Court Opinion

ID: 9533006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:27:17.583697+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:53.586571
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, dissenting: I agree with the appellate court that Lexington Township should have been collaterally estopped from relitigating the issue of whether it failed to advise motorists of the number and severity of the curves on the road and the speed at which those curves could safely be travelled. As the appellate court correctly recognized, this precise issue was previously litigated and decided against the township in Johnson v. O’Neal (1991), 216 Ill. App. 3d 975, a case that involved the . same section of roadway under the same conditions present here. The distinctions my colleagues attempt to draw between the two cases are meaningless. If the signs were inadequate in Johnson, as the jury found them to be, they were inadequate in this case as well. Because the same charges were levelled in each case based on the set of circumstances, identifying the precise reason the jury found the signs to be inadequate is immaterial. The township had every opportunity to appeal the adverse judgment against it in Johnson, 216 Ill. App. 3d 975, and, having failed to do so, it should not be allowed to advance a contrary position in this case. To excuse the township’s lapse in Johnson, as the majority does, on the theory that it had no incentive to appeal diminishes the meaning of the adjudicatory process. While cost-benefit analyses can play an important role in trial strategy, litigants make a serious mistake if they view the proceedings as nothing more than a game of dollars and cents. Our legal system is based on the proposition that a jury’s verdict is the culmination of a search for the truth. If we are to nourish this principle, verdicts must be recognized as having authority independent of the objectives of the litigants in a particular dispute. Having proceeded to trial and judgment, a losing party cannot dismiss the jury’s adverse judgment by claiming it was simply not worth it to fight on. If a losing party believes he is right, he should appeal. If he is worried about the costs of vindication, he should work out a settlement that avoids entry of an adverse judgment against him in the first place. I note, moreover, that the township actually had ample incentive to appeal the judgment against it in Johnson, 216 Ill. App. 3d 975. By the time that case was resolved, other accidents had occurred at the same location under similar circumstances, including the one involved here, raising the possibility of additional litigation. Had the township really believed it was not negligent and that the judgment in Johnson, 216 Ill. App. 3d 975, was wrong, one would certainly have expected it to appeal in order to discourage additional lawsuits and prevent adverse precedent that injured parties might attempt to use against it later. The majority points out that Johnson, 216 Ill. App. 3d 975, was brought on behalf of a passenger in the car, while the plaintiff here was the car’s driver. I fail to see, however, how that is at all relevant to the issue of whether collateral estoppel should apply. This case presents a textbook example of when the doctrine is appropriate, and there is not the slightest unfairness in barring the township from relitigating the issue of whether it failed to advise motorists of the number and severity of the curves on the road and the speed at which those curves could safely be travelled. One cannot say that preventing the plaintiff from using collateral estoppel was harmless error. Although the jury returned a special interrogatory indicating that the plaintiff was the sole proximate cause of his injuries, the majority gives this too much significance. While the jury may conceivably have answered as it did based on a technical application of the concept of causation, it is just as likely that its answer was based on the conclusion that plaintiff was the only negligent party and that the township had committed no acts or omissions that would subject it to liability. Because only the plaintiff was negligent, the jury may have reasoned, only he could be held responsible for his injuries. Had collateral estoppel been permitted here, on the other hand, the jury may have concluded that the township was negligent as well, leading it to assess the causation issue in an entirely different way. The accident here occurred before the 1986 amendment to section 3 — 104 of the Tort Immunity Act (111. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 85, par. 3 — 104). Section 3 — 104(b) of the prior law (111. Rev. Stat. 1985, ch. 85, par. 3 — 104(b)) stated that a local public entity could be held liable for failure to provide traffic signs where the signs were "necessary to warn of a condition which endangered the safe movement of traffic, and which would not be reasonably apparent to or anticipated by a person in the exercise of due care.” Based on that provision, I would hold that the township is not immune from suit here. I therefore dissent.