2025 IL App (1st) 240054-U
SECOND DIVISION February 25, 2025
No. 1-24-0054
NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1). ______________________________________________________________________________
IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________
JOSEPH VENTRELLA, as beneficiary of the Paul ) Appeal from the Ventrella Trust, ) Circuit Court of ) Cook County Plaintiff / Counter-defendant – Appellee, ) ) Nos. 19 CH 14400 v. ) 21 CH 19 (cons.) ) JAMES VENTRELLA, individually and as Trustee of ) Honorable the Paul Ventrella Trust, ) David R. Gervais ) Judge Presiding Defendant / Counter-plaintiff – Appellant. ) _____________________________________________________________________________
JUSTICE ELLIS delivered the judgment of the court. Justice McBride and Howse concurred in the judgment.
ORDER
¶1 Held: Vacated and remanded. Court in McHenry County lost jurisdiction to enter contempt order after case was transferred by Illinois Supreme Court to Cook County.
¶2 Defendant James Ventrella challenges the circuit court of McHenry County’s December
6, 2023 written order holding him in “friendly” contempt after he refused to comply with a
discovery order. The careful reader may wonder why an order by a court in McHenry County is
the subject of an appeal before the Appellate Court for the First District, which does not include
McHenry County. The reason is that, days before the McHenry County court entered the order,
the Illinois Supreme Court transferred the case to Cook County and consolidated it with a related No. 1-24-0054
case. That explanation, as it happens, is also the reason we must vacate the McHenry County
court’s order. Because that order was issued several days after the Supreme Court ordered the
transfer, the McHenry County court lacked jurisdiction to issue any order at all in this action.
¶3 BACKGROUND
¶4 This case involves a long and bitter dispute between family members over a family
business. Given our disposition, we need not delve deeply into the underlying facts of the
intricate and extensive litigation resulting from it. A brief outline will suffice.
¶5 In 2014, a significant dispute arose among the four Ventrella brothers and their cousins
over Property Dynamics, the family’s business. In 2019, Property Dynamics tried to redeem the
ownership interest of plaintiff Joseph Ventrella (Joe) after he allegedly engaged in fraudulent and
“destructive misconduct.” In 2019, Joe sued in Cook County to challenge the validity of the
company’s redemption (the Cook County action).
¶6 Two years later, in 2021, Joe filed a separate suit in McHenry County against his younger
brother James, alleging that James violated his fiduciary duties as trustee of their deceased
brother Paul’s Trust, the most significant asset of which is its interest in Property Dynamics (the
McHenry County action). As part of the McHenry County action, Joe claimed that James had
mismanaged the Trust and failed to properly account for its assets.
¶7 In defending the McHenry County action, James hired an accounting firm, PBG Financial
Services, PLLC (PBG) to perform accounting work for the Trust. Later, around September 2023,
Joe subpoenaed PBG, seeking to discover all documents PBG produced related to the Trust.
James objected, arguing that PBG was as a consultant with whom his communications remained
confidential.
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¶8 In October 2023, James filed a motion in the Illinois Supreme Court to transfer the
McHenry County action to Cook County and consolidate the cases.
¶9 While that motion in the supreme court was pending, on November 13, 2023, the circuit
court of McHenry County entered an order directing James to produce the PBG documents by
November 23. On November 20, James sought “friendly” contempt so that he could appeal the
validity of the court’s discovery ruling. On November 30, the court heard oral arguments on the
motion for friendly contempt.
¶ 10 The court stated on the record that “I’ll find—make the finding of contempt, and it will
be $50 per day for noncompliance,” instead of the $1 per day requested. At the end of the
hearing, however, the court did not enter a written order but directed counsel to prepare one.
Counsel did not prepare one that day. No written order was entered on November 30.
¶ 11 The next day, Friday, December 1, 2023, before a written order of contempt was entered
by the McHenry County judge, the Illinois Supreme Court granted James’s motion to transfer
and consolidate:
“Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 384, Joseph Ventrella, etc. v. James Ventrella, Indv.,
etc., McHenry County case No. 21 CH 19, is transferred to the Circuit Court of Cook
County and consolidated with Anthony Scully, etc., et al. v. Property Dynamics LLC et
al., etc., Cook County case No. 19 CH 1440.”
