Opinion ID: 2253767
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exclusion of Other-Exposure Evidence

Text: Having concluded that no presumption of causation was created by our decision in Thacker, we now determine whether the circuit court's exclusion of evidence that decedent was exposed to asbestos from sources other than defendant was in error. Defendant correctly notes that in Thacker unlike in the matter before us evidence that other, nonparty manufacturers' asbestos products were present in the plaintiff's workplace was admitted, and the question of whether other-exposure evidence was admissible was not addressed. We do observe, however, that Thacker considered the very evidence that, in the matter at bar, the circuit court precluded the jury from hearing: that the plaintiff had been exposed to asbestos from nonparty entities. Thacker allowed the jury to consider all of the evidenceincluding that of other exposuresin deciding whether the defendants were a legal cause of the decedent's injuries. Although we ultimately held that the plaintiff had adduced sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict in her favor, it is significant that the jury had a complete picture of all the evidence at the time it rendered its verdict. See Thacker, 151 Ill.2d at 360, 177 Ill.Dec. 379, 603 N.E.2d 449. In contrast, although the circuit court in the matter before us allowed plaintiff to introduce circumstantial evidence to satisfy her burden on the causation element, it also excluded evidence which defendant wished to present to rebut plaintiff's claims and to support its sole proximate cause defense. The circuit court felt compelled to bar this evidence pursuant to the decision in Lipke a case decided five years prior to our ruling in Thacker and its progeny. Defendant now asks that we strike down the exclusionary rule crafted by Lipke and subsequently expanded in Kochan and Spain because it skews the facts in favor of plaintiff and leads the jury to conclude that the asbestos products of the sole defendant at trial must have caused the plaintiff's asbestos-related disease in the absence of evidence of any other asbestos exposures. In addition, defendant argues that this rule of exclusion conflicts with our decision in Leonardi, which upheld the general validity of the sole proximate cause defense and allowed a defendant to introduce evidence of other potential causes of injury so that the jury may resolve which was a proximate cause. Plaintiff, in defending the validity of the exclusion of other-exposure evidence under Lipke, also relies upon Kochan to contend that even if such other-exposure evidence is excluded, a defendant may still show that the injured worker was not exposed to the defendant's products, or that his exposure was so insignificant as not to cause harm. Plaintiff also asserts that the exclusion of other-exposure evidence does not conflict with Leonardi, a medical malpractice case, because the distinctive factual natures of medical malpractice and asbestos suits require differing standards of proof to establish causation. We reject plaintiff's arguments. In Lipke, the plaintiff was an insulation worker who filed a complaint against 27 manufacturers of asbestos products alleging they caused his asbestosis. Prior to trial, all but one defendant settled. At trial, the remaining defendant argued that the plaintiff did not have asbestosis but, rather, a lung disease caused by habitual smoking, and, in the alternative, that he had not been exposed to its asbestos products. The circuit court excluded evidence of the plaintiff's other asbestos exposures, and the jury found in favor of the plaintiff, awarding both compensatory and punitive damages. Lipke, 153 Ill.App.3d at 501, 106 Ill.Dec. 422, 505 N.E.2d 1213. In affirming the judgment of the circuit court, the appellate court noted that [t]he major thrust of defendant's brief and argument is directed against the award of punitive damages. Lipke, 153 Ill.App.3d at 503, 106 Ill.Dec. 422, 505 N.E.2d 1213. Accordingly, the appellate opinion, in large part, consists of analysis of this issue. As to the defendant's secondary argument raising a series of errors dealing with evidence, continuance and instructions, the court, in one short paragraph, disposed of the assertion that evidence of the plaintiff's exposure to other asbestos products was erroneously excluded. After noting the general rule that there can be more than one proximate cause of an injury, the court then stated: `In such a situation, one guilty of negligence cannot avoid responsibility merely because another person is guilty of negligence contributing to the same injury   .' [Citation.]    [W]here such guilt exists, `it is no defense that some other person, or thing contributed to bring about the result for which damages are claimed. Either or both parties are liable for all damages sustained.' Thus, the fact that plaintiff used a variety of asbestos products does not relieve defendant of liability for his injuries. Evidence of such exposure is not relevant. Lipke, 153 Ill.App.3d at 509, 106 Ill.Dec. 422, 505 N.E.2d 1213. This quoted passage comprises, in its entirety, the Lipke exclusionary rule. We note the court simply cites to basic tort law principles that are neither new, novel nor solely applicable to asbestos cases, and fails to analyze how those principles applied to the case before it. In our view, Lipke stands for no more than the well-settled rules that it cites: that the concurrent negligence of others does not relieve a negligent defendant from liability. When read correctly, Lipke simply holds that if a defendant's negligence proximately caused a plaintiff's harm, evidence that another's negligence might also have been a proximate cause is irrelevantand therefore properly excludedif introduced for the purpose of shifting liability to a concurrent tortfeasor. Lipke simply determined that evidence of the plaintiff's other exposures was not relevant to the specific defense raised, i.e., that the plaintiff did not have an asbestos-related disease, and he had no exposure whatsoever to defendant's asbestos products. In the matter at bar, however, defendant wishes to offer evidence of decedent's other exposures for different purposes: to contest causation through the use of the sole proximate cause defense, which was not raised by the Lipke defendant. As the instant cause presents a factually different situation, Lipke is inapposite. In the appellate court's subsequent decision in Kochan, the plaintiffs brought personal injury suits against several defendants to recover damages for injuries suffered by workers who had been exposed to the defendants' asbestos-containing products. Prior to trial, all defendants except one settled with the plaintiffs. Although the remaining defendant argued that it was not a cause in fact of the worker's injuries and sought to introduce other-exposure evidence, the circuit court, relying upon Lipke, granted the plaintiffs' motion in limine to exclude such evidence. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs, and defendant appealed. Kochan, 242 Ill.App.3d at 787-88, 182 Ill.Dec. 814, 610 N.E.2d 683. In affirming the lower court, the appellate court loosened Lipke from its factual moorings and unduly expanded its exclusionary rule to hold that evidence of exposure to other asbestos-containing products is not relevant    in cases in which actual cause or cause in fact is disputed. Kochan, 242 Ill.App.3d at 789, 182 Ill.Dec. 814, 610 N.E.2d 683. In other words, the Kochan court extended Lipke to hold that other-exposure evidence is always irrelevant, and supported this holding with the questionable rationale that because it is impossible to determine whether a specific exposure caused injury, [a]llowing a defendant to present evidence of a plaintiff's exposures to other products whose manufacturers are not defendants in the trial would only confuse the jury, and, therefore, [t]he purpose for which the evidence is offered is inconsequential. Kochan, 242 Ill.App.3d at 790, 182 Ill.Dec. 814, 610 N.E.2d 683. We agree with the circuit court below that Kochan effectively removed from asbestos defendants any opportunity to point to the negligence of another as the sole proximate cause of plaintiff's injury. The circuit court found Kochan to be premised upon a fallacious argument: although that decision purports to allow defendants to present alternative defenses that a particular exposure was not the proximate cause of a plaintiff's injury simply by showing, for example, that plaintiff was not exposed to its products, that exposure to its products was insufficient to cause injury, or that its product contained such a low amount of asbestos that it could not have been a cause of the injury ( Kochan, 242 Ill.App.3d at 790, 182 Ill.Dec. 814, 610 N.E.2d 683), the circuit court concluded that these claimed defenses in reality do not exist because plaintiff will likely call an expert to testify that every exposure to asbestos is a substantial factor in causation. We also agree with the circuit court that Kochan is internally inconsistent, as we fail to discern how it is both impossible to exclude specific exposures as a proximate cause, and yet simple for a defendant to defeat proximate cause at trial. Indeed, our decision in Thacker establishes that it is possible to exclude particular exposures as substantial contributing causes of a plaintiff's injury in asbestos cases, and that proximate cause is properly a question of fact for the jury to resolve based upon competent evidence. Thacker, 151 Ill.2d at 355, 177 Ill.Dec. 379, 603 N.E.2d 449. The court's holding in Kochan improperly deprives a defendant of a rational alternative explanation, in the form of the excluded other-exposure evidence, for why the plaintiff is suffering from an asbestos-related disease. The error of Kochan becomes more evident upon review of this court's decision in Leonardi. There, the plaintiffs, individually and as administrators of the decedent's estate, brought a medical malpractice action against several defendants seeking damages resulting from an improperly performed Cesarean-section procedure. Prior to trial, the decedent's attending physicianwho was a named defendantdied and his estate settled with the plaintiffs. Thereafter, the plaintiffs filed a motion in limine to bar evidence relating to the alleged negligence of any person other than the remaining named defendants. The circuit court denied the motion and allowed evidence relating to the deceased attending physician's standard of care. The jury found in favor of the defendants, and the appellate court affirmed. Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 90-92, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. On appeal to this court, the plaintiffs argued that the lower courts erred in denying their motion in limine and allowing the jury to hear evidence of the conduct of the decedent's treating physician. The plaintiffs also advanced a broader attack against the validity of the sole proximate cause defense, which we defined as a defense which seeks to defeat a plaintiff's claim of negligence by establishing proximate cause in the act of solely another not named in the suit. Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 92, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. We noted that the plaintiffs relied upon the common law principle that there can be more than one proximate cause of an injury, and that a person is liable for his or her negligent conduct whether it contributed wholly or partly to the plaintiff's injury as long as it was one of the proximate causes of the injury. [Citation.] A person who is guilty of negligence cannot avoid responsibility merely because another person is guilty of negligence that contributed to the same injury. Where such guilt exists, it is no defense that some other person or thing contributed to the injury. Thus, evidence of another person's liability is irrelevant to the issue of defendant's guilt. (Emphases in original.) Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 92-93, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. Therefore, the plaintiffs argued, the lower courts erred in denying their motion in limine because evidence of the [attending physician's] conduct was irrelevant and, therefore, inadmissible. Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 92, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. We concluded that the plaintiffs' reliance on this principle was misplaced, as it presumes that a defendant's conduct is at least a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury. (Emphasis in original.) Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 93, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. The defendants in Leonardi denied that they were even partly a proximate cause of plaintiffs' injuries, and pursued the theory that the decedent's deceased treating physician was the sole proximate cause of the injuries. Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 93, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. As we did in Thacker, we again in Leonardi emphasized that [i]n any negligence action, the plaintiff bears the burden of proving not only duty and breach of duty, but also that defendant proximately caused plaintiff's injury. Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 93, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. We also reiterated that [t]he element of proximate cause is an element of the plaintiff's case    [and] the law in no way shifts to the defendant the burden of proof. (Emphasis in original.) Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 93-94, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. We further explained that, under this analytical framework, a defendant has the right not only to rebut evidence tending to show that defendant's acts are negligent and the proximate cause of claimed injuries, but also has the right to endeavor to establish by competent evidence that the conduct of a third person, or some other causative factor, is the sole proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries. Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 101, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. Accordingly, we expressly rejected the plaintiffs' argumentwhich was previously adopted by the appellate court in Kochan that evidence of other possible causes for the claimed injury would confuse a jury or distract[ ] [its] attention from the simple issue of whether a named defendant caused, wholly or partly, a plaintiff's injury. Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 94, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. To the contrary, we held that the sole proximate cause defense merely focuses the attention of a properly instructed jury    on the plaintiff's duty to prove that the defendant's conduct was a proximate cause of plaintiff's injury. Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 94, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. We therefore overruled any [d]ecisions that contain statements to the contrary. Leonardi, 168 Ill.2d at 94, 212 Ill.Dec. 968, 658 N.E.2d 450. Leonardi made it clear that the exclusionary rule first fashioned in Lipke is limited to the facts presented there, and held that it is error to extend that principle to instances where, as here, proximate cause is disputed and the defendant pursues a sole proximate cause defense. As the circuit court observed below, under such an approach, [d]efendants are precluded from pointing to some other proximate cause since they    are presumed [liable]    as long as there is any evidence the plaintiff was exposed to their product. The court believed that  Lipke was never intended to result in a presumption of liability in asbestos cases, and we agree. Such an approach improperly removes from the jury the determination of whether a defendant's conduct is a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury. Leonardi underscored that in such cases, a defendant has a right to introduce evidence to contest proximate cause, and competent evidence about others as causal factors must be allowed. [4] Accordingly, Leonardi overruled those decisions that held otherwise. Because Kochan improperly extended Lipke to hold that other-exposure evidence may be barred as irrelevant in cases in which cause is disputed, Kochan was overruled sub silento by Leonardi. We now make explicit what was previously implicit: we specifically overrule that portion of Kochan which holds that other-exposure evidence is irrelevant. We note that subsequent to our decision in Leonardi, the appellate court delivered its ruling in Spain, wherein it not only perpetuated its erroneous interpretation of Lipke, but also incorrectly read our rulings in Thacker and Leonardi. In Spain, the plaintiff, as administratrix of her deceased husband's estate, filed suit against several asbestos manufacturers alleging that they were responsible for her husband's asbestos-exposure injuries and resulting death. Prior to trial, all defendants except one either settled or were dismissed. Spain, 304 Ill.App.3d at 358, 237 Ill.Dec. 898, 710 N.E.2d 528. The circuit court denied the remaining defendant's motion in limine to present decedent's videotaped deposition concerning his multiple asbestos exposures unrelated to defendant's products, and the jury found in favor of plaintiff. On appeal, the defendant, relying upon Leonardi, argued that it was prejudiced by the exclusion of the other-exposure evidence in that it was unable to support its sole proximate cause defense. In rejecting defendant's arguments, the Spain court erroneously reasoned that [t]he Leonardi court found the Lipke standard inapplicable to medical malpractice cases, but did not change the law governing asbestos cases, and proceeded to apply an incorrect reading of Thacker a reading which we rejected earlier in this opinionthat once a plaintiff satisfies the frequency, regularity and proximity test, defendant is presumed to be a proximate cause of decedent's asbestos injury. Spain, 304 Ill.App.3d at 364-65, 237 Ill.Dec. 898, 710 N.E.2d 528. Although plaintiff at bar relies upon Spain, that reliance is misplaced. As discussed, Spain conflicts with Thacker, and it also incorrectly interprets Leonardi. Plaintiff echoes Spain 's erroneous conclusion that Leonardi generally appl[ies] in medical negligence and other basic tort cases, but does not apply to asbestos actions. To the contrary, Leonardi like Thacker set forth basic tort law causation principles, and nothing in our ruling suggests that it is limited solely to medical malpractice actions, or that there should be a special exception to these general principles of tort law for certain types of cases. Our ruling in Leonardi is universally applicable to all tort actions. Given that Spain conflicts with both Thacker and Leonardi, it is hereby overruled. The single paragraph in Lipke from which the exclusionary rule of other-exposure evidence is derived neither suggested nor held that a defendant should be barred from introducing evidence of other potential causes of injury where it pursues a sole proximate cause defense, nor that juries should be deprived of evidence critical to a causation determination. As observed by the dissenting justice below, the appellate court's erroneous interpretation of Lipke, Thacker and Leonardi in its rulings in Kochan and Spain left Illinois standing alone in excluding evidence of other asbestos exposures, and conflicted with our well-settled rules of tort law that the plaintiff exclusively bears the burden of proof to establish the element of causation through competent evidence, and that a defendant has the right to rebut such evidence and to also establish that the conduct of another causative factor is the sole proximate cause of the injury. We hold that the circuit court erred by relying on the appellate court's erroneousand now overruled decisions to prevent defendant from presenting evidence of decedent's other asbestos exposures in support of its sole proximate cause defense.