Rita Garman
From Judgepedia
Contents |
Rita B. Garman currently serves on the Illinois Supreme Court. A native of Aurora, IL, Judge Garman was valedictorian of Oswego High School in 1961. She received her B.S. degree in economics with highest honors from the University of Illinois in 1965, Bronze Tablet, and her Juris Doctor degree with distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1968.
Justices of the Illinois Supreme Court are elected to serve ten-year terms in partisan elections; Garman serves as a Republican. Her current term expires in 2012.
Legal career
Judge Garman was Assistant State's Attorney in Vermilion County (1969-73), was engaged in private practice with Sebat, Swanson, Banks, Lessen & Garman (1973), and was an Associate Circuit Judge for 12 years. She was a Circuit Judge in the Fifth Judicial Circuit (1986-95) and Presiding Circuit Judge (1987-95). She was assigned to the Appellate Court, Fourth District, in July 1995, and was elected to the position in November 1996. Justice Garman was appointed to the Supreme Court on February 1, 2001, and elected to the Court on November 5, 2002.
Judicial independence
Judge Garman spoke before the Illinois State Bar Association Conference on judicial independence, remarking:[1]
"There are times, when I pick up a newspaper of [sic] watch the news on television, when it is very evident to me that the public's expectations regarding our judicial system are unrealistic. Greater public awareness and understanding of the function of the judicial branch and importance of judicial independence are worthy goals. No one has done more to educate the American public on the value of judicial independence than our honored guest, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. I wholeheartedly agree with the message that she delivers through her speaking and writing throughout the nation. And I deeply appreciate her willingness to take on this particular task when she could be enjoying a more relaxed pace during her retirement."
Price v. Philip Morris
On the issues
Criminal justice
- Justice Garman concurred in the majority opinion, written by Justice Lloyd Karmeier, over the vigorous and lenghty dissent of Justice Charles Freeman (in which justice Thomas Kilbride and Justice McMorrow joined), which concluded amongst other things, that although a judge cannnot defer to a sheriff's department in allowing all criminal defendants to be wired with electronic stun belts, and although stun belts are only warranted where a manifest need is shown, the wiring criminal defendants with electronic stun belts during their trials did not, on its own, violate the defendants due process rights, or rights to a fair trial.
Class action abuse
- Justice Garman concurred in the majority opinion, written by Justice Thomas Fitzgerald, which concluded amongst other things, that defendant Intel's representation that its Pentium 4 computer processer was the best and fastest on the market, in contrast to its prior model, the Pentium 3 processer, was not a statement subject to attack as fraudulent, or as a "deceptive business practice" under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. In so ruling the Court overturned the decision of the circuit judge where the case originated, in notorious Madison County, Illinois.
Employer and employee rights
- Justice Rita Garman dissented from the majority opinion, written by Justice Thomas Fitzgerald, concluded, amongst other things, that the defendant, a labor union that falsely picketed the plaintiff corporation with signage indicating that the corporation was paying its workers below the prevailing wage, was entitled to have the jury's punitive damages award against it reduced from $325,000 to $50,000, under the belief that the award represented a 75 to one ration of punitive damages to compensatory damages, and was thus in violation of the labor union's due process rights.
- Justice Rita Garman was the lone dissenting vote, noting that "[b]ecause I believe the majority's decision in this case does not adequately vindicate the goals of punitive damage awards, I respectfully dissent. While the majority cites the goals of punishment and deterrence as informing its punitive award against the union, the resulting award of $50,000 does not achieve the purpose of those goals."
Negligence
- The majority opinion, written by Justice Rita Garman, over the vigorous and lenghty dissent of Justice McMorrow, in which Justice Charles Freeman joined concluded that, where a driver errantly drover her vehicle over the sidewalk and into a Burger King restaraunt, causing the death of a patron sitting in the restaruant, Burger King owed a legal duty to that patron to protect him. In doing so, the Court abandoned the opposite precedent, which had been established in Illinois in Stutz v. Kamm (1990) (Court refused to impose premises liability where a driver had driven through a wall and into a waiting room because the injury was unforeseeable); and Simmons v. Aldi-Brenner Co. (1987) (storekeeper and owners had no duty to protect customers against injury caused by driving automobile through storefront)
Property rights
- Justice Garman authored the majority opinion in a case where Chicago Alderman Charles Bernardini proposed a zoning change to prohibit the construction of the plaintiff's apartment building after plaintiff had already begun construction of the apartment building, and that zoning change became effective the following month, established two rules: (1) that a property owner has a vested right to continue building, or in the alternative is entitled to compensation, if the property owner made substantial expenditures prior to the indroduction of a later-passed zoning ordinance that would otherwise prohibit such building; and (2) that a property owner's investments in development are at his own peril once an amendment that would prohibit his development has been officially proposed.
Regulation
- Justice Garman concurred in the majority opinion, written by Justice Thomas R. Fitzgerald, which concluded amongst other things, that defendant Intel's representation that its Pentium 4 computer processer was the best and fastest on the market, in contrast to its prior model, the Pentium 3 processer, was not a statement subject to attack as fraudulent, or as a "deceptive business practice" under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. In so ruling the Court overturned the decision of the circuit judge where the case originated, in notorious Madison County, Illinois.
Civic activities
Judge Garman is a member of the Vermilion County, Illinois State and Iowa Bar Associations, and the Illinois Judges' Association.