¶ 12 That order, it is worth noting, did not require any court action; it did not require an order
from the McHenry County court to transfer it; the supreme court’s order was self-executing. To
underscore its self-executing nature, Supreme Court Rule 384(c) provides that, once the transfer
order is issued, “[t]he clerks of the circuit courts from which a transfer is ordered shall promptly
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certify and transfer to the clerk of the circuit court to which the transfer is ordered all documents
in the affected cases ***.” Ill. S. Ct. R. 384(c)(5) (eff. July 1, 2017).
¶ 13 Nevertheless, on December 6, 2023—five days after the supreme court’s order—the
parties presented a written order to the McHenry County judge, who entered the written order
finding James in contempt for refusing to comply with the November 13 discovery order.
¶ 14 The following day, December 7, the court in McHenry County entered another order
clarifying that “[t]he Order reflecting this Court’s ruling from November 30, 2023 was submitted
and entered by the Court on December 6, 2023.” That order also directed the McHenry County
Clerk to “send the above caption[ed] McHenry County Case to Cook County Illinois.”
¶ 15 The record reflects that the clerk of the circuit court of McHenry County transferred the
case on December 7, 2023.
¶ 16 On January 2, 2024, James filed his notice of appeal in the circuit court of Cook County,
as the case was now before that court. This appeal follows.
¶ 17 ANALYSIS
¶ 18 On appeal, James challenges the McHenry County court’s November 13 discovery order
and thus its December 6 contempt order that enforced his compliance with it. He sought
“friendly” contempt from the McHenry County court so he could immediately appeal the ruling,
the one and only way he could do so. See Doe v. Township High School District 211, 2015 IL
App (1st) 140857, ¶ 67 (appeal of contempt order is mechanism by which appellate court may
rule on otherwise unappealable discovery order).
¶ 19 Joe, on the other hand, claims that the McHenry County court lacked jurisdiction to enter
the December 6 order, so it should be vacated as void without considering the substance.
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¶ 20 We agree with Joe that the December 6 order is void, and that it is best viewed as a
matter of jurisdiction. Consider, for example, our supreme court’s decision in People ex rel. East
Side Levee & Sanitary District v.
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2025 IL App (1st) 240054-U
SECOND DIVISION February 25, 2025
No. 1-24-0054
NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1). ______________________________________________________________________________
IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________
JOSEPH VENTRELLA, as beneficiary of the Paul ) Appeal from the Ventrella Trust, ) Circuit Court of ) Cook County Plaintiff / Counter-defendant – Appellee, ) ) Nos. 19 CH 14400 v. ) 21 CH 19 (cons.) ) JAMES VENTRELLA, individually and as Trustee of ) Honorable the Paul Ventrella Trust, ) David R. Gervais ) Judge Presiding Defendant / Counter-plaintiff – Appellant. ) _____________________________________________________________________________
JUSTICE ELLIS delivered the judgment of the court. Justice McBride and Howse concurred in the judgment.
ORDER
¶1 Held: Vacated and remanded. Court in McHenry County lost jurisdiction to enter contempt order after case was transferred by Illinois Supreme Court to Cook County.
¶2 Defendant James Ventrella challenges the circuit court of McHenry County’s December
6, 2023 written order holding him in “friendly” contempt after he refused to comply with a
discovery order. The careful reader may wonder why an order by a court in McHenry County is
the subject of an appeal before the Appellate Court for the First District, which does not include
McHenry County. The reason is that, days before the McHenry County court entered the order,
the Illinois Supreme Court transferred the case to Cook County and consolidated it with a related No. 1-24-0054
case. That explanation, as it happens, is also the reason we must vacate the McHenry County
court’s order. Because that order was issued several days after the Supreme Court ordered the
transfer, the McHenry County court lacked jurisdiction to issue any order at all in this action.
¶3 BACKGROUND
¶4 This case involves a long and bitter dispute between family members over a family
business. Given our disposition, we need not delve deeply into the underlying facts of the
intricate and extensive litigation resulting from it. A brief outline will suffice.
