is not a proximate legal cause of plaintiff's injury if that type of injury was not reasonably forseeable now this is a suicide case intervening cause case it's in the fundamental reasonable for see ability legal clause principle that i started with applies in the sense that  cannot recover if the intervening cause was not reasonably forsee it so in a suicide case like this the defendant is not liable if the intervening act suicide was not reasonably forseeable and that's exactly what the jury found here in answer to the special in iraq atory that said was it reasonably forseeable to lorrie order on september thirtieth two first find that she was negligent and the result of being negligent she wouldn't have read been able to reasonably foresee the that's what they that's what they said i i think even if you're saying it you can kind of that it makes no legal sense to say i mean negligent the fact that there was a general verdict doesn't change the objective standard of reasonable for civility that the jury was asked to answer it so to say well the suicide is the jury that you can't hit like guilty we really seems to be what the second district reasoning comes down to is and winning now is with these are inconsistent we've got a general verdict garcia case or the man a local out of a window and it wasn't clear whether was trying to commit suicide or resist trying to get out of the silk so the judge said you don't need that language to you and we said no we don't need now they were preserved lately they argued it's not going to be controlling he argued that but they never said let's take laurie or her out and put in a reasonable person they never argued that their argument now and they never said let's take laurie out and put in it recently perceivable reasonable person i can say that i'm sure plaintiff would be standing here saying well that doesn't control anything there were a lot of reasonable people in this case a family looking west pose a pastor and did some social counseling who said they didn't forsee this coming all so inappropriate this is a professional no this is case the jury got one of the five point zero one expressly telling them that in determining the reason with all the given instructions so you do that here we considered together in that context of the given instructions including one five zero one of the the question asked was mr stamp a suicide re supersedes the defendant's negligence but if the defendant could reasonably forsee the intervening act in the act will not relieve the defendant of liability so the idea that it's wrong to put the defendant in there particularly i think in a professional negligence case i submit just that is that correct and so again our position is the last clear this was an emotional case obviously  two young children were left behind but that the special iraq story served its purpose of testing and verdict on a specific ultimate issue of material fact making the jury focus on that fact they return an answer to that interact or that is totally inconsistent with their finding in the general verdict and that is the purpose of it it fulfilled that purpose here and we have this court to reverse the with jim best leave represent the plaintiffs in this case i want to make sure that everybody and i'm sure you are this fully aware as to what this in iraq acharya and how it was actually framed the question was was it reasonably reasonably that number one judgment should be entered on the general verdict because the general verdict in the answer to the interim get torey were consistent the second reason the trial court a public or overturn the trial or in rule that  either one of those they're somewhat mutually exclusive i also think it's important in this case that when we get into talking about consistency is that there has to be an appreciation and the defendants do not refer to this at all but it's not just that a general verdict for negligence was interred it's not just that but on what on what charges of negligence was that general verdict issue entered because as this court has already held there has to be complete here reconcile ability between the various issues to make it to the jury in the in the finding and the special iraq a choice so you have to consider what were the issues since the jury that they found to be negligent on and those issues were well first off everyone agrees that that it was her job to evaluate assess the pressure and anxiety and suicide everyone agrees it was her job to prevent heath infill suicide everyone agrees when i say everyone i mean laurie bergen her experts agree that if she found him suicidal it was her job to refer him to an emergency room they had a statement of understanding between rockford memorial hospital it was a signed statement that said they undertook the outlook ation to prevent imminent threats of suicide so the jury was charged with the terminating whether lori or fail to act as a reasonably careful social worker in one of four ways that she failed a properly evaluate him and she failed to properly diagnose him did she fail to recognise he was suicidal and to she fail to properly refer him to an e r or psych no disputes are present before you as to whether there was sufficient evidence on each one of those charges notice before you as to whether there was sufficient evidence that those any violent any negligence on any one of those charges was a proximate cause of his suicide when you look at those charges and i'm just going to pick one of them by example she failed to recognise he was suicidal under no circumstance could there ever be inconsistency between the special finding in the general verdict on the issue of whether she failed to recognise he was suicidal failed to recognise he was suicidal failed to foresee he would commit suicide there's no difference there those are absolutely consistent fail to diagnose him fail to evaluate that he was suicidal failed to refer him because she admits that she knew he was suicidal she would have to she did not is that he chief thought he was suicidal all right she says she didn't know he was suicidal so when her own testimony says she didn't know he was suicidal in the jury is ask the special finding to determine whether it was reasonably foreseeable to laurie or bird whether he would commit suicide what other answer do they get other give other than no she failed to recognize him she admits he wasn't suicidal we did not and i don't believe we were required to because for some arrays it's number one it was