Opinion ID: 3134286
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ill 2d 379, 380-82 (1966); Harvey v. Clyde Park District, 32 Ill.

Text: 2d 60, 64-67 (1964). As the above-cited cases reveal, the hallmark of an unconstitutional classification is its arbitrary application to similarly situated individuals without adequate justification or connection to the purpose of the statute. In the case at bar, plaintiffs specifically rely on the following three decisions of this court which held invalid as special legislation certain statutes which created arbitrary classifications between groups of similarly situated injured plaintiffs or tortfeasors: Wright v. Central Du Page Hospital Ass'n, 63 Ill. 2d 313 (1976); Grace v. Howlett, 51 Ill. 2d 478 (1972); Grasse v. Dealer's Transport Co., 412 Ill. 179 (1952). Because plaintiffs maintain that these precedents of this court are controlling with respect to the constitutionality of section 2-- 1115.1, we discuss them in detail. In Wright, this court held that a $500,000 limit on compensatory damages in medical malpractice actions (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 70, par. 101) violated the equal protection and special legislation provisions of the Illinois Constitution. Like plaintiffs in the case at bar, the plaintiff in Wright argued that the compensatory damages limit arbitrarily classified and unreasonably discriminated against the most seriously injured victims of medical malpractice. Like defendants in the case at bar, the defendants in Wright argued that a compensatory damage limit was necessary to manage a liability crisis, specifically a medical malpractice crisis. The plaintiff maintained, however, that the burden of the legislative effort to reduce or maintain malpractice insurance premiums arbitrarily fell exclusively on those most deserving of compensation: the severely injured. The Wright court noted that unlike statutorily created causes of action (see Hall v. Gillins, 13 Ill. 2d 26 (1958); Cunningham v. Brown, 22 Ill. 2d 23 (1961)), the right to recover for injuries arising from medical malpractice existed at common law.[fn3] See Ritchey v. West, 23 Ill. 329 (1860). Thus, the limitations on that right of action were subject to constitutional scrutiny. Specifically, in Wright, this court concluded that the General Assembly did not have the power to prescribe arbitrary limitations on an injured plaintiff's compensatory damages. The limitation on compensatory damages in medical malpractice actions was determined to be arbitrary and a special law in violation of the special legislation clause of the Illinois Constitution of 1970. The damages limit conferred a special privilege on medical malpractice tortfeasors by insulating them from fully compensating plaintiffs for fairly assessed damages. Consequently, relief to an injured plaintiff depended solely on an arbitrary classification, in violation of the prohibition against special legislation. Wright, 63 Ill. 2d at 329-30. Similarly, in Grace, this court held that a statute which limited recovery for certain automobile accident victims constituted an arbitrary and unreasonable legislative classification in violation of the prohibition against special legislation. At issue in Grace was a newly enacted article to the Illinois Insurance Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1971, ch. 73, pars. 1065.150 through 1065.163). The plaintiffs brought an action for injunctive relief against state officers to enjoin them from expending funds appropriated for the enforcement of the new article. The combined effect of certain provisions of the new law was to limit an injured plaintiff's ability to recover compensatory damages, including damages for pain and suffering, depending on whether the party at fault was using the automobile for commercial or personal purposes. The defendants in Grace described the amendment to the Insurance Code as a response to the growing public demand for a change in the way society copes with the enormous legal, social and economic problems produced by car accidents. The defendants identified small personal injury actions as one of the major evils of the system of compensating car accident victims. Grace, 51 Ill. 2d at 484. The defendants further maintained that the studies regarding car accident compensation identified many problems with the system of compensating injured individuals. Specifically, the defendants maintained that the studies showed the inequitable distribution of compensation among victims, the excessive expense of the claim system, and the excessive burden on limited judicial resources. According to the defendants, the changes to the Insurance Code were rationally connected to legitimate government concerns. In determining whether the provisions at issue violated special legislation and equal protection, the Grace court assumed that the problems described by the defendants in fact existed. However, the court reasoned, the fact that a problem exists does not permit the adoption of an arbitrary or unrelated means of addressing the problem. Grace, 51 Ill. 2d at 485. In rejecting the defendants' argument that the legislation was a permissible exercise of legislative power, the Grace court stated, Unless this court is to abdicate its constitutional responsibility to determine whether a general law can be made applicable, the available scope for legislative experimentation with