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Parties Involved:
Four Seasons Hotels
Appellee
Diane Parker
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted January 28, 2020*

Decided January 30, 2020 

Before 

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge 

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge 

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 18-3438 

DIANE PARKER, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

FOUR SEASONS HOTELS, LTD., 

 Defendant-Appellee.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division. 

No. 12 CV 3207 

Manish S. Shah, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

This is a successive appeal. Diane Parker was staying at the Four Seasons Hotel 

when a sliding glass door in her hotel room shattered and injured her. Four Seasons 

admitted to negligence, and the case proceeded to trial. (Judge Harry Leinenweber 

originally presided over the case, but it was transferred to Judge Manish Shah before 

trial.) Judge Shah declined to present to the jury a question of punitive damages, and 

*

 We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because the briefs 

and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would 

not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 

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No. 18-3438 Page 2 

the jury returned a verdict in favor of Parker and awarded her $20,000 in compensatory 

damages. Parker appealed, and “we conclude[d] that Parker ha[d] the right to present 

her punitive damages claim to the jury. We therefore remand[ed] the case for further 

proceedings on the question of punitive damages.” Parker v. Four Seasons Hotels, Ltd., 

845 F.3d 807, 816 (7th Cir. 2017). On remand, the jury awarded no punitive damages. 

Parker again appeals, and we affirm the district court’s judgment. 

Parker argues that, in the first appeal, we vacated the compensatory damages 

judgment and allowed the district court to decide whether to permit a new jury verdict 

on compensatory damages. She is mistaken, as we expressly limited the remand to “the 

question of punitive damages” only. Parker, 845 F.3d at 816. Under the mandate rule, 

the district court had to adhere to our command. Carmody v. Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of Ill., 

893 F.3d 397, 407 (7th Cir. 2018). Thus the district court did not have the discretion to 

obtain a new jury verdict on compensatory damages. 

Parker next contends that on remand, Judge Shah erred in deeming inadmissible 

an email by a third-party contractor that referenced similar incidents of glass doors 

breaking at the hotel. She contends that Judge Leinenweber had ruled that the email 

was admissible, and that this court upheld that ruling on appeal, so Judge Shah erred 

by rejecting those conclusions. 

Parker’s argument is off the mark. We ruled only that Four Seasons had 

“waived” for appeal purposes Judge Leinenweber’s ruling that the email fell within the 

residual exception to the rule against hearsay. See FED. R. EVID. 807; Parker, 845 F.3d 

at 810 n.2. But district judges always retain discretion to revisit their interlocutory 

rulings. See FED. R. CIV. P. 54(b); Galvan v. Norberg, 678 F.3d 581, 587 (7th Cir. 2012). 

Judge Shah properly noted that the email was hearsay—an out of court statement 

offered to prove the matter asserted. See FED. R. EVID. 801(c). And he reasonably 

revisited Judge Leinenweber’s ruling because the contractor was going to—and did—

testify at the trial. The in-court presence of the witness allowed Parker to question him 

and solicit the matters asserted in the email. See Burton v. Kohn Law Firm, S.C., 934 F.3d 

572, 583–84 (7th Cir. 2009). Judge Shah therefore did not abuse his discretion by 

excluding the email. 

Next, Parker similarly contends that Judge Shah abused his discretion in 

deeming inadmissible other evidence of similar accidents that occurred after she was 

injured. She believes that such evidence displays Four Seasons’s reckless disregard of 

guest safety. But in Illinois, evidence of similar, post-accident occurrences is generally 

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No. 18-3438 Page 3 

admissible only to establish the dangerousness of a product. See Bass v. Cincinnati, Inc., 

536 N.E.2d 831, 833 (Ill. App. Ct. 1989). Moreover, “evidence of similar post-accident 

occurrences or injuries involving the same or substantially similar products may not be 

used to show that [the defendant] acted in conscious disregard of the safety of others, 

and cannot support a claim for punitive damages.” Id. at 835. Because Parker sought to 

admit the post-occurrence evidence only to bolster her claim for punitive damages, 

Judge Shah reasonably excluded it as irrelevant to that claim. 

In her next argument, Parker maintains that Judge Shah erred by excluding 

evidence of Four Seasons’s subsequent remedial measures to fix the faulty sliding glass 

doors. But evidence of remedial measures is inadmissible to prove culpable conduct. 

See FED. R. EVID. 407; Abernathy v. E. Ill. R.R., 940 F.3d 982, 993 (7th Cir. 2019). Parker 

replies that Judge Shah should have allowed the evidence to prove Four Seasons’s 

control over the renovations. But Four Seasons did not deny that it had control over 

their premises. Thus, Judge Shah properly excluded evidence of Four Seasons’s 

remedial measures. 

Finally, Parker argues that Judge Shah unreasonably excluded evidence that 

Four Seasons (allegedly) violated three laws or regulations: the Illinois Safety Glazing 

Materials Act, 430 ILCS 60/3, which requires tempered glass to be labeled; a federal 

regulation controlling the testing of safety glazing material, 16 C.F.R. § 1201.4; and the 

Chicago Municipal Code, § 13-12-050, which penalizes unpermitted construction and 

renovations. But Judge Shah did not abuse his discretion when excluding this evidence. 

Even if this evidence suggests that Four Seasons violated these provisions—which we 

do not confirm—Judge Shah reasonably concluded that introducing such evidence 

would needlessly confuse the issues for the jury. See FED. R. EVID. 403; see also United 

States v. Bonin, 932 F.3d 523, 543 (7th Cir. 2019). The question on remand—punitive 

damages—required the jury to decide whether Four Seasons displayed a “wanton 

disregard” of Parker’s safety. Bass, 536 N.E.2d at 835. It was thus permissible for 

Judge Shah to rule that any evidence that Four Seasons may have violated labeling and 

permitting requirements would not help the jury decide whether Four Seasons 

consciously ignored safety requirements. 

We have considered Parker’s remaining arguments, and none has merit. 

AFFIRMED 

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