{
  "id": 1163714,
  "name": "Feliciano Serrano and Wardale Greer, Individually and as Representatives of a class of all persons similarly situated, Claimants, v. The State of Illinois, Respondent",
  "name_abbreviation": "Serrano v. State",
  "decision_date": "1999-12-15",
  "docket_number": "No. 96-CC-4152",
  "first_page": "367",
  "last_page": "371",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "52 Ill. Ct. Cl. 367"
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  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ill. Ct. Cl.",
    "id": 8793,
    "name": "Illinois Court of Claims"
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  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 29,
    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
  },
  "cites_to": [
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      "cite": "50 Ill. Ct. Cl. 350",
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      "reporter": "Ill. Ct. Cl.",
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    {
      "cite": "45 Ill. Ct. Cl. 65",
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      "reporter": "Ill. Ct. Cl.",
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        5494631
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      "case_paths": [
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    {
      "cite": "51 Ill. Ct. Cl. 54",
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      "reporter": "Ill. Ct. Cl.",
      "case_ids": [
        206627
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      "weight": 3,
      "year": 1992,
      "opinion_index": 0,
      "case_paths": [
        "/ill-ct-cl/51/0054-01"
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    {
      "cite": "44 Ill. Ct. Cl. 242",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "Ill. Ct. Cl.",
      "case_ids": [
        3047970
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      "case_paths": [
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  "analysis": {
    "cardinality": 393,
    "char_count": 6414,
    "ocr_confidence": 0.802,
    "pagerank": {
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      "percentile": 0.5187709785396755
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    "sha256": "0395321153251b61d3ee607f62157b96bc8d5639196a373ee5d7410028186080",
    "simhash": "1:4fd9937f39abb611",
    "word_count": 1016
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T19:19:27.557513+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "Feliciano Serrano and Wardale Greer, Individually and as Representatives of a class of all persons similarly situated, Claimants, v. The State of Illinois, Respondent."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "OPINION\nEpstein, J.\nClaimants are noncustodial parents under child support court orders and have brought this action seeking redress for allegedly improper \u201cintercepts\u201d (seizures) of their federal income tax refunds by the Respondents Department of Public Aid (\u201cIDPA\u201d) \u2014 and for IDPAs refusal to \u201cadjust their accounts\u201d \u2014 which were contrary to circuit court orders that adjudicated their child support obligations. Claimants allege that the circuit court determined that no money was owing for child support (by Claimant Serrano) and that less money was owed (by Claimant Greer) than was taken by IDPAs intercept of his refund. See complaint, pars. 1-8. .\nClaimants seek (1) a refund award of all monies improperly taken by IDPA intercepts; and (2) a prohibitory injunction against IDPA utilizing the intercept procedure in contravention of circuit court child support orders. Claimants seek certification of this case as a class action on behalf of all others similarly situated.\nThese claims are before us on the Respondents section 2 \u2014 619 motion to dismiss the claims which asserts: (1) a jurisdictional failure to exhaust administrative remedies, as required by section 25 of the Court of Claims Act (705 ILCS 505/25) and our implementing Rule 60 (74 111. Admin. Code section 790.60); and (2) the lack of subject matter jurisdiction of this Court to grant injunctive relief. Claimant has not filed objections to the motion or otherwise responded.\nOn the exhaustion issue, Respondent relies on Curwick v. State (1992), 44 Ill. Ct. Cl. 242 (Sommer, C.J.) as dispositive on the Court of Claims\u2019 lack of jurisdiction over the IDPA intercept procedures, and cites Gipson v. State (1999), 51 Ill. Ct. Cl. 54 at 57 on the general issue of jurisdictional failure to exhaust remedies. On the lack of injunctive powers of this Court, Respondent relies on New Life Development Corp. v. State (1992), 45 Ill. Ct. Cl. 65 (Montana, C.J.) but should have relied on Garimella v. Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (1996), 50 Ill. Ct. Cl. 350, which conclusively resolved that issue against injunctive powers.