Court Opinion

ID: 9712739
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:59:05.560462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:14.089085
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE STOUDER, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the conclusion of the majority of the court that the answer to the special interrogatory finding plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence was not supported by sufficient evidence. The evidence relating to plaintiff’s claim of freedom from contributory negligence was disputed, was a triable issue of fact, was an issue properly resolvable by the jury and depending on how the jury viewed such evidence, was sufficient to support the jury’s resolution of the evidence against the plaintiff and indeed, would have been sufficient to support a contrary result. I therefore find nothing improper in the jury’s response to the special interrogatory and since it controls the dispute, I believe that judgment in favor of the defendant is the only appropriate result. The opinion of the majority reveals considerable confusion on the basic rule relating to issues which ought to be tried by a jury and the effect of the jury’s resolution of such issues. It seems to me the basic premise is and should be that if a factual dispute is properly resolvable by a jury, this means that the evidence should be sufficient to support the jury’s determination whatever it decides. If a jury is entitled to reach only one conclusion, then there is no factual dispute and obviously nothing for a jury to resolve. If the evidence is insufficient to support the finding which the jury made, then why should the issue be resubmitted to a jury? Although I believe the Pedrick rule (Pedrick v. Peoria & Eastern R.R. Co., 37 Ill. 2d 494, 229 N.E.2d 504) is the proper way to evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence, regardless of what rule is applied, it is my conclusion that the evidence supports the jury’s resolution of the issue presented by the special interrogatory against the plaintiff. The only evidence offered by the plaintiff to establish his due care was the testimony of two witnesses who stated that the plaintiff was a person of careful habits. I have no quarrel with the propriety of presenting evidence of careful habits to show plaintiffs due care whenever the plaintiff has retrograde amnesia because of the accident and no other eye witnesses to the accident exist. While evidence of careful habits may be sufficient to allow a jury to decide the issue of plaintiff s due care, such evidence, even if uncontroverted, can rarely, if ever, establish a plaintiff s due care as a matter of law. The previous opinion of this court in Storm v. Rrown, 15 Ill. App. 3d 29, 303 N.E.2d 42, supports this view. In Storm plaintiff brought an action for the allegedly wrongful death of plaintiff’s decedent which had occurred as a result of a vehicular collision. On the question of the decedent’s due care, his widow was allowed to testify as to his careful habits, but the jury returned a verdict in favor of defendants and judgment was entered thereon. Plaintiff maintained on appeal that because the only evidence of the decedent’s due care was his widow’s testimony as to the decedent’s careful habits, the element of due care had been established as a matter of law. The court rejected this contention and stated: “While proof of a decedent’s careful habits may be introduced, in the absence of the existence of eyewitnesses to the accident other than the defendant, * * * it does not follow that such evidence, even when wholly uncontroverted, establishes due care as a matter of law. No witness need be believed by a jury, and in any event ‘careful habit’ evidence merely tends to prove a decident’s due care. When properly admissible, it is sufficient in our judgment only to permit the plaintiff to take that element of the case to the jury, who, in the absence of other believable evidence to the contrary, may then infer that the decedent was indeed in the exercise of due care with respect to the particular matter at issue.” (15 Ill. App. 3d 29, 32, 303 N.E.2d 42, 44.) The inference of due care or freedom from contributory negligence which may be drawn from evidence of careful habits is to be considered in the context of the details of the incident. When the details of the incident are considered in this case, namely, that the plaintiff was driving in a heavy rain and drove his motorcycle off into a ditch, they certainly affect the strength or weakness of any inference of due care. In this connection it should be noted that there are no authorities cited in the majority opinion supporting the thesis of the majority that evidence of careful habits and the inference to be drawn therefrom establishes plaintiff’s due care as a matter of law or conversely makes a contrary finding improper as a matter of law. The conclusion that plaintiff s due care was not established as a matter of law is further buttressed by the fact that unlike what occurred in Storm, testimony was introduced in this case contradicting the evidence of plaintiff s careful habits. The majority dismiss the testimony of the train crew as having no bearing or probative value on the issue of plaintiff s due care. They do so not because of the nature of the evidence itself, but because of the conclusion that they draw from such evidence. By means of a mechanical approach, the majority reject as improbable the testimony by the train crew of plaintiff s excessive speed. I disagree with their analysis for several reasons. In the first place, estimates of distances are by their nature susceptible of substantial variation and to use such estimates or guesses in a mechanical way to establish speed does not render the result any more certain or reliable than the initial estimates. In the second place, an additional variable is the claim that some incident occurred or observation was made using as a reference the time of a particular car of the train crossing the highway. The evidence on this point is vague since there was no impact between the motorcycle and any car of the train. In the third place, a speed of 35 miles per hour in a driving rain by a person on a motorcycle might be considered “high speed” or at least unreasonable by a jury. All these factors suggest substantial disputes in the evidence regarding plaintiff s due care and consequently, I think the jury’s response to the special interrogatory is supported by ample evidence and under the authorities requires a judgment in favor of the defendant.