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Emerson Electric Co. v. Aetna Casualty and Surety Co.8/30/2004
ary judgment is improper. Outboard Marine Corp. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., 154 Ill. 2d 90, 102, 607 N.E.2d 1204, 1209 (1992). If, from a review of the pleadings and evidentiary material before the circuit court, this court determines that a material issue of fact exists or that the summary judgment was based upon an erroneous interpretation of the law, a reversal is warranted. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. American National Bank & Trust Co., 288 Ill. App. 3d 760, 765, 682 N.E.2d 72, 75 (1997).
Construction of an insurance policy is a question of law and, therefore, may appropriately be disposed of through summary judgment. See American Standard Insurance Co. v. Allstate Insurance Co., 210 Ill. App. 3d 443, 446, 569 N.E.2d 162, 165 (1991). In construing the language of the policy, the court's primary task is "to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the parties to the contract." Traveler's Insurance Co. v. Eljer Manufacturing, Inc., 197 Ill. 2d 278, 292, 757 N.E.2d 481, 491 (2001). In order to ascertain the meaning of the policy's language and the parties' intent, the court must construe the policy as a whole and take into account the type of insurance purchased, the nature of the risks involved, and the overall purpose of the contract. Outboard Marine Corp., 154 Ill. 2d at 108, 607 N.E.2d at 1212.
Plaintiffs' principal argument on appeal, at least with respect to the owned sites, is that the trial court's reliance on the Missouri Court of Appeals' decision in TWA, which, as previously noted, was issued subsequent to Emerson I, was erroneous because the trial court was bound by our decision in Emerson I. We agree.
The law of the case doctrine provides that rulings on points of law made by a court of review are binding in that case upon remand to the trial court and on subsequent appeals to that same reviewing court unless a higher court has changed the law. Kennedy v. First National Bank of Mattoon, 259 Ill. App. 3d 560, 563, 631 N.E.2d 813, 815 (1994). The purpose of the doctrine is to protect settled expectations of the parties, ensure uniformity of decisions, maintain consistency during the course of a single case, effectuate proper administration of justice, and bring litigation to an end. 21 C.J.S. Courts ยง149 (1990). An additional concern addressed by the law of the case doctrine is the maintenance of the prestige of the courts, for the reason that if an appellate court issues contrary opinions on the same issue in the same case, its prestige is undercut. See A. Vestal, Law of the Case: Single-Suit Preclusion, 1967 Utah L. Rev. 1. The law of the case doctrine is thus a stone's throw away from the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel. See J. Steinman, Law of the Case: a Judicial Puzzle in Consolidated and Transferred Cases and in Multidistrict Litigation, 135 U. Pa. L. Rev. 595, 598-99 (1987).
This court is not unaware that the doctrine "allows some flexibility, permitting a court to revisit an issue if an intervening change in the law, or some other special circumstance, warrants reexamining the claim" (United States v. Thomas, 11 F.3d 732, 736 (7th Cir. 1993)). However, equally true is the proposition that courts presume case law to be in constant flux and are reluctant to reopen decided issues based on changes in decisional law alone. Buckley Powder Co. v. State, 70 P.3d 547, 557 (Colo. App. 2002). In any event, a careful examination of Missouri law to date fails to convincingly support the proposition that the controlling law in Missouri has, in fact, changed since our decision in Emerson I.
In Emerson I, we addressed the question of which "discharge" or "release" ("into or upon land") is relevant for the purpose of
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