Opinion ID: 3134562
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: To recover damages based upon a defendant’s alleged negligence, a plaintiff must allege and prove that the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff, that defendant breached that duty, and that the breach was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries. Thompson v. County of Cook , 154 Ill. 2d 374, 382 (1993). To recover damages based upon a defendant’s alleged statutory violation, a plaintiff must show that (1) she belongs to the class of persons that the statute was designed to protect; (2) her injury is of the type that the statute was designed to prevent; and (3) the violation proximately caused her injury. Kalata v. Anheuser-Busch Cos. , 144 Ill. 2d 425, 434-35 (1991). Dobson and ADM argue that they are entitled to a judgment notwithstanding the verdict on all counts because the illegally parked tanker truck was not a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injuries. Because proximate cause ordinarily is a question for the trier of fact, a judgment notwithstanding the verdict cannot be granted on that basis unless “all of the evidence, when viewed in its aspect most favorable to the opponent, so overwhelmingly favors movant that no contrary verdict based on that evidence could ever stand.” Pedrick v. Peoria & Eastern R.R. Co. , 37 Ill. 2d 494, 510 (1967). In arguing that the illegally parked tanker truck was not a proximate cause of Phillippart’s injuries, Dobson and ADM correctly observe that Illinois courts draw a distinction between a condition and a cause. Indeed, if the negligence charged does nothing more than furnish a condition by which the injury is made possible, and that condition causes an injury by the subsequent, independent act of a third person, the creation of the condition is not the proximate cause of the injury. Briske v. Village of Burnham , 379 Ill. 193, 199 (1942); Merlo v. Public Service Co. , 381 Ill. 300, 316 (1942); see also Thompson , 154 Ill. 2d at 383. The test that should be applied in all proximate cause cases is whether the first wrongdoer reasonably might have anticipated the intervening efficient cause as a natural and probable result of the first party's own negligence. Merlo , 381 Ill. at 317. According to Dobson and ADM, the illegally parked tanker truck constituted only a passive condition that provided an opportunity for the active causal agencies ( i.e. , Galman’s negligent driving and Phillippart’s negligent decision to jaywalk) to interact. First Springfield, by contrast, urges us to abandon the “condition vs. cause” dichotomy altogether and instead embrace the proximate cause standard articulated in Lee v. Chicago Transit Authority , 152 Ill. 2d 432, 455 (1992). In Lee , the court held that the term “proximate cause” describes two distinct requirements: cause in fact and legal cause. Lee , 152 Ill. 2d at 455. Cause in fact exists where there is a reasonable certainty that a defendant’s acts caused the injury or damage. Lee , 152 Ill. 2d at 455. A defendant’s conduct is a cause in fact of the plaintiff’s injury only if that conduct is a material element and a substantial factor in bringing about the injury. Lee , 152 Ill. 2d at 455. A defendant’s conduct is a material element and a substantial factor in bringing about an injury if, absent that conduct, the injury would not have occurred. Lee , 152 Ill. 2d at 455. “Legal cause,” by contrast, is essentially a question of foreseeability. Lee , 152 Ill. 2d at 456. The relevant inquiry here is whether the injury is of a type that a reasonable person would see as a likely result of his or her conduct. Lee , 152 Ill. 2d at 456. According to First Springfield, the illegally parked tanker truck was a cause in fact of Phillippart’s fatal injuries because “Angela Galman admitted that the presence of the truck prevented her from going to the right to avoid a collision with May Phillippart at the center line.” Moreover, First Springfield contends that the illegally parked tanker truck was the legal cause of Phillippart’s fatal injuries because “it was readily foreseeable that at school closing time school children might be crossing the street, and 16-year-old Angela Galman might need both lanes of traffic to avoid an accident.” In raising their respective arguments, the parties appear to be operating under the mistaken assumption that Briske , Merlo , and Thompson are distinct from and wholly incompatible with Lee . This is not the case. Although Briske , Merlo , and Thompson clearly employ a vocabulary different from that employed in Lee , all of these cases ask the same question: Was the defendant’s negligence a material and substantial element in bringing about the injury, and, if so, was the injury of a type that a reasonable person would see as a likely result of his or her conduct? While Lee sets forth this principle in general terms, Briske , Merlo , and Thompson address a particular subset of cases, namely, those in which the plaintiff’s injury results not from the defendant’s negligence directly but from the subsequent, independent act of a third person. (footnote: 1) Thus, when Briske , Merlo , and Thompson ask whether the defendant’s conduct was a cause of the injury or simply furnished a condition by which the injury was made possible, they are in effect asking whether the defendant’s conduct was a material and substantial