Background
Cavalry SPV I, LLC sued James K. Bernard Jr. on an account stated claim to recover $10,432.50 owed on a Citibank revolving line of credit that had been charged off and assigned to Cavalry in 2021. Bernard appeared through counsel (Douglas K. Morrison) in May 2023, but no answer was ever filed. On May 7, 2024, the circuit court entered default judgment in Cavalry’s favor.
Bernard did not discover the default judgment until January 23, 2025, when he called the court directly—over eight months after entry of judgment. He claimed his attorney had failed to communicate court deadlines or the judgment to him, despite Bernard’s attempts to contact the attorney between November 2024 and January 2025. Bernard then filed a section 2-1401 petition to vacate the judgment in February 2025, asserting both that he had a meritorious defense (questioning Cavalry’s standing due to alleged lack of proof of debt assignment) and that he had acted with due diligence in raising it.
The circuit court dismissed the section 2-1401 petition, and Bernard appealed. He also moved for a hearing on a proposed bystander’s report, which the circuit court denied.
The Court’s Holding
The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the dismissal of Bernard’s section 2-1401 petition on two independent grounds. First, the court held it lacked jurisdiction to review the circuit court’s denial of the bystander’s report motion because Bernard’s notice of appeal specified only the dismissal of the section 2-1401 petition and did not identify the bystander’s report order. Under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 303(b)(2), a notice of appeal must specify the judgments or orders appealed from, and post-judgment rulings not identified in the notice are generally not reviewable on appeal.
More significantly, the court held that Bernard failed to demonstrate the due diligence required for relief under section 2-1401. While acknowledging that litigants are “generally bound by the negligence of his legal counsel” when a default judgment results, the court emphasized that relief may be granted only under extraordinary circumstances warranting equitable relaxation of the diligence standard. The court found none here. Bernard had a duty to follow his case progress and failed to do so—he waited six months before following up with his attorney and did not discover the default judgment until eight months after it was entered. The record presented no excuse for either Bernard’s or his counsel’s failure to follow the case or file an answer. The court distinguished this from prior cases where relief had been granted, such as where a judgment was entered shortly after default and there was an identifiable reason for counsel’s failure (e.g., inadvertent miscalendaring).
Key Takeaways
- Litigants have an independent duty to monitor their cases and cannot rely solely on counsel to stay informed of developments and deadlines.
- Attorney negligence, standing alone, is insufficient grounds for vacating a default judgment under Illinois law absent extraordinary circumstances such as fraud or fundamental unfairness.
- Substantial delay in discovering a default judgment and raising a defense weighs heavily against finding due diligence, even when attorney communication failures are alleged.
- Appellate jurisdiction depends strictly on proper notice of appeal; post-judgment orders must be specifically identified in the notice to be reviewable.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces stringent procedural and equitable requirements for debtors seeking to undo default judgments in debt collection actions. Bernard’s case illustrates that even credible claims of attorney neglect may not provide an escape route if the debtor has not exercised reasonable diligence himself. The eight-month gap between entry of judgment and discovery, combined with the six-month delay before first contacting counsel, was fatal to his petition. Practitioners representing consumers must communicate actively with clients, and consumers must reciprocate by staying engaged with their cases.
Notably, the court flagged the use of fabricated citations and apparent AI-generated hallucinated quotations in Bernard’s briefs—a cautionary signal about citation accuracy that extends beyond this case. The decision also clarifies Illinois appellate procedure: post-judgment motions, even if related to the main judgment, require specific notice to preserve appellate review.