765 ILCS 1033/40

(765 ILCS 1033/40)

Sec. 40. Limitation on Actions Against Museums.

(a) No action shall be brought against a museum or its employees, agents, officers, or trustees for damages because of injury or damage to, or loss of, property loaned to the museum more than 2 years after the date the museum gives the lender or claimant notice of the damage or loss.

(b) No action shall be brought against a museum or its employees, agents, officers, or trustees to recover loaned or undocumented property more than 2 years after the date the museum gives the lender or claimant notice of its intent to terminate the loan or notice of the museum's assertion of title to undocumented property.

(c) No action shall be brought against a museum or its employees, agents, officers, or trustees to recover loaned property more than 2 years after the expiration date of the last written contract between the lender or claimant and the museum as evidenced by the museum's records.

(d) A lender or claimant is deemed to have donated loaned property to a museum if the lender or claimant fails to contact the museum and establish his or her claim to the property to the satisfaction of the museum or fails to file an action to recover the property on loan to the museum within the period specified in subsections (b) and (c).

(e) A person who purchases property from a museum acquires title to the property if the museum represents that it has acquired title to the property pursuant to this Act.

(f) Notwithstanding subsections (d) and (e), a lender or claimant who was not given notice of intent to terminate a loan or notice of the museum's assertion of title to undocumented property as prescribed herein, respectively, and who proves that the museum received a satisfactory notice of interest in the property, may recover the property or, if the property has been disposed of, the reasonable value of the property at the time the property was discarded. The amount received by the museum upon a sale made in good faith of the loaned property shall be regarded as the prima facie evidence of that value, and in no event shall any recovery include interest or an amount to compensate for currency devaluation or inflation, or both.

(g) A museum is not liable at any time, in the absence of a court order, for returning property to the original lender, even if a claimant other than the lender of record has filed a notice of interest in the property. If persons claim competing interest in property in the custody of a museum, the burden is upon the claimants to prove their interest in an action in equity initiated by a claimant. A museum is not liable at any time for returning property to an uncontested claimant who produces reasonable proof of ownership.

(Source: P.A. 90-604, eff. 1-1-99.)