special legislation is limited, and this court cannot rule that the legislature is free to enact special legislation simply because `reform may take one step at a time.' [Citation.] Grace, 51 Ill. 2d at 487. This court concluded that to the extent that recovery is permitted or denied on an arbitrary basis, a special privilege was granted in violation of the prohibition against special legislation. Grace, 51 Ill. 2d at 487-90. In Grasse, this court invalidated a provision of the Worker's Compensation Act that created arbitrary classifications. At issue in Grasse was a provision which automatically transferred to an employer, in certain cases, an employee's common law right of action against a third-party tortfeasor. In Grasse, the plaintiff and his employer filed claims against a private defendant to recover damages stemming from an automobile collision which was allegedly caused by the negligence of the defendant's employee. Because both the plaintiff and defendant's employee were acting in the course of their employment at the time of the accident, paragraph 1 of section 29 of the Worker's Compensation Act applied to the subsequent litigation. This provision authorized the automatic transfer of the plaintiff- employee's claim against the third-party tortfeasor to the plaintiff's employer. The circuit court consequently dismissed the plaintiff's claim against the third-party tortfeasor. On appeal to this court, the plaintiff alleged, in part, that the statute violated the special legislation clause of the Illinois Constitution (Ill. Const. 1870, art. IV, sec. 22) because it created arbitrary and unreasonable classifications. This court agreed, holding that the statute created unreasonable classifications in which the plaintiff's ability to recover complete compensation was determined by fortuitous circumstances. The statute divided injured employees into two arbitrary classes based solely on the fortuity of whether or not the third-party tortfeasor was also bound by the provision. One class was deprived of the right to collect compensatory damages from the tortfeasor and the other class, which was similarly situated, was conferred such right. This court concluded that there was no substantial or rational difference between the injured employees in the two classes and, therefore, the statute offended the prohibition against special legislation. In addition to the unequal treatment of injured employees, the Grasse court determined that the statute divided third-party tortfeasors into two classes: those bound by the worker's compensation provision, who were freed from paying compensatory damages to employees of other entities under the act, and all other tortfeasors, who remained liable for the full amount of fairly assessed compensatory damages. The first class of tortfeasors were only required to pay amounts sought by the employer as reimbursement for worker's compensation payments. In contrast, the second class of tortfeasors remained liable to the plaintiff for the full amount of compensatory damages assessed by a trier of fact. Therefore, the distinctions were arbitrary and constituted a violation of the special legislation clause. Grasse, 412 Ill. 2d at 199. Defendants maintain that plaintiffs' reliance on Wright, Grace, and Grasse is misplaced. According to defendants, these cases were limited by Anderson v. Wagner, 79 Ill. 2d 295 (1979), in a way that renders their holdings inapplicable to the legislation in the case at bar. At issue in Anderson was section 21.1 of the Limitations Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 83, par. 22.1), which provided a special statute of limitations period for medical malpractice actions against physicians and hospitals. The plaintiffs in Anderson contended that section 21.1 violated the due process and equal protection provisions of the state and federal constitutions, and the special legislation provision of the Illinois Constitution. The plaintiff maintained that section 21.1 violated the special legislation clause because it (1) set medical malpractice apart from all other professional malpractice and (2) conferred a special privilege upon only two classes of medical health providers, physicians and hospitals. Following an extensive analysis of the development of the discovery rule in medical malpractice cases, and the impact on physicians and hospitals, this court rejected the plaintiff's constitutional challenge to the statute of limitations provision at issue. In analyzing the plaintiff's challenges, the Anderson court retraced the evolution of the discovery rule in medical malpractice cases. Under the discovery rule, a cause of action accrued when a person learned of his injury or reasonably should have learned of it. Because the discovery rule came to be applied extensively in medical malpractice cases, statutes of limitation in existence no longer provided repose for malpractice defendants. The discovery rule was perceived to be partly responsible for the medical malpractice crisis because it created a long tail of liability for medical malpractice defendants. Thus, the statute of limitations provision at issue in Anderson was enacted to place an outside limit on the applicability of the discovery rule to physicians and hospitals. Anderson, 79 Ill. 2d at 316-21. We find that Anderson is distinguishable from the instant case because in Anderson, the General Assembly was responding