Opinion ID: 2996814
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of Other Accidents

Text: As we have noted, the district court granted Laatsch’s motion in limine to exclude all evidence regarding other accidents at the Kedzie curve. See Tr. 247-48, 685-88. Mihailovich’s purpose in offering that evidence was to establish that the curve was dangerous when wet. Tr. 685. But in the court’s view, there was already ample evidence in the record establishing that the surface of the curve became slick when wet, including testimony that the County itself had installed a “Slippery When Wet”sign at the curve in 1984-85 to warn motorists of that condition. Tr. 686. Indeed, this was a common-sense proposition that the jury was likely to appreciate without such evidence. Tr. 685-86. Therefore, the court viewed the probative worth of the other-accidents evidence as “minuscule to say the least.” Tr. 685. At the same time, looking to this court’s decision in Kelsay v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 749 F.2d 437, 442-46 (7th Cir. 1984), the court saw a significant potential for undue prejudice in this evidence. By her own admission, Mihailovich was not contending that the condition of the roadway was the sole cause of all other accidents at the curve; and the variables that might have contributed to those other accidents (including the direction of travel, weather, speed, vehicle weight, seasonal conditions, and 26 No. 01-3885 other traffic) were “almost infinite.” Tr. 687. The potential for a collateral trial to occur as to the causes of those accidents thus struck the district court as substantial. Tr. 687-88. Finally, in the absence of evidence that any of the motorists involved in the other incidents had filed suit against the County, the court found no reason to believe that those accidents bespoke negligence on the County’s part. Tr. 688. Although relevant evidence is presumptively admissible, see Fed. R. Evid. 402, a court has the authority to exclude it if the risks posed by the introduction of the evidence significantly outweigh its probative worth. Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. Fed. R. Evid. 403. Rule 403 thus calls upon the district court to weigh the need for and probative value of the evidence against potential harm that its admission might cause. Id., Advisory Committee Note (1972); see also, e.g., Manuel v. City of Chicago, 335 F.3d 592, 596 (7th Cir. 2003). “ ‘The balancing of probative value and prejudice is a highly discretionary assessment, and we accord the district court’s decision great deference, only disturbing it if no reasonable person could agree with the ruling.’ ” Id., quoting United States v. Thomas, 321 F.3d 627, 630 (7th Cir. 2003). In order to show that she would have won her suit against the County but for Laatsch’s alleged malpractice, Mihailovich had to prove that the County, which was responsible for maintaining the Kedzie curve in a reasonably safe condition for its normal and intended uses, negligently discharged that responsibility. See generally DiBenedetto v. Flora Tp., 605 N.E.2d 571, 574 (Ill. 1992); First Nat’l Bank No. 01-3885 27 in DeKalb v. City of Aurora, 373 N.E.2d 1326, 1331 (Ill. 1978); 745 Ill. Comp. Stat. 10/3-102, 10/3-105; see also, e.g., Storen v. City of Chicago, 27 N.E.2d 53, 55 (Ill. 1940); Santelli v. City of Chicago, 584 N.E.2d 456, 459 (Ill. App. Ct. 1991). Her theory in relevant part was that years of wear had polished the surface of the Kedzie curve, so that when precipitation dampened the pavement and oil rose to its surface, the pavement became extremely slick; thus, by failing to make appropriate repairs or changes to the road, notwithstanding requests that it do so, the County had permitted a hazard to arise and persist that caused motorists to lose control of their vehicles when the pavement was wet. See, e.g., Tr. 771, 813. In this context, there is no doubting that the other accidents proffered were relevant to establish that the worn pavement of the curve constituted a hazard for motorists. If, as Mihailovich theorized, the Kedzie curve was dangerous and had been for some time, then one would naturally expect there to have been other accidents besides hers over the years. In fact, as the record in this case reveals, the number of accidents that occur at a particular location is one of the first indicators that officials concerned with roadway safety look to for an indication that the location is dangerous. We know, of course, from the proffers of excluded testimony that the reason why the Olympia Fields board of trustees passed the 1984 resolution calling on the County to address the curve was the high number of accidents that had occurred at that curve; employees of the County’s Highway Department themselves had cited the high accident rate in calling for studies of the curve in 1983, more than a year