¶5 In 2014, a significant dispute arose among the four Ventrella brothers and their cousins
over Property Dynamics, the family’s business. In 2019, Property Dynamics tried to redeem the
ownership interest of plaintiff Joseph Ventrella (Joe) after he allegedly engaged in fraudulent and
“destructive misconduct.” In 2019, Joe sued in Cook County to challenge the validity of the
company’s redemption (the Cook County action).
¶6 Two years later, in 2021, Joe filed a separate suit in McHenry County against his younger
brother James, alleging that James violated his fiduciary duties as trustee of their deceased
brother Paul’s Trust, the most significant asset of which is its interest in Property Dynamics (the
McHenry County action). As part of the McHenry County action, Joe claimed that James had
mismanaged the Trust and failed to properly account for its assets.
¶7 In defending the McHenry County action, James hired an accounting firm, PBG Financial
Services, PLLC (PBG) to perform accounting work for the Trust. Later, around September 2023,
Joe subpoenaed PBG, seeking to discover all documents PBG produced related to the Trust.
James objected, arguing that PBG was as a consultant with whom his communications remained
confidential.
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¶8 In October 2023, James filed a motion in the Illinois Supreme Court to transfer the
McHenry County action to Cook County and consolidate the cases.
¶9 While that motion in the supreme court was pending, on November 13, 2023, the circuit
court of McHenry County entered an order directing James to produce the PBG documents by
November 23. On November 20, James sought “friendly” contempt so that he could appeal the
validity of the court’s discovery ruling. On November 30, the court heard oral arguments on the
motion for friendly contempt.
¶ 10 The court stated on the record that “I’ll find—make the finding of contempt, and it will
be $50 per day for noncompliance,” instead of the $1 per day requested. At the end of the
hearing, however, the court did not enter a written order but directed counsel to prepare one.
Counsel did not prepare one that day. No written order was entered on November 30.
¶ 11 The next day, Friday, December 1, 2023, before a written order of contempt was entered
by the McHenry County judge, the Illinois Supreme Court granted James’s motion to transfer
and consolidate:
“Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 384, Joseph Ventrella, etc. v. James Ventrella, Indv.,
etc., McHenry County case No. 21 CH 19, is transferred to the Circuit Court of Cook
County and consolidated with Anthony Scully, etc., et al. v. Property Dynamics LLC et
al., etc., Cook County case No. 19 CH 1440.”
¶ 12 That order, it is worth noting, did not require any court action; it did not require an order
from the McHenry County court to transfer it; the supreme court’s order was self-executing. To
underscore its self-executing nature, Supreme Court Rule 384(c) provides that, once the transfer
order is issued, “[t]he clerks of the circuit courts from which a transfer is ordered shall promptly
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certify and transfer to the clerk of the circuit court to which the transfer is ordered all documents
in the affected cases ***.” Ill. S. Ct. R. 384(c)(5) (eff. July 1, 2017).
¶ 13 Nevertheless, on December 6, 2023—five days after the supreme court’s order—the
parties presented a written order to the McHenry County judge, who entered the written order
finding James in contempt for refusing to comply with the November 13 discovery order.
¶ 14 The following day, December 7, the court in McHenry County entered another order
clarifying that “[t]he Order reflecting this Court’s ruling from November 30, 2023 was submitted
and entered by the Court on December 6, 2023.” That order also directed the McHenry County
Clerk to “send the above caption[ed] McHenry County Case to Cook County Illinois.”
¶ 15 The record reflects that the clerk of the circuit court of McHenry County transferred the
case on December 7, 2023.
¶ 16 On January 2, 2024, James filed his notice of appeal in the circuit court of Cook County,
as the case was now before that court. This appeal follows.
¶ 17 ANALYSIS
¶ 18 On appeal, James challenges the McHenry County court’s November 13 discovery order
and thus its December 6 contempt order that enforced his compliance with it. He sought
“friendly” contempt from the McHenry County court so he could immediately appeal the ruling,
the one and only way he could do so. See Doe v. Township High School District 211, 2015 IL
App (1st) 140857, ¶ 67 (appeal of contempt order is mechanism by which appellate court may
rule on otherwise unappealable discovery order).
