## Facts

- Doris Temesvary filed a personal-injury lawsuit against Diane Houdek in the Circuit Court of Du Page County.
- The parties settled the personal-injury action.
- After settlement, Temesvary filed a petition to adjudicate liens, stating that the only remaining lien claim was by A.G. Phillips, M.D., doing business as DuPage Nuclear Medicine Clinic.
- Phillips sought payment of $8,140 for nuclear-medicine studies performed on Temesvary.
- Temesvary alleged Phillips’s charges exceeded normal and customary costs for the same services in the medical community and were unreasonable.
- The trial court rejected Phillips’s position that it had no power to question the amount of the lien so long as the lien was within the Act’s one-third limit, and it conducted an evidentiary hearing on reasonableness.
- After hearing evidence, the trial court found the reasonable fee for Phillips’s services was $2,509 and adjudicated the lien in that amount.
- Phillips appealed, arguing the trial court lacked authority to reduce his lien based on reasonableness, and that his written fee agreement with Temesvary prevented the court from reducing the lien because his bill did not exceed the agreement.

## Issues

1. May a trial court determine the reasonableness of a physician’s charges before adjudicating a lien under the Illinois Physicians Lien Act, even when the lien does not exceed the Act’s one-third cap?
2. Does a written fee agreement between physician and patient bar the trial court from reducing the adjudicated lien amount under the Act’s “reasonable charges” requirement?

## Decision

- The appellate court held that a trial court may consider and decide the reasonableness of a physician’s charges when adjudicating a lien under the Physicians Lien Act.
- The court ruled that the Act’s one-third limitation is an additional ceiling on recovery and does not eliminate the statutory requirement that the lien secure only “reasonable charges.”
- The court rejected Phillips’s reliance on attorney-fee contract cases; a physician’s lien is created and limited by statute, and a private agreement does not remove the statute’s “reasonable charges” condition for lien enforcement.
- The judgment adjudicating the lien was reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings because the trial court’s reasonableness determination was reached through errors unrelated to its basic authority to review reasonableness.

## Legal Principles

- A physician’s lien under the Illinois Physicians Lien Act exists only for the physician’s “reasonable charges” for services rendered to an injured person.
- The statutory one-third limit on total liens is a cap on the lien recovery, not a guarantee that any billed amount within that cap must be enforced.
- In lien-adjudication proceedings, trial courts may hold an evidentiary hearing and make factual findings on whether the physician’s charges are reasonable.
- A written physician-patient fee arrangement does not control the amount adjudicated under the statute when the lien is being enforced; the statutory reasonableness limit still applies.
- In construing the Act, courts look first to the statutory text, read the statute as a whole, and avoid interpretations that make statutory terms meaningless.
- Illinois lien statutes are construed liberally to carry out the legislature’s purpose, while still applying the limits the legislature placed in the statutory language.

## Conclusion

Temesvary v. Houdek holds that Illinois trial courts have authority under the Physicians Lien Act to review and limit a physician’s lien to reasonable charges, regardless of whether the lien falls within the Act’s one-third cap and regardless of a private fee agreement; the appellate court reversed and remanded because the trial court’s particular reasonableness determination required further proceedings under the proper approach.


Temesvary v. Houdek, 703 N.E.2d 613 (1998)