a special iraq atory proffered by the defendant it was an instruction that the jury had to have in order make to make a decision in the case in the in the long in there a jury could find that because she it or god she couldn't foresee that he would that he would commit suicide we also the judge also brought up the issue well maybe it doesn't need to be her and then the judge is like well yes it has to be as to her and defense counsel but absolutely that's the way it has to be so the judge gets simply absolutely made up his mind and also said i'm going to follow garcia in this case objection on the record is the judges objection in the record yes i'm it's in the transcript on the conference the jury instruction conference the jury instruction conference on the special in cut the other thing and as it relates to consistency to get back to your point your honor it's mutually exclusive we can make an argument on consistency regardless of any of those issues you raised and whether we suggested changes or objected to form or anything like that or strong case on that regard so when we get back to consistency and this court's decision in simmons this court said well first of all we have a statutory right that to special fighting only controls if the special finding is inconsistent and simmons this court said well what do we mean by inconsistent if there's any reasonable hypothesis or reasonable hypothesis to find consistency then it is duties a jury could conclude that because she was negligent it was not reasonably foreseeable to her that keith would commit suicide approximately nine days after he met her thus and the general verdict in the answer to the to a t by looking at the charges of negligence what are the basis for finding her negligent in comparing the answer to the special in iraq it's already in finding whether there is a reasonable hypothesis for consistency before the between the two court reasonable or legal cause to get my notes here to make sure i have it right that legal cause should be whether or not a reasonable reasonably prudent person would have foreseen the injury as a likely consequence of his conduct so in this case he interacted for either should have had a reasonable person were it should have had a reasonably careful social worker and here's why let's talk about now i'm going to the form part of my argument let's talk about why do we even have a legal why do we even have legal cause and this court has has said time and time again that the whole reason why we have legal cause is that you want to make sure that persons are only liable for the injury if the injury was foreseeable and that if a reasonably prudent person as the consequences of their negligence would have forseen that so in other words we don't want to just have not gotten it without there being forsee ability so how do we test whether or not it was reasonably foreseeable two it reasonably prudent person take his stance though would commit suicide you can only test that through a reasonable person standard you but if a reasonably prudent and careful social worker had assessed him would his suicide have been for seeable to that social worker that's the test if it wasn't reasonably foreseeable to a reasonably careful social worker then there wouldn't be liability in this case but that wasn't the test that the jury was asked to answer they were asked to answer whether it was reasonably forseeable to her and this whole concept that while the word reasonable was in there and you could construe that with all the other iraq tories instructions nowhere was the jury ever told that hate when you when you look at the special in iraq and story look at that and combine it with the definition of a you reconcile that like what does what does it mean when it says reasonably foreseeable the way it works or are they supposed to go back and then look at the negligence instructions like it work given any instructions in that regard and so and the appellate court looked at this and said in case a friend and case and garcia was a backing case meaning we were involved in preventing or in this case the issue of preventing the suicide had to deal with failed evaluating assessing everybody agreed as to what was in the mind of the defendants in that case and so then garcia allowed in iraq a trade that said was it reasonably foreseeable to i don't know if it was the defendant or the name of the defendant so it parallel but it was very different but the key in that case is nobody objected nobody of objected to that subjective standard but guards deep garcia relied upon hooper and that was its predecessor and it referred to hooper under this court's decision in florida that is definitely not the standard in fact this court said that it's what a reasonably prudent person in the business of the dissent defendant would have foresaw as a likely consequence of their actions specific court specifically said you don't look at this defending what this defendant saw or should've saw you look at what a reasonably prudent person in the in the position or the or the business of this and it would have seen the other thing i want to make a point and this is not an intervening cause haste and a lot of the cases that the defendants cite do you claim it's an intervening cause and whether an intervening cause was reasonably foreseeable there's a case called winger versus franciscan i guess i did the third district and it talked about whenever you're dealing with mental health professionals and they're charged with i mean it's their job right to assess the mental health and as laurie or burke admitted to prevent suicides in this case and that that they said the whole theory about suicide being an intervening cause basically goes out the window when we're talking about mental health cases in this court actually had a decision in the case of ters exception to an intentional emotional infliction of emotional distress and then that kate case this court said we recognize this the general rule in negligence actions that suicide is an independent intervening act that rule has applied in wrongful death actions based on conduct by the defendant amounting to negligence provided the defendant was under no duty to the seeking to prevent the suicide and then it refers to when or as it's support so this court has already recognized this is not an intervening cause there was an intervening cause it was her job to prevent the actual event that happened nothing intervened in between there so those intervening cause cases do