on the first page right morning again for the record my name is linda out and i represent the plaintiffs shawn kramer and nancy cornell who is the guardian jasmine bega who was one of the persons injured on the night in sufficient to overcome an allegation of mr sapan the act was the driver that hit them being an intervening cause to clarify we are soley up here on the complaint we are not looking for any relief relative to any discovery dispute no motion for reconsideration just before the court and the facts are limited to those set forth in our complaint is subject to the pederast standard of which i know the court is well aware not before the independent driver we have alleged that hoover was his principal and that he was an agent and the defendants are stuck with that we have not alleged that plaintiffs safely exited the vehicle to the contrary as all further so having said that i would like to say given my limited time i know the court has read the briefs and all the case law our position is very simple defendants were hired to take my clients from point a to point b we know based on the complaint they did not do that they reached that somewhere between point a and b they dropped off they did drop off they injected my clients from the car over their objection in what we have for a ride at forty fourth and home and we've alleged this is an area known to be dangerous high crime area this mr kramer in the survey go were not familiar with this area they were unable to call for help several street lights  out the sidewalks were in disrepair this was a high traffic area there were limited traffic control devices several drinking establishment so in the area and we've alleged that persons in various states of sobriety aggression other unsafe state of mind were present this is an area where vehicles were speeding and driving dangerously this is an area that lacked a police presence and an area that placed in the higher risk of being a crime or accident  got them to vote would you have a case against driver possibly not but there that's an important question your honor to frames actually a later point in my argument but i'll address it right now there is respectfully no way that m can be deemed to be an intervening cause and thereby excusing the defendants of the breaches of their duty because oh an intervening cause safety in other words like in your question your honor had they delivered my clients to point b and they moved on and exited the vehicle and the helicopter crashed into and they may have an argument but again we're up here on a motion to dismiss where they were would you have a case possibly we would possibly wouldn't it quite frankly your honor every case that there's a lot of case law on this and every case turns on it's the syphax and one thing for proximate cause to be decided as a matter of strikes that it must be something freakish fantastic bizarre and so that hypothetical might well fall into this but here in this area where this driver drop them off in an a dangerous area that something that they can be held to have forseen yes this is my answer and let me back up and explain why in preparing for argument today i just want to say that shamelessly i went right to a decision written by this division of  burger king illinois supreme court case where in that scenario and i think all of the cases present have all the cases we've cited present fact patterns that are arguably far less likely and far less foreseeable than what we have here and i'd like to get into that but there is even in the rest case this court has stated that again the exact injury need not be reasonably foreseeable it is just the general character and the foreseeable the general character of the event or the harm that might befall persons so let's back up from there we've alleged a high crime area is a foreseeable they'd be mugged attacked rate i think a jury could so conclude we've alleged in this area the street lights are out the sidewalks are in disrepair that they have left the car and broken a leg stepped in it stepped in that pot hole the jury could so conclude we've alleged that there are a lot of people leaving bars and restaurants in a possibly a drunken state aggressive state that they have been mugged attacked it anything like that a jury could so conclude we've alleged that there was a high traffic area with a lot of car speeding in the area could they be hit by that is it reasonably foreseeable yes but more importantly in your greste decision this court like a lot of the kid decision focused in on the duty and i think duty is important because there frames the proximate cause analysis so here there's it's not before the court they owed a duty to take my client's safely from point a to b but in the rescue this court talked about a common carriers and their hotels innkeepers how they the highest duty of care to their patrons ok meaning the duty to protect the patron or the passenger from harm from a third party and that harm would be negligent intentional even criminal passengers from third party harm and also a duty even under the duty of ordinary care to not place them in a dangerous situation they place them in peril out of position is if you play someone in a perilous dangerous method and i think you're a jury given this area and again as we've alleged all the high speeding traffic and you know even you know possibly drunk drivers could reasonably foresee that you drop people off in a poorly lit area they don't know the area they're trying to get to their destination and they be hit by a car absolutely and what i'd like to say on this point your honour's is i think this is a fundamental error in the circuit courts analysis i don't know when the experience of being hit by a car hit by a car once they were hit they had other physical and medical injuries absolutely but again our burden is to show that defendants were a proximate cause and this is a question of fact something freakish or bizarre or fantastic i think this was you know not just reasonably foreseeable but i'm this fact pattern and again in light of the facts we've alleged that