Chicago Residential Landlord & Tenant Ordinance
Section 5-12-200 Severability
If any provision, clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part of this chapter or application thereof to any person or circumstance, shall for any reason be adjudged by a court of competent jurisdiction to be unconstitutional or invalid, said judgment shall not affect, impair or invalidate the remainder of this chapter and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances, but shall be confined in its operation to the provision, clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part thereof directly involved in the controversy in which such judgment shall have been rendered and to the person and circumstances affected thereby.
Commentary
We have been involved in at least one case where the landlord claimed that a section of the RLTO we were relying on was unconstitutional. If that argument had been accepted by the courts, this section says that only the unconstitutional provision sould be severed from the RLTO, and the rest of it remain in effect. The RLTO has withstood several constitutional challenges so far.