element in bringing about the injury. Similarly, when Briske , Merlo , and Thompson ask whether the defendant might have reasonably anticipated the intervening efficient cause as a natural and probable result of his or her own negligence, they are in effect asking whether the intervening efficient cause was of a type that a reasonable person would see as a likely result of his or her conduct. Far from conflicting, Briske , Merlo , Thompson , and Lee uniformly embrace the traditional proximate cause test that has governed Illinois for the better part of this century. See, e.g. , Hartnett v. Boston Store of Chicago , 265 Ill. 331, 334 (1914) (describing relationship between “condition vs. cause” standard and Lee standard). Turning to the facts of this case, we first must decide whether the illegally parked tanker truck was a cause in fact of Phillippart’s fatal injuries. We hold that it was, though not for the reason that First Springfield suggests. In arguing cause in fact, First Springfield relies exclusively upon Angela Galman’s testimony that, had the tanker truck not been parked illegally on Lawrence Avenue, she could have swerved to the right to avoid hitting Phillippart. The problem with this argument is that the portion of Galman’s testimony upon which First Springfield relies exclusively was admissible only in First Springfield’s case against Galman and was specifically excluded from evidence in their case against Dobson and ADM. Thus, although Galman’s testimony is undeniably relevant to the question of cause in fact, we simply cannot consider it. Nevertheless, the portions of the record that relate to Dobson and ADM provide a more than sufficient basis for concluding that the tanker truck was a cause in fact of Phillippart’s injuries. Again, in deciding whether a defendant’s conduct was a material and substantial element in bringing about an injury, we ask whether, absent the defendant’s conduct, that injury still would have occurred. Lee , 152 Ill. 2d at 455. In this case, had Dobson not parked his truck illegally on Lawrence Street, Phillippart’s injuries almost certainly would not have occurred. To be sure, Phillippart still would have chosen to cross Lawrence Avenue at mid-block and in clear violation of the law, but she would have had an unobstructed view of the roadway and presumably would have timed her crossing to avoid a collision with oncoming traffic. The question thus becomes whether the illegally parked tanker truck was the legal cause of Phillippart’s injuries. We hold that it was not. The relevant inquiry here is whether the injury is of a type that a reasonable person would see as a likely result of his or her conduct. Lee , 152 Ill. 2d at 456. We have no quarrel with First Springfield’s assertion that “it was readily foreseeable that at school closing time school children might be crossing the street, and 16-year-old Angela Galman might need both lanes of traffic to avoid an accident.” That, however, is not the question. The question is whether it was reasonably foreseeable that violating a “no parking” sign at mid-block would likely result in a pedestrian’s ignoring a marked crosswalk at the corner, walking to mid-block, and attempting to cross a designated truck route blindly and in clear violation of the law. Clearly, it would not. May Phillippart’s decision to jaywalk, while undeniably tragic and regrettable, was entirely of her own making. Dobson and ADM neither caused Phillippart to make that decision, nor reasonably could have anticipated that decision as a likely consequence of their conduct. One simply does not follow from the other. In reaching this decision, we note that the facts of this case differ significantly from those in Scerba v. City of Chicago , 284 Ill. App. 3d 435 (1996), a case upon which both the appellate court and First Springfield rely heavily. In Scerba , a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus driver stopped his bus in the middle of the block’s designated crosswalk, blocking it completely. As a result, a 12-year-old boy walking home from school was forced to cross the street by walking in front of the bus and outside the crosswalk. His view obscured, the boy was struck by an approaching car. The trial court entered summary judgment in favor of the CTA, in part because the bus constituted a condition rather than a cause of the boy’s injures. In reversing that judgment, the appellate court properly concluded that a reasonable jury could have found that the boy’s decision to walk around the bus and outside the crosswalk was a foreseeable consequence of the bus driver’s decision to block the crosswalk. Scerba , 284 Ill. App. 3d at 439-41. We have no quarrel with the decision in Scerba , as the CTA driver in that case parked his bus in the one place on the block specifically designated for pedestrian crossing. Of course it was likely that, as a result, pedestrians would be forced to cross the street somewhere other than in the designated crosswalk. They had no other choice. In this case, by contrast, Dobson parked his tanker truck at mid-block, 41 feet from the nearest designated crosswalk and in a place that parking was specifically permitted at other times of the day. Nothing in Dobson’s conduct increased the likelihood that a pedestrian would forgo an open and designated crosswalk in favor of an obstructed and unlawful mid-block crossing. (footnote: 2)