3-102.Scope of Article.

Section 3-102 governs every action to judicially review a final agency decision where the statute creating or empowering the agency expressly adopts Article III or its predecessor, the Administrative Review Act. Once adopted, this Article — known as the "Administrative Review Law" — becomes the only route: any other statutory, equitable, or common law mode of reviewing that agency's decisions that was previously available can no longer be used.

The time limit carries real weight. Unless review is sought within the time and in the manner the Article provides, the parties to the agency proceeding are barred from obtaining judicial review of that decision at all.

The section also limits refiling after certain outcomes: if a judgment is reversed or entered against the plaintiff, or the action is voluntarily dismissed, dismissed for want of prosecution, or dismissed by a federal district court for lack of jurisdiction, neither the plaintiff nor his or her heirs, executors, or administrators may start a new action within one year, or within the remaining limitations period if that's longer. All proceedings for revising the agency's decision terminate once a court enters an order under Section 2-1009 or Section 13-217, and that order makes the agency's final decision immediately enforceable. And if a decision became final because a party failed to file objections, protests, a hearing petition, or an administrative review application within the time the agency's own act allowed, that decision isn't subject to judicial review under this Article at all, except to question the agency's jurisdiction over the person or the subject matter.