No. 5-99-0830 IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ... - Appellate.net

notice, in and of itself, would require reversal of the judgment, followed by a new notice and
a new trial. See Client Follow-Up, 105 Ill.App.3d at 627 (rejecting argument that
deficiencies in the notice can be cured by giving notice after judgment: “[t]o give notice to
class members after a decision on the merits is to give notice after the reasons for giving it
have ceased to exist”).
II.
The Breach Of Contract Judgment Must Be Reversed Because It Was The
Product Of Numerous Prejudicial Errors.
The trial of plaintiffs’ breach of contract claim was riddled with errors in
instructions, in allocating burdens of proof, and in admitting and excluding evidence. Those
errors, individually and collectively, were so clearly prejudicial that it was an abuse of
discretion for the circuit court to deny State Farm’s motion to vacate the judgment and grant
a new trial. McClure v. Owens Corning Fiberglas Corp., 188 Ill.2d 102, 132-33 (1999)
(standard of review on appeal from denial of a motion for a new trial is abuse of discretion).
Furthermore, most of the errors stemmed from the circuit court’s desire to preserve the case
as a class action, as the court allowed plaintiffs to take shortcut after shortcut to paper over
their inability to present any real classwide proof. Because these trial errors demonstrated
beyond any doubt that this case cannot properly be tried as a class action, the only proper
remedy is to vacate the $450 million judgment and to order the breach of contract class
decertified on remand.
A. The Circuit Court’s Admission Of Legally Invalid And Wholly
Speculative Damages Theories Constitutes Reversible Error And
Demonstrates Why The Class Must Be Decertified On Remand.
Perhaps the most egregious example of an improper shortcut was the circuit court’s
decision to allow plaintiffs to seek damages on an aggregate, classwide basis. As a result of
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