before the Olympia Fields board passed its resolution. More than this, the frequency with which accidents occur would appear to be an accepted reference point in civil 28 No. 01-3885 engineering for the purpose of identifying potentially hazardous roadway locations. The February 21, 2001 report of civil engineer Paul Box, which Mihailovich submitted in opposition to Laatsch’s motion to exclude the evidence of prior accidents, noted that although there is no national standard as to the number of accidents necessary in order to label a particular location as “hazardous,” experts in the field had conducted research and developed a graph indicating that the occurrence of more than two accidents over a period of three years signaled that the location was “hazardous,” while the occurrence of more than ten accidents in three years indicated that it was “very hazardous.” R. 105, Box Report at 6 ¶ 18, citing J.I. Taylor and H.T. Thompson, Determining Hazardousness of Spot Locations, Transportation Research Record 630 (1977); see also J.I. Taylor and H.T. Thompson, Federal Highway Administration, Identification of Hazardous Locations, Report Nos. FHWA-RD-77-81 through 83 (1977) (identifying accident rate as among factors relevant to hazardousness of particular location). Assuming that Box has correctly interpreted and applied this criterion, the total of ninety-four accidents that occurred at the Kedzie curve in the four and one-half years surrounding the Mihailovich accident obviously would exceed the Taylor & Thompson threshold for a “very hazardous” location by many multiples. If the frequency of accidents at a particular location constitutes a category of data that both experts in civil engineering and officials charged with the maintenance of roadways consider important, then that information would be highly relevant to the jury’s own assessment of whether or not the curve posed a hazard.9 9 It appears that the data regarding other accidents at the Kedzie curve played a role in changing Box’s mind as to whether or not the curve was hazardous at the time of the Mihailovich accident. Box was one of the two experts that attorney McKenna had (continued...) No. 01-3885 29 Indeed, our own precedents recognize that other accidents are generally deemed admissible both to prove the existence of a defect or danger in a location or a product and to show that the defendant had notice of the defect or danger, so long as the other accidents are “substantially similar” to the accident at issue in the litigation. Weir v. Crown Equip. Corp., 217 F.3d 453, 457 (7th Cir. 2000); Ross v. Black & Decker, Inc., 977 F.2d 1178, 1185 (7th Cir. 1992); Estate of Carey by Carey v. Hy-Temp Mfg., Inc., 929 F.2d 1229, 1235 n.2 (7th Cir. 1991); Nachtsheim v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 847 F.2d 1261, 1268 (7th Cir. 1988); see also Walker v. Trico Mfg. Co., 487 F.2d 595, 599 (7th Cir. 1973); Lever Bros. Co. v. Atlas Assur. Co., 131 F.2d 770, 777 (7th Cir. 1942). Where, as here, the other accidents are offered as proof of a dangerous condition,10 courts insist on a greater degree of similarity between those accidents and the one at issue than they do when the other incidents are offered solely to (...continued) contacted in 1998 when he provisionally took over the representation of Mihailovich in her suit against the County. Based on the information that McKenna provided, which did not include any information about the other accidents that had occurred at the curve, Box told McKenna that Mihailovich had “no case.” Tr. 29697. Later, in the course of the instant malpractice suit, Box was supplied with much more information about the history of the Kedzie curve, including the other accidents that had occurred there. Based on the more expansive information with which he was provided, Box concluded that the curve was dangerous at the time of the Mihailovich accident. R. 105, Box Report at 6-7. 10 Evidence of other accidents arguably could have served as proof that the County was on notice of the alleged hazard. However, Mihailovich did not offer the evidence for that purpose. In any case, there was other evidence in the record establishing that the County was on notice, including the Village’s 1984 resolution and the County Highway Department’s own internal investigation into the safety of the curve. 