Court Opinion

ID: 9860950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:37:37.570836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:54.796069
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE McLaren, dissenting: I respectfully dissent because I do not believe that plaintiff sufficiently alleged facts to establish a duty or proximate cause. To be legally sufficient, a claim for negligence must allege facts that establish the existence of a duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, breach of that duty, and an injury proximately caused by that breach. Hills v. Bridgeview Little League Ass’n, 195 Ill. 2d 210, 228 (2000). To establish proximate cause, the plaintiff must plead and prove both cause in fact and legal cause. Harrison v. Hardin County Community Unit School District No. 1, 197 Ill. 2d 466, 477 (2001). Cause in fact is established where the defendant’s conduct was “a material element and a substantial factor in bringing about the injury.” Harrison, 197 Ill. 2d at 477. Legal cause is a question of foreseeability. Harrison, 197 Ill. 2d at 476-77. An injury is foreseeable if the injury is of a type that a reasonable person would see as a likely result of his or her conduct. Harrison, 197 Ill. 2d at 477. Assuming, arguendo, that plaintiff sufficiently pleaded facts that Burger King’s and Davekiz’s acts or omissions were a cause in fact of the accident, the complaint fails to sufficiently allege facts to establish that they could have reasonably anticipated the independent acts of Fritz that directly caused the accident and the death of decedent. Here, the facts alleged by plaintiff fail to establish that Burger King’s and Davekiz’s conduct was the legal cause of decedent’s death. Plaintiffs complaint alleges that Pamela Fritz “backed into a lamp pole in the parking lot of the restaurant, and drove forward from the lamp pole, hit the sidewalk adjacent to said Burger King Restaurant, causing her vehicle to become air born [sic] and crash into the north wall and windows of the restaurant building.” Thus, the complaint makes clear that the accident that killed decedent occurred because, after backing into a lamppost, Fritz placed her car in drive and applied excessive force to the gas pedal, causing Fritz’s car to drive onto the sidewalk, fly into the air, and crash through a brick and glass wall. Burger King’s and Davekiz’s allegedly negligent conduct did not cause Fritz to hit the lamppost, put the car in drive, or apply excessive force to the accelerator. Where, as here, a defendant’s conduct did nothing more than furnish a condition, and that condition caused injury only because of the subsequent independent act of a third party, the creation of that condition is not a proximate cause of the injury. Instead, the subsequent independent act broke the causal connection between the original wrong and the injury, and Fritz’s subsequent independent act became the sole proximate cause. See In re Estate of Elfayer, 325 Ill. App. 3d 1076, 1083 (2001) (drunk driver was effective intervening cause breaking any causal chain between alleged defects in median and resulting death). Further, I do not believe that plaintiff has alleged facts that properly establish a duty. Two Illinois appellate courts have refused to impose a duty on defendants in circumstances similar to the case at bar. In Simmons v. Aldi-Brenner Co., 162 Ill. App. 3d 238 (1987), a driver drove through a glass and aluminum wall of a grocery store, injuring or killing several patrons. The Appellate Court, Third District, held that the grocery store had no duty to protect against such an accident because it was not reasonably foreseeable. Simmons, 162 Ill. App. 3d at 244. Similarly, in Stutz v. Kamm, 204 Ill. App. 3d 898 (1990), a driver drove through a glass wall of a driver’s license examination building, injuring one person and killing another in the waiting area of the facility. The Appellate Court, Fourth District, held that the accident was not foreseeable as a matter of law. Stutz, 204 Ill. App. 3d at 906. Although the facts in Simmons and Stutz are closely on point with this case, the majority chooses to “follow” two factually dissimilar cases, Ray v. Cock Robin, Inc., 57 Ill. 2d 19 (1974), and Marquardt v. Cernocky, 18 Ill. App. 2d 135 (1958). Ray involved an accident at an outdoor picnic area at an ice-cream stand. No curb or other obstruction separated an adjoining street from the picnic area. A driver lost control of his vehicle and hit a picnic table, injuring several children and killing one child. Marquardt also involved a car entering a picnic area. The picnic area was placed at the bottom of a hill. The parking lot was placed on top of the hill. A car rolled down the hill and injured the plaintiff after a child apparently disengaged the parking gear. Unlike the accidents in Simmons, Stutz, and this case, the accidents in Ray and Marquardt were foreseeable because the victims were outside, near vehicles that were likely to enter the picnic spaces, and there was nothing physically separating the vehicles and the patrons. In Marquardt, the patrons sat at the bottom of a hilltop parking lot. In Ray, there was not even a curb separating the patrons from the street. In this case, decedent sat inside a building, and the parking lot and the seating area were separated by a sidewalk and a wall made of brick and glass. The significant factual differences between this case and Ray and Marquardt convince me that these cases are not controlling or even applicable here, especially when there are two other cases that are more closely on point. Lastly, I am troubled by the majority’s reliance on plaintiffs blind assertion that Burger King and Davekiz violated BOCA codes. When reviewing the granting of a motion to dismiss, we must disregard mere conclusions of fact unsupported by specific factual allegations. 735 ILCS 5/2 — 615 (West 2002); Lipinski v. Martin J. Kelly Oldsmobile, Inc., 325 Ill. App. 3d 1139, 1144 (2001). Plaintiff does not provide the code numbers or the text of the allegedly relevant codes. Plaintiff fails to inform the court whether these alleged BOCA codes were adopted by the City of Rockford or any other governing body. I agree that BOCA codes may be admissible as evidence of industry standards, but at this juncture, a conclusory assertion that Burger King and Davekiz violated certain codes, without specifying which codes and whether they have been codified, is not sufficient to establish a duty or a breach of duty. For the reasons stated, I respectfully dissent.