Court Opinion

ID: 9523678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:45:34.326981+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:07:15.433253
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE BARRY, dissenting: I disagree with my colleagues. The plaintiff on appeal contends that the trial court erred in refusing to grant a new trial because, inter alia, the defendant failed to establish the foundation for admitting evidence of the plaintiff’s nonuse of a seat belt. I agree with the plaintiff on this issue and would hold that a new trial should have been granted. Following the general guidance of Mount, we said in Eichorn v. Olson (1975), 32 Ill. App. 3d 587, 593, 335 N.E.2d 774, 778, regarding jury instructions on the nonuse of seat belts: “In order to be entitled to such an instruction, the defendant must prove, by competent evidence, a causal connection between the plaintiff’s nonuse of an available belt and the injuries and damages sustained.” Therefore the two-fold foundation to be satisfied for the introduction of such evidence, and as subsequently recognized by Dudanas (plaintiff’s expert specified how wearing of an available seat belt would limit certain of the injuries), and Kassela v. Stonitsch (1978), 57 Ill. App. 3d 817, 373 N.E.2d 608 (any reference to seat belts deprived plaintiff, who did not know whether he was wearing his seat belt, of a fair trial — and was reversible error), is, as indicated by the majority here, “(1) the availability of a seat belt and (2) a causal connection between the failure to use the seat belt and the injuries sustained.” Obviously the availability of the seat belt must be established first. The party choosing to use the evidence, as in any case, bears the burden of proof — here, the defendant. The quantum of evidence needed to establish availability must be at least a preponderance, the general civil standard. It was not sufficient merely to show that the car was equipped with a belt in this case. The defendant was also required to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the belt was usable if it was to be considered “available.” My thorough review of the record reveals that the plaintiff acknowledged that there was a seat belt in the car, he was not wearing it on the day of the accident, but testified that the last time he attempted to use the seat belt it did not function. The only other testimony regarding availability of the seat belt was from the defendant’s engineer who indicated that the car was equipped with a seat belt, but that he did not enter the vehicle to determine anything more. Therefore, the only “availability” evidence was that the car was equipped with a seat belt, but when the plaintiff last attempted to use it, it was inoperable. The lack of evidence that the seat belt was, in fact, usable, defeated the “availability” prong of defendant’s foundation for presenting the “mitigation defense.”1 Consequently, there was no need for the plaintiff to rebut defendant’s attempt to lay the foundation, and the trial court should have allowed the plaintiff to prevail in his attempts to suppress that “defense.” There is no duty for any party to affirmatively prove compliance with a nonexistent duty, whether that duty be expressed in terms of due care for the purposes of liability or duty to mitigate damages, as technically was at issue in this case. The concept of “availability,” at least in my view, is not interchangeable with “installation.” Failure to rebut plaintiff’s testimony that the seat belt did not operate destroyed any presumption that might have been acceptable — that the seat belt installed, was a seat belt “available,” i.e., installed, workable and useable. As I see it, the majority has effectively created a negative burden for the plaintiff to disprove or negate the defendant’s attempt to show “availability,” and I cannot agree with my colleagues when they say: “We believe plaintiff’s testimony was not sufficient to establish nonavailability of a seat belt. Failure of the seat belt to work at some time in the past is not sufficient to prove that on the day of the accident the seat belt did not work. Had the plaintiff established the defect in the seat belt and that he had not had a chance to remedy the problem, there might be a different result. Such is not the situation here, however. We do not know why the seat belt did not work *** on the day of the accident. We believe evidence of the installation of a seat belt is sufficient to establish the availability of the seat belt in the absence of countervailing evidence regarding nonworkability of the seat belt.” The majority has thus shifted the defendant’s burden of persuasion in this case to the plaintiff and reached, as did the trial court, the erroneous conclusion that the “mitigation defense” could be presented to the jury. This resulted in an unfair trial (see Kassela). It is apparent to me that admission of the evidence of the plaintiff’s nonuse of the seat belt in this case controlled the jury’s verdict. The unrebutted evidence of special damages for the plaintiff’s fractured wrist and serious facial lacerations incurred was $2,509 and the unrebutted evidence of the plaintiff’s lost wages was $3,120. If evidence of the non-use of the seat belt had been refused the damages awarded by the jury would have had to have been at least $5,629. (Thereafter reduced by 50% based upon the jury’s determination of the parties’ comparative negligence.) Obviously the unreduced award of $3,620 (which translated into an award of only $1,810 after application of the reduction for the plaintiff’s comparative negligence) proves that the seat belt evidence was used to “mitigate” damages here. I would reverse and remand this case for a new trial.  Although neither party has asked us to reconsider the judicially-created seat belt “defense,” I have grave doubts that under the law of comparative negligence, which has come into existence since Mount, Dúdanos, Kassela and other Illinois cases, juries can be expected to dismiss liability from their minds upon considering “mitigation of damages,” particularly where, as here, there is no specific medical evidence identifying which injuries may have been reduced or eliminated by the use of a seat belt. In my opinion the time has come to reevaluate principles underlying the admission of seat belt evidence. More than 15 years have passed since Mount. Extensive technological developments, studies pro and con, and the relative values of various systems of restraint should be considered now. Our supreme court has never spoken to the issue. And the legislature has only recently declared our public policy and has limited the mandated use of seat belts to infants only. Perhaps the onset of comparative negligence dictates that Illinois courts should be reviewing this area of the law taking into consideration the extensive body of authority in sister jurisdictions which have considered the admissibility of evidence of nonuse of seat belts given that the majority of those courts have concluded that such evidence should not be permitted under circumstances as presented in the case before us. See, e.g., Amend v. Bell (1977), 89 Wash. 2d 124, 570 P.2d 138; Fischer v. Moore (1973), 183 Colo. 392, 517 P.2d 458; Birtton v. Doehring (1970), 286 Ala. 498, 242 So.2d 666; Miller v. Haynes (Mo. App. 1970), 454 S.W.2d 293; Miller v. Miller (1968), 273 N.C. 228, 160 S.E.2d 65; Toplin v. Clark (1981), 6 Kan. App. 2d 66, 626 P.2d 1198; Nash v. Kamrath (1974), 21 Ariz. App. 530, 521 P.2d 161; Stallcup v. Taylor (1970), 62 Tenn. App. 407, 463 S.W.2d 416; Romankewiz v. Black (1969), 16 Mich. App. 119, 167 N.W.2d 606. But cf. Gibson v. Henninger (1976), 170 Ind. App. 55, 350 N.E.2d 631 (stating Indiana law allows for admitting evidence of plaintiff’s nonuse of a seat belt on the issue of contributory negligence); Spier v. Barker (1974), 35 N.Y.2d 444, 363 N.Y.S.2d 916, 323 N.E.2d 164 (discussed extensively in Dudanas to support conclusion that nonmedical expert’s testimony was sufficient to satisfy causal connection prong of foundation).