to judicial expansion of the discovery rule, which had undermined the medical malpractice statute of limitation by creating a tolling provision of potentially unlimited duration. Defendants in the instant case also rely upon language in Anderson which responded to critics of Wright. In dicta, the Anderson court explained that Wright did not hold that all statutory provisions creating medical malpractice review panels were unconstitutional. The Anderson court also noted that Wright's holding regarding the limit on economic damages was consistent with American Bar Association standards which recommend against any limitation on economic loss. Anderson, 79 Ill. 2d at 304. However, this court in Anderson did not consider the General Assembly's authority to place a limit on compensatory damages for noneconomic injuries. We reject defendants' argument that our decision in Anderson limits Wright's application in the case at bar. Plaintiffs argue that section 2--1115.1 merely stitches together legislative classifications previously rejected in Wright, Grasse and Grace, and then adds product liability cases. According to plaintiffs, section 2--1115.1 contains three arbitrary classifications that have no reasonable connection to the stated legislative goals: (1) the limitation on noneconomic damages distinguishes between slightly and severely injured individuals, (2) the limitation on noneconomic damages arbitrarily distinguishes between individuals with identical injuries, and (3) the limitation arbitrarily distinguishes types of injury. At oral argument, plaintiffs offered examples illustrating how the limitation on noneconomic damages is disconnected from the stated legislative purposes of providing rationality and consistency to jury verdicts. In the first example, it is assumed that three plaintiffs are injured as a result of the same tortfeasor's negligence. Plaintiff A is injured moderately, and suffers pain, disability and disfigurement for a month. Plaintiff B is severely injured and suffers one year of pain and disability. Plaintiff C is drastically injured, and suffers permanent pain and disability. For purposes of this example, it is further assumed that a jury awards plaintiffs A and B $100,000 in compensatory damages for noneconomic injuries. Plaintiff C receives $1 million for his permanent, life-long pain and disability. In the above hypothetical, section 2--1115.1 fails to provide consistency or rationality to a jury's seemingly inconsistent decision to award plaintiffs A and B the same amount for very different noneconomic injuries. Therefore, the legislative goal of providing consistency is not met by the damages cap. With respect to plaintiff C, section 2--1115.1 arbitrarily and automatically reduces the jury's award for a lifetime of pain and disability, without regard to whether or not the verdict, before reduction, was reasonable and fair. The tortfeasors in this example are also treated differently, without any justification. The tortfeasor who injures plaintiffs A and B is liable for the full amount of fairly assessed compensatory damages. In contrast, section 2--1115.1 confers a benefit on the similarly situated tortfeasor who injures plaintiff C. This tortfeasor pays only a portion of fairly assessed compensatory damages because of the limitation in section 2-- 1115.1. Therefore, the statute discriminates between slightly and severely injured plaintiffs, and also between tortfeasors who cause severe and moderate or minor injuries. Plaintiffs suggest that section 2--1115.1 creates a second arbitrary legislative classification by distinguishing between injured individuals who suffer identical injuries. For example, we are asked to assume that an individual loses his leg due to a defectively manufactured forklift today, and he loses his other leg in a car accident the following year. Both injuries are caused by the negligent conduct of others. The injured individual brings two different actions against two different defendants, and a jury assesses compensatory damages for noneconomic injuries at $400,000 in each case. Section 2--1115.1 would allow the plaintiff to recover both verdicts in full. However, if the same plaintiff lost both legs in a single accident due to the negligence of another, and if the jury fairly assessed $800,000 in compensatory damages for noneconomic injuries, then the cap in section 2--1115.1 would eliminate a substantial portion of that tortfeasor's liability, without regard to the facts of the case. To illustrate the third arbitrary classification created by the limitation on noneconomic damages in personal injury actions, plaintiffs argue that section 2--1115.1 improperly discriminates among types of injuries. Plaintiffs maintain that the legislative statements concerning the supposed difficulties of assessing damages for noneconomic injuries apply equally to all tort claims for pure noneconomic loss, and not just those involving death, bodily injury or property damage. Other torts that remain unaffected by the legislation at issue are invasion of privacy, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, damage to reputation and breach of fiduciary duty. The speculative nature of noneconomic damages for these torts, which do not involve personal injury, is not addressed by the cap in section 2--1115.1. Plaintiffs maintain that the above illustrations demonstrate the arbitrariness of the classifications