Court Opinion

ID: 9542488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:34:58.704518+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:08.251251
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE KNECHT, dissenting: There may be long-standing reasons for favorable treatment of railroads and the creation of the standing-car rule. I do not know what they are or what continued vitality they have in the twenty-first century. The citizens of Illinois would be hard-pressed to understand the logic or public policy behind a decision that imposes a duty of reasonable care on a merchant regarding a post and a customer door (Ward v. K mart Corp., 136 Ill. 2d 132, 554 N.E.2d 223 (1990)) but not on a railroad for failure to illuminate a stopped train at a crossing (Dunn v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co., 127 Ill. 2d 350, 537 N.E.2d 738 (1989)). A customer can be distracted or momentarily forgetful while carrying a large, bulky item and then collide with a post known or obvious to him or her. An automobile driver can be distracted or misled or confused on a dark Midwestern night heavily overcast with fog and rain and drive into the side of a stopped or slowly moving train. A duty should be imposed here. It is not unduly burdensome. If there is a special-circumstances exception, the presence of special circumstances is a question properly left to the trier of fact just as in Ward.