court
found the clerk’s certificate inadequate, but the court did not end the analysis there; instead it
considered the possibility that evidence of mailing was produced at the hearing. However,
since the trial court’s order from that hearing referenced only proof of publication, the supreme
court would not presume that evidence of mailing was also presented at the hearing. Dennison,
142 Ill. at 55.
¶ 35 The supreme court’s holdings were clearer in Darst II and Ehler, where the court construed
section 3 of the drainage statute. According to the court, the legislature in section 3 was simply
identifying a certificate or affidavit as one acceptable (indeed, sufficient) method of proving
that the notice was mailed. A court is “not confined to such forms of proof and may hear other
evidence” of mailing (Darst II, 285 Ill. at 538), including testimony (Ehler, 338 Ill. at 75).
¶ 36 There is no functional difference between the “certificate” language in section 2-206(a)
and the corresponding text in the provisions that the supreme court construed in Thormeyer,
Dennison, Darst II, and Ehler. Moreover, we are unaware of any considerations particular to
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service by publication in cases governed by section 2-206(a) that would render the holdings in
those cases inapplicable to section 2-206(a).
¶ 37 Consequently, we hold that a certificate from the clerk is not the only acceptable proof of
mailing under section 2-206(a) but that such proof may take the form of other documentary
evidence and also testimony. Thus, the absence of a clerk’s certificate from the record in a case
does not, of itself, show a failure to comply with the mailing requirement of section 2-206(a).
¶ 38 As noted, the party relying on service by publication must show strict compliance with all
statutory requirements. Concord Air, 2015 IL App (2d) 140639, ¶ 34. We cannot determine
whether plaintiff here did so comply because in neither case on appeal does the record include
a report of proceedings of the hearing at which the trial court granted plaintiff’s motion for a
default judgment. Following the hearing in each case, the trial court made a written finding that
it had personal jurisdiction over defendant. Without a report of what transpired at the hearing,
we do not know what argument or evidence was presented with respect to personal
jurisdiction. As appellants, defendants had the burden of providing a sufficiently complete
record of the proceedings below to support a claim of error. Foutch v. O’Bryant, 99 Ill. 2d 389,
391-92 (1984). In the absence of an adequate record, we must presume that the orders entered
by the trial court were in conformity with the law and had a sufficient factual basis. Id. at 392.
Any doubts that arise from the incompleteness of the record are resolved against the appellant.
Id.
¶ 39 We note how the procedural posture of this case compares to Dennison, Darst II, and
Ehler. In Ehler and Darst II, the trial court made specific findings, following a hearing, that the
notice was published and mailed. Ehler, 338 Ill. at 75; Darst II, 285 Ill. at 536. There being no
report of proceedings of the hearing, the supreme court presumed that the trial court received
adequate evidence to support its findings. Ehler, 338 Ill. at 75; Darst II, 285 Ill. at 537-38. In
Dennison, by contrast, the trial court made a specific finding regarding one element of personal
jurisdiction, i.e., publishing, but was silent regarding another element, i.e., mailing. As in Ehler
and Darst II, there was no report of proceedings of the hearing. Given the wording of the order,
the supreme court declined to presume that the trial court received sufficient evidence of
mailing in addition to publication. Dennison, 142 Ill. at 55.
¶ 40 In each case here, the court made a general finding that it had personal jurisdiction.
Plaintiff benefits in this context from the generality of the finding because, unlike in Dennison,
there is no reason to believe that the trial court was presented with evidence on some elements
of personal jurisdiction but not others. In the absence of a sufficiently complete record, we
presume, as directed by Foutch, that the trial court received sufficient evidence to support all
elements of personal jurisdiction.
¶ 41 III. CONCLUSION
¶ 42 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgments of the circuit court of Du Page County.
¶ 43 Affirmed.
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