are new mr santee did exactly the same behavior previously he had a history of ejecting passengers arguing with them he had mental illness he had p t s d he had all these problems they fired him before and then they rehired them they could have just eliminated the app but they didn't do that so the case law says that they are responsible for the condition they created and we also have cited a case in our brief it says you cannot hire an incom responsible for the harm that befalls them because you need me harm well no not any harm but let's look at some of the case law that gives us guidance because again i think that those that the existing case are with again the court reverse d six fifteen motions to dismiss maybe the prevail at trial they can make this argument but in the and nice which case you cited the court rejected an argument that a murder was not reasonably foreseeable when it when a supervisor of an employee was abusive made her go with off premises she rejected his advances he killed or the court held that a murder was reasonably foreseeable of they didn't hold it they said a jury could so find that that's not mr fantastic given his hundred eighty six a trucking company was liable for it truckers rape of a hitchhiker off premises because again they had a duty to guard against perils and hazards likely to be encountered in the performance of a duty if you check someone in a neighborhood in chicago in which they're unfamiliar and there's high speed traffic it is likely that they can get hit by a car inte one dealing with cars and i think this is you know i get more freakish and fantastic a church who had a time to treasure hunt sent people off in their vehicles they took off their off on their treasure hunt on the one of the defendants doesn't see a stop sign it's obscured by bush's could predict that and they are in a collision the appellate court stated there because the church set in motion a situation that could reasonably cause drivers to speed that is reasonably foreseeable and that the other driver hitting them was not an intervening cause it is the case law also says if the intervening cause the arguable the chain of causation in that case we had the plaintiff jumping out of a car when the driver took her down a dark area a dead end road and scared or she ran away she left the vehicle some distance from that taxi she tripped over railroad ties arguably you know from the point of taking someone from point a to b who could predict that but again the law and again as exemplified by this court's own decision in press we don't have to predict where in response to your inquiry at what point i don't know the end point quite frankly this hits us all back to those last will cases but this is why we have juries and it should be an exceptional case where the court finds as a matter of law that we haven't pled proximate cause that it's not reasonably foreseeable again and this fact pattern maybe the defendants will prevail they can make this argument but to say on our complaint we haven't alleged facts sufficient to establish that in light of their known duty to take us from point a to b and they reached it and here's where they dropped these two young people who sustained an injury to say that that was could not have been foreseen intervening cause is that the perilous forces the dangers and again we've alleged this list a high traffic area with a lot of speeding traffic they have alone creates a perilous dangerous situation and i think the jury could conclude that if there's a lot of traffic there at a high speed it's dark traffic control signals are not working in that area that it's reasonably foreseeable that they could get hit by a car if in fact this driver was intoxicated we've alleged it's in an area with a lot of bars they were coming the bars were emptying out at two in the morning i think it's reasonably foreseeable that some something untoward might happen with a person who's had a little bit too much to drink but again the last state doesn't say that the exact injury or a current test to happen it says and i'm quoting perilous forces that the defendant set in motion must come to rest in a position of apparent safety in order for that intervening cause assertion or actor to be a legal defense i submit we don't have that here and again we're up on a motion to dismiss i think these are all matter said should be better decided for a jury because only that that's why we have the juries they're going to decide that and point when it's too much as a final matter your honors i'd just like to say a word about the allegation of forfeiture in this case you know i  feel a little bit like the practice of law it's like raising children the longer i do it the less i know because everyone seems to see forfeiture everywhere and we've been accused of forfeiture said like to set the record straight on page three of the court's opinion a five in our appendix this and the defendants know this so i find this a stunning allegation the court did not permit briefs so this is not something that we waived in the court even reflected this in her opinion where she stated quote the court has read the motions responses and replies having been deemed unnecessary as well as all of the supporting material standard here with the court noted that in her record recent permitted so ther for one in response to the motion to dismiss the six amended complaint plaintiff never argue that mr corsan t was a common carrier that he owed the heightened duty of care that would be owed by common carrier in fact  and hold that a defendant has no duty to anticipate or guard against the negligence of a third party and that's exactly what we have here and in fact almost identical negligence of the third party in both cases in wrong we injected them in so if something if something happens to them as a result we lose something forseeable ok we might argue about was forseeable what's probably one of the big things we have to decide is what actually happened was it for if you were dropped off in a high crime and they got mugged or if they were dropped off in the middle of a