not apply as well objective was it reasonably foreseeable to lorrie order this court has found if the form is improper that the special iraq a tour should be set aside and judgment should be entered on the general verdict the other thing both sides but like he argued book the jury could actually answer no because they felt she did not do her job mr bast predicted the exact outcome in this case he predicted that before it ever happened if you want to talk about what's the definition of a hypothesis that we all learned in like the seventh grade science class is to predict the outcome based on some reasonable information that you have at hand he predicted that that's the definition of so i'm being nice probably to everybody but combined they probably have over one hundred years of legal experience and they all found it to be ambiguous how in the world could a later not find that to be a that's why the second district held as they did it was confusing and it was in big us and it was not in proper form and it shouldn't been given to begin with but i get back to my point is that you can affirm the appellate court whether it's on the consistency argument or whether it's on the form argument is any issues that defense brings up as to waiver we complete our forfeiture we completely disagree with that you read the transcript the court w step with us and everything we were objecting to they knew the court knew lockstep he said i have to give this instruction there was no four pitcher but i also raise in my brief that the issue of forfeiture waiver on our part was never raised in the petition for leave to appeal to this court so the defense forfeited that argument before this court the bottom line is there was consistency between the verdict and the general verdict and the special and we would ask that you do so and that you firm and that judgment the entered in favor of the general verdict and in favor of the plea thank you for your time unless anybody has any other questions so hang on ok and i too want to thank you al for accommodating my child at all so i appreciate i making everybody work really like here so i appreciate it i've been thinking of something as his these arguments have been going on and it's helping that at least with me frame this think of this hypothetical medical malpractise case which you've been involved dr no surprise says no i i don't believe i was deviating from any standard of care i think that surgery was indicated plaintiff puts on their expert and says to the expert do you know that the defendant doctor said that he did not deviate from the standard of care when he decided to go on with the surgery and the plaintiff's experts as well that's no surprise that it's the defendant dr i'm telling it was a deviation from the standard of care if there was a special in the rockets or in that case that said do you believe that the defendant dr believed that deviated from the standard of care the obvious answer by the jury was no i don't think he believed that he deviated from the standard here but that's not good yes the question want to give you a frankly be different in in this case couldn't the jury have thought that in this particular case that you know if indeed the defendant thought that suicide was reasonably foreseeable presumably that defendant would not have would have done something about the prospect of suicide right that's really their point here i mean their point is that it's not it's not necessarily inconsistent for the jury to say just like in my doctor example if the doctor deviated from the standard of care he didn't think he deviat from the standard of care if he did presumably he would not have done the surgery the jury here is assessing whether this particular defended whether it was reasonably foreseeable to or that suicide might occur and the jury might say well it could have been reasonably foreseeable to her because if it was she wouldn't she would have done something and gone further and about the suicide my example why couldn't a juror sit there at least with respect ambiguity and say why it must not have been reasonably forseeable to her because if it was she would have done something about this just fight in my example with the doctor you know did the doctor feel that he deviated from the standard of care no he did but the jury could still find that there was malpractise based on a deviation from the stand ok that's a subjective standard that did it if it said did lori overturn believe or feel that there was no ifs suicidal tendency here that that would be a subjective test but what was in her mind what was in her eyes and that's bought it's an imposes a reasonable standard in accordance with one of the five or one holding her to the standard of her careful license clinical social worker that the jury had all kinds of evidence on this they call an expert psychiatry we call an expert in psychiatry they express the testified and reasonable for c ability addressed it expressly and their expert was very good he says i think it was reasonably foreseeable that he was in pill would would commit suicide big they could absolutely believe that it was reasonably foreseeable that stampa was going to commit suicide they could believe the far as the verdicts are successful verdict right now if begin a ragged jury said was it reasonably foreseeable that he stock still would commit suicide on or before october ninth two thousand and five and they came back with we you know yes it's it consistent to come back with a no hitter and say there was a general work of liability but again it didn't ask her what did she believe obviously she didn't believe she didn't believe it and was suicidal but that isn't recently received it's outcome and that was again that was that was this whole trial was about that and i think we're i don't think you can conflate the general  doing and against not a subjective test for sure that's not what it asked and again i think what it really coming down to is the was aren't consistent he answers and that's right and under our law based on that testimony and everything else that came in experts going either way trying to show that that as a reason social workers should have known who had there been a verdict under that scenario for the reasonable for c ability and you've said it in other cases that's an objective even if that's an objective test that doesn't go into what's in somebody's mind was it reasonably foreseeable to her based on all the evidence of fun fact that she's a license political social