\nChief Justice Sommers opinion in Curwick is precisely on point and dispositive of our jurisdiction over these claims. Curwick observed that under section 10\u2014 17.3 and section 10 \u2014 17.5 of the Public Aid Code (now 305 ILCS 5/10 \u2014 17.3 and 5/10 \u2014 17.5) the intercept procedure is subject to an administrative hearing and is ultimately judicially reviewable under the Administrative Review Law (the \u201cARL,\u201d 735 ILCS 5/3 \u2014 101 et seq.) and held, accordingly, that exclusive jurisdiction to review the merits of such intercepts lies in the circuit court and this Court lacks jurisdiction to determine the validity or invalidity of such procedures.\nTo Curwick, we only add the observation that these sections of the Public Aid Code not only vest review jurisdiction over IDPA intercepts in the circuit court, but do so with the adamant admonition that administrative decisions on intercepts \u201cshall be reviewed only under * * * the [ARL].\u201d 305 ILCS 5/10 \u2014 17.3, 5/10 \u2014 17.5.\nThe jurisdictional conclusion is also mandated by Gipson, supra, which is cited but overstated by the Respondent. Gipson held that whenever an administrative decision is statutorily made subject to judicial review (under the ARL or any other law), this Court is divested of jurisdiction to adjudicate, even indirectly, the administrative action that is thus reviewable in the circuit court. Gipson observed that a failure to exhaust that jurisdictional review remedy (i.e., circuit court review and the pre-requisite procedures) is itself jurisdictional.\nHowever, Gipson did not say that a litigants failure to exhaust any available procedural remedy is jurisdictional \u2014 only those that ultimately lead to circuit court review under the ARL or another statute. Non-jurisdictional procedural remedies are mandatory (on the litigant) under section 25 of the Court of Claims Act, but that mandate does not limit this Courts jurisdiction, as the court pointed out in Gipson, supra.\n. That fine but important distinction having been duly noted, these claims must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction and for failure to exhaust administrative remedies (in IDPA and by administrative review in the circuit court). Accordingly, we need not entertain the class certification motion or Respondents objections.\nWe must express some dismay at the procedural result in this case. This Court is in the regrettable posture of closing our door to these Claimants \u2014 who have already been through one litigation in the circuit court on their child-support payment(s) \u2014 and who were later thrown out of the circuit court (for lack of jurisdiction) when they went back to ask that court to enforce its own prior orders. We are constrained to tell these Claimants that they are once again in the wrong court (which lacks jurisdiction), because there was yet another series of procedures (in IDPA and the circuit court) available to them that they should have used.\nWe are telling these Claimants \u2014 as the law commands us to do \u2014 that: (1) the first circuit court order on their child support obligations is inadequate to protect them; (2) that a second IDPA administrative proceeding (and maybe another circuit court proceeding) to review the IDPA intercept is required; and (3) that unless all of those procedures have been exhausted (and have exhausted all involved) this Court is powerless to give the Claimants their wrongfully seized money back.\nThere are surely reasons that lead the legislature to create this procedural labyrinth. But it is not apparent why such a multiplicity of process is due (or sensible) when a court has already made a determination of how much child support, if any, is owing by a parent in a proceeding in which IDPA was likely a party. This convoluted statutory process, however, is well beyond this Courts competence and power to correct; any relief must be effected by the General Assembly.\nFor the foregoing reasons, these claims are dismissed with prejudice.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Epstein, J."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Paul Armstrong, for Claimants.",
      "Jim E. Ryan, Attorney General (Edward C. Seward III, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel), for Respondent."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "(No. 96-CC-4152\nFeliciano Serrano and Wardale Greer, Individually and as Representatives of a class of all persons similarly situated, Claimants, v. The State of Illinois, Respondent.\nOpinion filed December 15, 1999.\nPaul Armstrong, for Claimants.\nJim E. Ryan, Attorney General (Edward C. Seward III, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel), for Respondent."
  },
  "file_name": "0367-01",
  "first_page_order": 563,
  "last_page_order": 567
}