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Feltmeier v. Feltmeier9/18/2003
icago, 307 Ill. App. 3d 161, 167 (1999); Field v. First National Bank of Harrisburg, 249 Ill. App. 3d 822, 825 (1993); Hyon Waste Management Services, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 214 Ill. App. 3d 757, 763 (1991); City of Rock Falls v. Chicago Title & Trust Co., 13 Ill. App. 3d 359, 364 (1973).
At this juncture, we believe it important to note what does not constitute a continuing tort. A continuing violation or tort is occasioned by continuing unlawful acts and conduct, not by continual ill effects from an initial violation. See Pavlik, 326 Ill. App. 3d at 745; Bank of Ravenswood, 307 Ill. App. 3d at 167; Hyon, 214 Ill. App. 3d at 763. Thus, where there is a single overt act from which subsequent damages may flow, the statute begins to run on the date the defendant invaded the plaintiff's interest and inflicted injury , and this is so despite the continuing nature of the injury. See Bank of Ravenswood, 307 Ill. App. 3d at 167-68; Hyon, 214 Ill. App. 3d at 763; Austin v. House of Vision, Inc., 101 Ill. App. 2d 251, 255 (1968). For example, in Bank of Ravenswood, the appellate court rejected the plaintiffs' contention that the defendant city's construction of a subway tunnel under the plaintiff's property constituted a continuing trespass violation. The plaintiffs' cause of action arose at the time its interest was invaded, i.e., during the period of the subway's construction, and the fact that the subway was present below ground would be a continual effect from the initial violation, but not a continual violation. Bank of Ravenswood, 307 Ill. App. 3d at 168; see also Hyon, 214 Ill. App. 3d at 765 (plaintiff's federal due process claim did not establish a continuing tort, where alleged wrongful sealing of plaintiff's incinerator by defendant city was single, discreet event and any alleged damages resulting from city's act were instead continued ill effects from a single alleged due process violation).
A continuing tort, therefore, does not involve tolling the statute of limitations because of delayed or continuing injuries, but instead involves viewing the defendant's conduct as a continuous whole for prescriptive purposes. See Pavlik, 326 Ill. App. 3d at 745. Thus, in City of Rock Falls, 13 Ill. App. 3d at 364, where the defendant city and its mayor had continuously engaged in various acts of tortious interference with the utilization of the plaintiff's property over a period of three years, the appellate court held that the violation of the plaintiff's rights was a continuing tort that did not cease until the date of the last injury or when the tortious acts ceased. See also Field, 249 Ill. App. 3d at 825-26 (continuing tort found where numerous acts of improperly cashing checks over four-year period constituted an ongoing scheme amounting to one transaction, so that statute of limitations did not begin to run until date on which last check was cashed).
This court recently examined the issue of whether a continuing violation existed in Belleville Toyota, Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., 199 Ill. 2d 325 (2002). There it was held that the continuing violation rule did not apply where the defendants' misconduct in the allocation of vehicles to the plaintiff did not constitute "one, continuing, unbroken, decade-long violation" of the Motor Vehicle Franchise Act (Franchise Act) (815 ILCS 710/1 et seq. (West 2000)).
Belleville Toyota, 199 Ill. 2d at 349. Rather, each individual allocation, made two to four times per month, was a separate violation of the Franchise Act supporting a separate cause of action, because each allocation was the result of a discrete decision by the defendants "regarding the numerous adjustable parameters that drove the computerized allocation
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