created by section 2-- 1115.1, in violation of the prohibition against special legislation. Plaintiffs contend that the classifications contained within section 2--1115.1 allow certain culpable tortfeasors to escape liability for a portion of fairly assessed compensatory damages, while requiring others to pay the full amount of assessed damages. Similarly, certain injured plaintiffs are denied compensatory damages, while other similarly situated injured plaintiffs are awarded full compensation, without any rational justification for the distinction. Defendants raise a series of related arguments in opposition to plaintiffs' contention that section 2--1115.1 is arbitrary and not rationally related to a legitimate government interest. Defendants contend that plaintiffs' arguments are fatally flawed in that they are based on the erroneous assumption that noneconomic injuries, which are difficult to assess, should be monetarily compensable. Defendants further argue that section 2--1115.1 is rationally related to the legislative goal of reducing systemic costs of the civil justice system, which may be accomplished one step at a time; that the General Assembly has the power to change the common law; and that other jurisdictions have upheld statutory limitations on damages similar to section 2--1115.1. We address each of defendants' arguments in turn. At oral argument, in rebuttal, defendants stated that it is not true that money can compensate for noneconomic damages, [or] at least the legislature could find that that is the case. Defendants do not dispute the general proposition that noneconomic injuries are real. Rather, defendants argue that noneconomic damages are inherently unmeasurable. Thus, according to defendants, the legislature's adoption of an objective limitation on noneconomic damages is reasonable and must be upheld as a legitimate exercise of legislative judgment. Defendants' argument contradicts the statute under consideration. Subsection (b) of section 2--1115.1 defines noneconomic loss or noneconomic damages as damages which are intangible, including but not limited to damages for pain and suffering, disability, disfigurement, loss of consortium and loss of society. Subsection (c) provides that compensatory damages or actual damages are the sum of the economic and noneconomic damages. Section 2--1115.1 itself demonstrates that the legislature believed that remuneration is an appropriate means by which to compensate tort victims for their noneconomic injuries. Therefore, the application of a limit to the noneconomic damages of some, but not all, injured plaintiffs is not justified by the difficulty of assessing such damages. We do not disagree with defendants' assertion that damages for noneconomic injuries are difficult to assess. We simply determine that it does not follow that the difficulty in quantifying compensatory damages for noneconomic injuries is alleviated by imposing an arbitrary limitation or cap on all cases, without regard to the facts or circumstances. Further, the preamble to Public Act 89--7 states that [i]t is the public policy of this State that persons injured through the negligence or deliberate misconduct of another be afforded a legal mechanism to seek compensation for their injuries. Pub. Act 89--7, eff. March 9, 1995. There is universal agreement that the compensatory goal of tort law requires that an injured plaintiff be made whole. See, e.g., Peterson v. Lou Bachrodt Chevrolet Co., 76 Ill. 2d 353, 363 (1979); 25 C.J.S. Damages sec. 17 (1966). In this case, the arbitrary and automatic cap on compensatory damages for noneconomic injuries in only certain tort cases parallels the harm of the arbitrary classifications stricken by this court in Wright, Grace, and Grasse. Therefore, the $500,000 limit does not reestablish the credibility of the tort system, and does nothing to assist the trier of fact in determining appropriate damages for noneconomic injuries. The limitation actually undermines the stated goal of providing consistency and rationality to the civil justice system. We reject defendants' argument that the damages cap in section 2--1115.1 should be upheld because reform can be undertaken one step at a time. As previously noted in this opinion, this court has rejected the one step rationale to support a classification if the classification is arbitrary. Grace, 51 Ill. 2d at 487. We need not address this justification further. Defendants also argue that the legislative interest in reducing the systemic costs of tort liability is sufficient to overcome plaintiffs' special legislation challenge. The systemic costs of tort liability are not defined in Public Act 89--7 and we are uncertain as to the meaning and scope of these terms. Even if we assume that the reduction of these undefined systemic costs is a legitimate state interest, we do not discern how the limiting of noneconomic damages in personal injury actions may be considered rationally related to the achievement of that interest. See Wright, 63 Ill. 2d 313 (rejecting defendants' argument that lower insurance premiums and medical malpractice costs for all recipients of medical care legitimately offset the loss of compensatory damages to some malpractice victims); Grace, 51 Ill. 2d at 487-88 (rejecting cost-based justification for imposing limits on the recovery of personal injury claims as to certain class of plaintiffs). Cf. Bernier, 113