30 No. 01-3885 establish notice of a potential danger to the defendant. Nachtsheim, 847 F.2d at 1268 n.9. This is not to say, however, that the accidents must correspond with one another in every detail. “In applying this standard, we have emphasized that ‘substantially similar’ does not mean ‘identical,’ and that the range between similar and identical is a matter to be addressed on cross-examination.” Buscaglia v. United States, 25 F.3d 530, 533 (7th Cir. 1994), citing Carey, 929 F.2d at 1235 n.2. The particular defect or danger alleged by the plaintiff will serve to define the degree of commonality that there must be among the accidents in order for them to be considered substantially similar. Jackson v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 788 F.2d 1070, 1083 (5th Cir. 1986). Looking to the established facts underlying both the plaintiff’s accident and the other accidents she has proffered, the court must consider whether those facts reasonably support an inference that all of the accidents share a common cause—i.e., the danger that the plaintiff has alleged. See Nachtsheim, 847 F.2d at 1269. If the facts do support such an inference, then the other accidents are admissible barring other factors suggesting that their admission will result in undue prejudice. See id. Laatsch suggests at the outset that Mihailovich did not make enough of a record regarding the other accidents at the Kedzie curve to show substantial similarity between those accidents and her own, but we disagree. The record before us includes a year-by-year tabulation, prepared by Unger, then the chief of police of Olympia Fields, of the accidents that had occurred at the Kedzie curve from January 1, 1983 through July 15, 1987;11 police reports for some (but by no means all) of the accidents that had 11 So long as they satisfy the criterion of substantial similarity, accidents that occurred after as well as before the plaintiff ’s accident are admissible to prove the existence of a danger. Ross, 977 F.2d at 1185; Nachtsheim, 847 F.2d at 1268 n.8. No. 01-3885 31 occurred at the curve in 1981 through 1986; and the compilations and analyses of the accident data reflected in the reports of both Box and Berg. Mihailovich cited and presented this information to the district court prior to trial, both in opposing (successfully) Laatsch’s motion for summary judgment and in opposing (unsuccessfully) the County’s motion in limine to exclude evidence concerning the other accidents. See, e.g., R. 62 (Plaintiff’s Local Rule 56.1 Statement of Undisputed Material Facts) Exs. 6 (Berg Report), 24 (Kedzie curve accident data); R. 105 (Plaintiff’s Response to Defendant’s Motion In Limine No. 2) Attachment (Box Report). The police reports for some of the accidents that occurred at the curve in 1981 through 1986 were attached to Mihailovich’s malpractice complaint. R. 1 Ex. J. Collectively, this data, coupled with the other evidence of record, tends to show that: (1) the other accidents occurred along the Kedzie curve; (2) they occurred relatively close in time to the Mihailovich accident; (3) the condition of the curve was no different at the time of the Mihailovich accident than it was at the time of the other accidents (the curve itself had not been resurfaced since the 1970s, and would not be resurfaced until 1988 or 1989); (4) a majority of the accidents (roughly three-quarters of the total from 1983 through mid-July 1987) occurred on wet pavement, just as the Mihailovich accident did; and (5) although the police reports (and Berg’s analysis of the reports for twenty-four of the twenty-nine accidents that occurred in the eighteen months immediately prior to the Mihailovich accident) reveal variations in precisely where each vehicle left the roadway and what happened as a result (for example, some vehicles collided with oncoming traffic, while others came to rest on either side of the roadway), the reports reveal a pattern of drivers losing control of their vehicles while on the curve, particularly when the roadway was wet. Keeping in mind the particular danger that Mihailovich has alleged was present at the curve—excessive slipperi32 No. 01-3885 ness when the pavement was wet—we are satisfied that the other accidents are substantially similar to the Mihailovich accident and therefore are admissible as proof that the curve posed a hazard to motorists. We readily grant Laatsch’s point that there is a great deal that the record does not tell us about these accidents. The gross accident data compiled by Unger, for example, reveals only the date and time that each accident occurred, the number of vehicles involved, whether the accident resulted in a fatality, injury, or property damage, the weather conditions at the time of the accident, and the condition of the road surface. See R. 62 Ex. 24. Although Unger’s compilation was apparently derived from police reports regarding these accidents (the compilation lists a report number for each incident), the record before us does not include all of these reports. The thirty-five or so police reports attached to the complaint reveal a good deal more information about those accidents, including in particular the basic facts of each accident, and also the identities of the motorists involved, the types of vehicles they were driving, where the accident occurred, whether alcohol was involved, the apparent physical condition of the