367 Ill. App. 3d 293 - Gallagher v. Lenart’s Empirical Analysis
2006
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably 226 Ill. 2d 208 - Gallagher v. Lenart (2007), 241 Ill. 2d 428 - Thompson v. Gordon (2011)
3 federal appellate · 29 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on 185 Ill. 2d 380 - LaFever v. Kemlite Co. · 131 Ill. 2d 308 - Wilson v. Hoffman Group, Inc. · 146 Ill. 2d 155 - Kotecki v. Cyclops Welding Corp. · 191 Ill. 2d 326 - In Re Estate of Dierkes · 332 Ill. App. 3d 890 - Pritchett v. Asbestos Claims Management Corp.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a court cannot alter, change or modify the existing terms of a contract or add new terms or conditions to which the parties do not appear to have assented, write into the contract something which the parties have omitted or take away something which the parties have included”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Because [the employer] was aware of [the employee’s] allegations against [his physician] ***, it is reasonable to conclude, by the lack of any reference thereto, that [the employer] forfeited its lien rights in its ‘full, fmal[,] and complete settlement’ with [the employee]. It is also reasonable to assume, due to the fact it was not mentioned in the agreement, [the employer’s] claim of a potential lien was not an issue during the negotiations surrounding the workers’ compensation settlement. We find nothing in the record to refute the fact that all concerned negotiated and bargained (1) in good faith and (2) with full knowledge of the then-current circumstances and their impendent rights. For this court to hold that [the employer] was entitled to a lien against [the employee’s] malpractice settlement proceeds when [the employer] (1) failed to reserve its right in its workers’ compensation settlement *** and (2) knew of the pending malpractice action at the time would completely nullify both parties’ good-faith dealings. Such a holding would have [the employee] return to [the employer] the money that [the employer] previously agreed to give [the employee] without a change in circumstances. It would not only belie Illinois’s public policy of encouraging settlements [citation] but would effectively serve as a repudiation of the agreement. We hold that [the employer] should be bound by the terms of its agreement and is not entitled to a section 5(b) lien on the malpractice case”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““With its holding, Borrowman contradicts these principles. The settlement agreement in Borrowman, like the agreement in the present case, does not contain any reference to the employer’s workers’ compensation lien and, specifically, does not include a waiver of that lien. Based on the general contract principles cited above, the court should presume that if the employer meant to waive its statutorily created lien as part of the settlement of the employee’s workers’ compensation claim, it would have specifically included such a waiver in the settlement agreement. Borrowman’s holding instead rewrites the contract, which was negotiated by lawyers representing both parties, and adds a provision which the parties did not include. The plain language of the settlement agreement indicates that the parties did not intend to resolve the issue of the employer’s workers’ compensation lien within that settlement. The Borrowman court assumed, without any basis, that the agreement’s silence on the issue of the workers’ compensation lien meant that the employer chose to waive that lien and its right to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars from any future third-party recovery by the employee. Such an assumption contravenes well-established contract law in Illinois. Further, waiver is the voluntary and intentional relinquishment of a known right by conduct inconsistent with an intent to enforce that right. [Citation.] The absence of any reference to an employer’s lien in a settlement agree”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.