Delays spark firm order to hold hearing

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted October 11, 2017 1:41 PM

Nine days after Martha Padilla obtained an emergency ex parte order of protection against her husband, Robert Kowalski, under the Illinois Domestic Violence Act, he petitioned for rehearing based on Section 224(e), which provides a strict 14-day deadline for holding a hearing on a request to reopen or vacate an emergency order that granted exclusive possession.Yet a hearing on Kowalski’s Sept. 16, 2016, petition was postponed five times. And on Jan. 23, 2017, a Cook County judge — in an order that scheduled a …

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