snowstorm and they got frostbite or they slipped on a sidewalk because the place was covered with ice right look out here i mean good morning your honor is to me it please the court again melissa murphy petro sun behalf of our technologies judge ellis i think in it in his last question he got it right the only issue here is the reasonable foreseeability aspect of legal causation all of the arguments that we've heard this morning about duty and common carrier et cetera are simply not relevant as we said in our brief knowledge is that plaintiffs play a duty breach and cause in fact adequately to survive a two six fifteen motion which is why the motion attacked only legal constitution which is the issue of whether or not as we've been discussing it was reasonably foreseeable to cosign t at the time that he discharged plaintiffs from his car to pontiacs conduct in five blocks away speeding driving drunk and hitting the sidewalks you know the reality is they did these folks did make it they walk they isolate the car safely they walk five walk safely they were crossing in a pedestrian crosswalk according to the complaint and to pontiac illinois department of corrections web site indicates that heinie act was convicted of a felony as a result of this accident it was a dui felony he's incarcerated and the taylor behl correctional center at least through april  a few other points that i would like to address the plaintiff's counsel had mentioned the writer feedback and information that her disclosed with respect to cosign t s reviews that he had gotten as an independent driver that is really a well then it goes to cause in fact you know the quest the issue of whether the plaintiffs would have been walking where they were had signed taken them all the way to their guts to nation again it does not go to  what was reasonably foreseeable to cosign t v at the time that they exited his car so all of that really does not need to be to be dealt with and again as the same with the duty issue reality is they were they were in the same position as any other person in that neighborhood on a saturday night or early sunday morning going home after a night out of the abrams case that we cited discussed in our brief i think it's very instructive on that point and that was that was a case in which the plaintiffs called an ambulance and she went into labor the city did not send it in that she was later involved in a car accident and the supreme court you know was very clear that at the time of this it is scuse me the city's failure to send an ambulance did not put the plaintiff in any more pair all than face by any other woman in labor going to the hospital in a private car and we have the seen thing here these these folks walk safely for five blocks as many people do in chicago on a late saturday night or early sunday morning following in the evening hours they were simply no other greater peril than anybody else and he did not put them in a p rather be our than having a problem well i think i did the dual rides they got so there's a busy commercial area there are a lot of bars there was traffic but i think that description could have a lot of neighborhoods in chicago and and  surrounding suburbs i mean there's a this is a large urban area a lot of streets are busy i live three blocks off north avenue that's a four lane highway i mean i think that description just to say well he left them in an area it was dark it was late it was busy that could be anywhere in chicago that still does not you know the idea that any accident could happen i think we could probably all agree that something is foreseeable to an extent to presume as we all are that other drivers will follow the rule of the road and so why and so i think you know this accidents under these circumstances has to be what's analyzed for reasonable foreseeability  and it's just not here thirty one in partial answer to your honor's question justice alice this is an area where we've all but several street plates or street lights were not operating limited traffic control devices high volume of traffic drinking establishment in the area on these facts alone it's reasonable it's reasonably foreseeable that not just our clients probably did not feel safe but also that the surrounding traffic may not have been able to carefully iow the entire five block area your honor i don't know what the condition of that was if that was ill lit high speed of traffic and what happened and i would just quite candidly i don't think we can conclude that from our complaint and we weren't thinking nine but again to be perfectly candid with the court in one of the trial words of early rulings she rejected the common carrier status it's not before the court that may be appealed another day but we have alleged it and therefore we have also specifically alleged they owed the highest duty of passengers and this only makes sense they were paid and they took the money they accepted the responsibility to safely transport my clients from point a to b and they didn't do it but even under the ordinary duty of care the law says that over and mr cosign he could not place anyone in harm's way needlessly and they did they had a duty to guard against an unreasonable risk of injury and all those other facts i think illustrates the the that it's recently foreseeable they place my clients in a situation of peril where it's reasonably foreseeable they would experience peril and that's all the law requires us to lead and ultimately prove to me the proximate cause element of our case and again we can all argue about whether this area of the speeding traffic is a reasonable connection but i'm repeating i apologize your honor ok i would just close by saying as this court noted in its press decision when there even though the precise injury wasn't pled the defendants created a formula for disaster i think we clearly have that here thank you for your time attention  very well written you both argued your bookings entertaining late in the room we appreciate that so the judge that wrote the case here is writing that he's will let you know within the next couple of