motorists, and so forth. But the reports do not recount precisely what each driver was doing immediately before the accident occurred (how fast he was driving, for example, whether and how he applied his brakes, and so forth), they do not establish with precision where along the S-curve each incident took place, and they do not purport to assign fault for the accident or to identify each of the factors that may have contributed. Even so, the data do reveal a distinct pattern to the other accidents: they occurred at an average rate of twenty per year in the four and one-half years surrounding the Mihailovich accident (January 1983 through mid-July 1987); a substantial majority (at least seventy-five percent) occurred when the pavement was wet; and (per the police reports) they almost uniformly involved a loss of control by a driver with the result that the vehicle slid, spun, or skidded into a vehicle No. 01-3885 33 proceeding in the opposite direction, into a vehicle stopped directly ahead of him, or off the road altogether. Berg’s analysis also indicates that in twenty-one of the twenty-four accidents occurring the eighteen months prior to the Mihailovich accident for which records were available, the subject vehicle had been proceeding southbound into the S- curve. Given the frequency and regularity with which motorists, and in particular southbound motorists, were losing control of their vehicles at the curve when the pavement was wet, it is a fair inference that both the condition of the curve’s pavement when wet and the nature of the southbound approach to the curve, played some role in these other accidents. The same inference can be drawn from what we know about the Mihailovich accident: it involved a southbound motorist, it occurred on the curve, when the pavement was wet, and it involved a loss of control that resulted in the van leaving the road. In these respects, the other accidents may be deemed substantially similar to the Mihailovich accident. Evidence concerning the other accidents was therefore admissible, barring a reason which would have justified its exclusion under Rule 403. As our summary of the district court’s rationale for excluding the other accidents indicates, the court had two basic concerns: it saw the probative worth of evidence concerning the other accidents as minimal, while the potential for prejudice in such evidence to be great. As we explain below, the court was off-base in its first concern, and in articulating its second concern, the court appears to have been led astray by our fact-specific holding in Kelsay. In weighing the probative value of the evidence, the district court described the relevance of the prior accidents as “minuscule” (Tr. 685), reasoning that other evidence amply established that the surface of the Kedzie curve was slippery when wet and that jurors in any event would have appreciated that fact as a matter of common sense. In that 34 No. 01-3885 observation, the court was mistaken. Mihailovich’s theory as to the hazard posed by the curve was not simply that it was slippery when wet, but that it was unusually and dangerously so, i.e., to a degree that motorists would not ordinarily anticipate. That so many other accidents occurred on the curve, and that approximately three-quarters of them occurred when the pavement was wet, lends support to the notion that the curve was unreasonably slick when wet. Indeed, the fact that the accidents continued unabated even after the County installed a “Slippery When Wet” advisory sign at the curve in 1984 might be construed as an indication that the degree of slipperiness exceeded even the expectations of motorists who were placed on notice of the potential hazard. The reaction of local officials to the history of accidents occurring at the curve likewise could be construed as a sign that the degree of danger was unusual. Indeed, we must point out that, in view of the factual backdrop of the case, proof of the other accidents that occurred on the curve was one of the few ways in which Mihailovich could have established that the roadway was in an unreasonably dangerous condition. A more direct way of proving the supposed hazard would have been to measure objectively the slipperiness of the pavement, as by ascertaining the coefficient of friction on the surface of the curve when it was wet. But that was no longer possible by the time Laatsch withdrew from representing Mihailovich—the curve had been reconstructed and resurfaced between 1988 and 1989, and Laatsch had not engaged an expert to inspect the curve and conduct appropriate testing to determine the coefficient of friction prior to that time. So Mihailovich had to pursue more indirect ways of establishing the alleged hazard. The jury of course knew that the Olympia Fields trustees believed the curve to be hazardous and that they had conveyed that concern to the County