¶ 19 Joe, on the other hand, claims that the McHenry County court lacked jurisdiction to enter
the December 6 order, so it should be vacated as void without considering the substance.
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¶ 20 We agree with Joe that the December 6 order is void, and that it is best viewed as a
matter of jurisdiction. Consider, for example, our supreme court’s decision in People ex rel. East
Side Levee & Sanitary District v. Madison County Levee & Sanitary District, 54 Ill. 2d 442
(1973), even though its facts are far different. A sanitary district sued in St. Clair County to
challenge the constitutionality of a statute that divided the district into sub-districts. Id. at 444.
One of the sub-districts (a party to the St. Clair County suit) then filed an action in Madison
County, seeking to restrain the district from spending any funds until the St. Clair County lawsuit
was resolved. Id. at 445. Our supreme court held that “the clearly proper course of action for the
Madison County court was to decline jurisdiction in light of the pending St. Clair County
litigation in which precisely the same relief could have been sought.” (Emphasis added.) Id.
¶ 21 More recently, we considered a case where a man convicted of murder had a petition for
relief pending in the circuit court of Cook County but then filed a mandamus action in
Livingston County, seeking to compel the court in Cook County to vacate his conviction. See
Oliver v. Kuriakos-Ciesil, 2020 IL App (4th) 190250, ¶¶ 1-6. The trial court dismissed the
petition, finding that the man had failed to satisfy the requirements for mandamus, but this court,
citing East Side Levee, noted that “the court could have declined to exercise its jurisdiction in
this matter in light of the fact plaintiff’s section 2-1401 petition *** was pending in the circuit
court of Cook County.” (Emphasis added.) Id. ¶ 19.
¶ 22 As these cases demonstrate, even when a court has subject-matter and personal
jurisdiction in a case, it may decline to exercise that jurisdiction if a related case is pending
elsewhere. What happened here is different but not materially so. Here, the McHenry County
court did not decline jurisdiction; our highest court transferred jurisdiction away from McHenry
County to Cook County. So we think it is proper to view this as a jurisdictional matter.
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¶ 23 On December 1, 2023, our supreme court removed the McHenry County court’s
jurisdiction over this matter when it transferred the case to Cook County. Once that self-
executing order was entered, the McHenry County court lost jurisdiction to enter any orders in
that case. The order of December 6 was thus void. Sarkissian v. Chicago Board of Education,
201 Ill. 2d 95, 103 (2002) (court order entered without jurisdiction is void).
¶ 24 We cannot agree with James’s attempt to rehabilitate that contempt order. He argues that
the McHenry County court made clear (in its December 7 order) that its December 6 order was
merely a reflection of the decision it orally announced from the bench on November 30—one
day before our supreme court’s transfer and consolidation order.
¶ 25 That may be true, but the oral ruling on November 30 was not a final contempt order,
because the court ordered the parties to commit the oral ruling to writing, and that had not
happened yet. See Ill. S. Ct. R. 272 (eff. Jan 1, 2018) (“If at the time of announcing final
judgment the judge requires the submission of a form of written judgment to be signed by the
judge *** the judgment becomes final only when the signed judgment is filed.”); Rocha v.
FedEx Corp., 2020 IL App (1st) 190041, ¶ 62 (per Rule 272, “the oral pronouncement [on
August 9, 2018] granting summary judgment on count II did not constitute the judgment on that
count. Rather, the entry of the formal written order on December 5, 2018, was when the
judgment on count II was entered ***.”). And as noted above, by the time the McHenry County
court entered its written order on December 6, our supreme court had transferred jurisdiction of
the case to Cook County.
¶ 26 Because the December 6 order from the McHenry County court was void, we have no
other recourse but to vacate it. Delgado v. Board of Election Commissioners of City of Chicago,
224 Ill. 2d 481, 486 (2007) (courts have duty to vacate void orders). As the (friendly) contempt
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order was the only procedural mechanism for us to review the underlying discovery dispute, see
Doe, 2015 IL App (1st) 140857, ¶ 67, we have no basis to review that dispute now and express
no opinion on it. We remand to the circuit court of Cook County for further proceedings.
¶ 27 Vacated and remanded.
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