Illinois Official Reports 

Appellate Court

Doe v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 2017 IL App (1st) 162388

Appellate Court 

Caption

JOHN DOE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. THE CATHOLIC BISHOP OF 

CHICAGO and DANIEL McCORMACK, Defendants (The Catholic 

Bishop of Chicago, Defendant-Appellant).

District & No. First District, First Division

Docket No. 1-16-2388

Filed

Rehearing denied

July 17, 2017

August 18, 2017

Decision Under 

Review

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 2013-L-9901; the 

Hon. Clare E. McWilliams, Judge, presiding.

Judgment Certified question answered.

Counsel on

Appeal

Forde Law Offices LLP (Kevin M. Forde and Joanne R. Driscoll, of 

counsel), Patricia C. Bobb & Associates, P.C. (Patricia C. Bobb, of 

counsel), and Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella, P.C. (James C. 

Geoly, Susan M. Horner, Jay S. Dobrutsky, and Elizabeth M. Pall, of 

counsel), all of Chicago, for appellant.

Law Offices of Eugene K. Hollander (Eugene K. Hollander, Paul W. 

Ryan, and Jonathon L. Hoeven, of counsel), for appellee.
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Panel JUSTICE HARRIS delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

Presiding Justice Connors and Justice Simon concurred in the 

judgment and opinion.

 OPINION 

¶ 1 Plaintiff John Doe filed a negligent employment claim against defendant, the Catholic 

Bishop of Chicago, alleging that Daniel McCormack, a former priest employed at St. Agatha’s 

school, sexually molested him while plaintiff attended St. Agatha’s. The trial court 

subsequently granted plaintiff leave to amend his complaint to add a claim for punitive 

damages. 

¶ 2 JURISDICTION 

¶ 3 The trial court certified, for permissive interlocutory review, the following question 

pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 308 (eff. Jan. 1, 2016): “Does a claim for punitive 

damages require proof of an employer’s conscious disregard for an employee’s ‘particular 

unfitness’ where the underlying claim is for negligent hiring, supervision, and retention of that 

employee?” which this court allowed. 

¶ 4 Furthermore, in this permissive interlocutory appeal we decline to address any issues that 

were raised in the briefs outside of the certified question. See McMichael v. Michael Reese 

Health Plan Foundation, 259 Ill. App. 3d 113, 116 (1994) (since an appeal pursuant to Rule 

308 is an exception to the general rule that a party can appeal only from final judgments, a 

permissive interlocutory appeal is strictly limited to the question certified by the trial court and 

“this court should not expand upon the question to answer other issues that might have been 

included”).

¶ 5 BACKGROUND 

¶ 6 In the underlying complaint, plaintiff alleged that McCormack sexually molested him 

when he was in the third grade at St. Agatha’s school, an institution owned, operated, and 

maintained by defendant. Plaintiff also alleged that defendant was negligent in hiring, 

retaining, and supervising McCormack, and he sought punitive damages arguing that 

defendant “consciously disregarded the known risk McCormack posed to [plaintiff] and its 

parishioners.” In support of his motion for punitive damages, plaintiff cited evidence showing 

that defendant (1) had knowledge of scandal and sexual misconduct involving their priests and 

minors, (2) failed to follow record-keeping policies adopted in response to the scandal, (3) 

knew of McCormack’s misconduct while he was a seminary student at Niles College and 

Mundelein Seminary and failed to investigate, and (4) failed to investigate reports of 

McCormack’s misconduct after he was ordained a priest and failed to report suspicious 

incidents involving McCormack and minors to the Department of Children and Family 

Services (DCFS). 

¶ 7 The trial court granted plaintiff leave to add a claim for punitive damages to his complaint. 

The trial court disagreed with defendant’s argument that, to claim punitive damages, plaintiff 

must show that defendant had actual knowledge of McCormack’s “particular unfitness.” 
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Rather, the trial court determined that the proper standard for submission of a claim for 

punitive damages in a negligent employment action is whether plaintiff “presented sufficient 

facts that would allow a jury to reasonably find that the defendants showed an utter 

indifference to the rights and safety of others in ordaining Defendant McCormack,” and it 

found that plaintiff satisfied that standard. Defendant filed a motion to reconsider that the trial 

court denied. Upon defendant’s motion, the trial court certified the question on appeal, which 

we answer in the negative. 

¶ 8 ANALYSIS 

¶ 9 The certified question as written is quite broad so we look to the more specific arguments 

defendant makes in its briefs to consider the certified question. Essentially, the question asks 

whether plaintiff must show evidence that defendant knew of McCormack’s propensity to 

sexually abuse children in order to claim punitive damages in a negligent employment 

complaint. Punitive damages “are not awarded as compensation, but serve instead to punish 

the offender and to deter that party and others from committing similar acts of wrongdoing in 

the future.” Loitz v. Remington Arms Co., 138 Ill. 2d 404, 414 (1990). Our supreme court 

described circumstances in which a punitive damages award is appropriate, such as “when 

torts are committed with fraud, actual malice, deliberate violence or oppression, or when the 

defendant acts willfully, or with such gross negligence as to indicate a wanton disregard of the 

rights of others.” Kelsay v. Motorola, Inc., 74 Ill. 2d 172, 186 (1978). However, “ ‘[p]unitive 

damages are not awarded for mere inadvertence, mistake, errors of judgment and the like, 

which constitute ordinary negligence.’ ” Loitz, 138 Ill. 2d at 415 (quoting Restatement 

(Second) of Torts § 908, cmt. b at 465 (1979)). 