by way of the 1984 resolution. But the district court permitted the jury to consider that resolution solely as proof No. 01-3885 35 that the County had notice of a potential hazard, not as proof that the roadway was, in fact, dangerous. Tr. 233. Beyond this, the jury heard only abbreviated testimony that the surface of the roadway had a tendency to become oily and slick when wet. Consequently, there was little, if any, evidence indicating whether or not the surface of the Kedzie curve in fact became unusually or dangerously slippery when wet and what effect the wet surface had upon motorists who negotiated the curve. Not surprisingly, this was a point that Laatsch’s counsel seized upon in his closing argument to the jury. E.g., Tr. 795. So, when it engaged in the Rule 403 balancing process, the court did not give the other-accidents evidence the weight it deserved in terms of its probative value. At the same time, on the other side of the scale, the court in assessing the potential reasons for excluding the evidence did not properly focus on the key consideration, which is substantial similarity between the other accidents and the one at issue in this case. Instead, referencing our opinion in Kelsay as its primary guidepost, the court found that the justifications that Kelsay cited for the exclusion of otheraccident evidence in that case also weighed in favor of exclusion here. But our decision in Kelsay does not mandate the exclusion of the other-accident evidence tendered here. Kelsay, which involved the collision of a train with an automobile at a railroad crossing, affirmed (over a dissent) the district court’s decision to exclude evidence of two fatal accidents that had occurred at the same crossing twelve and thirty years earlier. We cited four factors that in our view supported the exclusion of the prior-accident evidence: (1) key differences in the conditions and circumstances of the prior accidents, (2) the absence of evidence that lawsuits had been filed on behalf of the deceased motorists in the prior accidents, which suggested that the drivers themselves may have been at fault, (3) the danger that the jury might infer 36 No. 01-3885 from the prior accidents alone that the railroad crossing at issue was hazardous, and (4) the plaintiff’s ability to show through other evidence that the conditions at the crossing had remained unchanged for a number of years, so that the potential danger would have been evident to the railroad. 749 F.2d at 443. Nothing in our opinion suggested that this was an exhaustive list of pertinent considerations or that the factors we identified would apply with the same force in any case involving other-accident evidence. It bears mentioning in that regard that we had first identified these factors in Gardner v. Southern Ry. Sys., 675 F.2d 949, 952 (7th Cir. 1982), as being among the “many factors” that the district judge “undoubtedly” had considered in excluding other-accident evidence; Gardner itself did not cite any precedents that focused on these factors. The governing standard, however, as cases both before and after Gardner and Kelsay make clear, was and is whether the other accidents are substantially similar to the accident at issue in the instant suit. See, e.g., Buscaglia, 25 F.3d at 533; Carey, 929 F.2d at 1235 n.2; Walker, 487 F.2d at 599; Lever Bros., 131 F.2d at 777. Moreover, Kelsay involved a materially distinct set of circumstances. First, the prior accidents involved in that case were, as the court noted, quite remote in time from the incident under litigation, and in each case there was at least one apparent circumstance suggesting that something other than the hazardous nature of the railroad crossing was at fault. In one of the instances, the windows of the car had been heavily soaped, which obviously would have interfered with the driver’s view of the crossing; and in the other instance, the motorist had arrived at the crossing after the train did, suggesting that the driver’s view of the crossing and the oncoming train was not a cause of the collision. By contrast, the accidents that Mihailovich sought to introduce occurred with regularity in the years just before and just after her accident, with no grossly No. 01-3885 37 apparent distinctions that would explain away the condition of the roadway as a cause of those accidents. Second, the prior accidents involved in Kelsay had both resulted in fatalities, so the lack of evidence that lawsuits had been filed in those cases was more telling than it would be here, where the vast majority of the other accidents did not result in deaths. As litigious as Americans may be, one cannot reasonably expect every motorist who loses control of her car on a slippery road to file a lawsuit. Moreover, whether or not another accident resulted in litigation really is of very limited use in weighing the probative value of