¶ 10 For complaints alleging negligence and involving personal injury, plaintiffs must 

demonstrate at a pretrial hearing that the evidence would support a punitive damages award 

before they may submit a claim for punitive damages. Id. at 417. In those cases, the trial court 

makes the initial determination whether punitive damages may be imposed. Id. at 414. While 

the question of whether punitive damages is appropriate in a particular case is a matter of law, 

whether defendant’s conduct was sufficiently willful and wanton to support an award of 

punitive damages is generally a question of fact for the jury to decide. Cirrincione v. Johnson, 

184 Ill. 2d 109, 116 (1998). 

¶ 11 Plaintiff filed a complaint alleging negligent hiring or retention of an employee. In such an 

action, plaintiff must plead and prove “(1) that the employer knew or should have known that 

the employee had a particular unfitness for the position so as to create a danger of harm to third 

persons; (2) that such particular unfitness was known or should have been known at the time of 

the employee’s hiring or retention; and (3) that this particular unfitness proximately caused the 

plaintiff’s injury.” Van Horne v. Muller, 185 Ill. 2d 299, 311 (1998). In this context, the 

“particular unfitness” of the employee “must have rendered the plaintiff’s injury foreseeable to 

a person of ordinary prudence in the employer’s position.” Id. at 313. Defendant argues, 

however, that to support a claim for punitive damages, plaintiff here must go beyond the 

pleadings of a negligent employment tort and demonstrate defendant’s conscious disregard or 

willful and wanton conduct by alleging that defendant had “actual knowledge” of 

McCormack’s “propensity to sexually assault children.” 

¶ 12 We disagree. Our supreme court has discussed the difference between acts of ordinary 

negligence and the willful and wanton disregard for others’ rights that is required to support an 
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award for punitive damages. In Ziarko v. Soo Line R.R. Co., 161 Ill. 2d 267, 274 (1994), the 

court acknowledged that our jurisprudence on the degree to which negligent acts are similar to 

willful and wanton conduct “has not been wholly consistent.” While some cases have found 

that willful and wanton acts more resemble intentionally tortious conduct, other cases have 

determined that they are more similar to acts of ordinary negligence. Id. The court noted that 

the phrase “ ‘willful and wanton conduct’ has developed in this State as a hybrid between acts 

considered negligent and behavior found to be intentionally tortious.” Id. at 275. Since the type 

of fault associated with ordinary negligence and willful and wanton conduct “is a matter of 

degree, a hard and thin line definition should not be attempted.” Id. As our supreme court 

reasoned, “[u]nder the facts of one case, willful and wanton misconduct may be only degrees 

more than ordinary negligence, while under the facts of another case, willful and wanton acts 

may be only degrees less than intentional wrongdoing.” Id. at 275-76. 

¶ 13 A defendant’s knowledge of the surrounding circumstances, or utter indifference to or 

conscious disregard for the safety of others given that knowledge, are factors to consider when 

determining whether conduct amounts to willful and wanton misconduct. Oelze v. Score 

Sports Venture, LLC, 401 Ill. App. 3d 110, 122-23 (2010). Although defendant is correct that 

punitive damages require proof beyond that needed for a basic negligence claim, the same set 

of facts could support both a finding of negligence and an award for punitive damages. 

Plaintiff “may plead in alternative counts that certain conduct constitutes either negligence or 

willful and wanton misconduct.” Bryant v. Livigni, 250 Ill. App. 3d 303, 312 (1993). Then, the 

question properly “becomes one for the jury to determine, whether the conduct amounted to 

simple negligence or rose to the level of willful and wanton misconduct.” Id.; see also Oelze, 

401 Ill. App. 3d at 123 (“[w]hether conduct amounts to willful and wanton negligence is 

generally a question of fact for the jury to determine”). At this point in the proceedings, for this 

court to essentially dictate what constitutes a showing of willful and wanton conduct, as 

defendant suggests, would infringe upon the jury’s duty to make that finding after presentation 

of the evidence. 

¶ 14 Simply put, the trial court may allow a claim for punitive damages if the evidence would 

reasonably support a finding that defendant acted “willfully, or with such gross negligence as 

to indicate a wanton disregard of the rights of others.” Kelsay, 74 Ill. 2d at 186; Loitz, 138 Ill. 

2d at 415. The trial court found that plaintiff here “presented sufficient facts that would allow a 

jury to reasonably find that the defendants showed an utter indifference to the rights and safety 

of others in” hiring, supervising, and retaining McCormack and therefore allowed plaintiff to 

submit a punitive damages claim. The trial court used the appropriate standard. 

¶ 15 For the foregoing reasons, we answer the certified question in the negative to the extent 

that it requires evidence of defendant’s actual knowledge of McCormack’s propensity to 

sexually abuse children to support plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages. 

¶ 16 Certified question answered.