Court Opinion

ID: 9483414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:20:00.221851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:37.257250
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I write separately only because the identification of causes of action as “wholly independent” or not “wholly independent” seems to me very difficult. It is by no means clear to me that the facts before us are closer to the negligent supervision and negligent entrustment cases than to United States Fidelity & Guarantee Co. v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 152 Ill.App.3d 46, 105 Ill.Dec. 254, 504 N.E.2d 123 (1987), in which a child attending a daycare center was thrown from an automobile. The two causes of action alleged in that case were negligent operation of the center and negligent operation of the vehicle. Those two claims involved contemporaneous, joint or alternative sets of different facts. By contrast, in the negligent supervision and entrustment cases such as Allstate Insurance Co. v. Pruitt, 177 Ill.App.3d 407, 126 Ill.Dec. 716, 532 N.E.2d 401 (1988), and Allstate Insurance Co. v. Panzica, 162 Ill.App.3d 589, 114 Ill.Dec. 28, 515 N.E.2d 1299 (1987), the underlying facts involving negligent operation of the instrumentality at issue are essentially the same as those alleged in the supervision and entrustment claims. The latter claims are derivative of the former, so that the same underlying facts are simply restated against a different party. Pruitt, 126 Ill.Dec. at 719, 532 N.E.2d at 404.
The two causes of action in the case before us appear to involve neither the same facts, nor contemporaneous or alternative sets of different facts, but consecutive sets of different facts. First, First Columbia must be insolvent in order to bring about the loss. Then, since First Columbia was not authorized to do business in Illinois (and Mr. South because of his negligence was not aware of this fact) the Illinois Insurance Guarantee Fund does not make good the loss. The facts surrounding these two causes are related but they certainly are not essentially identical as in the negligent supervision cases; the second cause of action is not derivative of the first in the same sense.
Hence, I think it is very difficult to predict how Illinois courts would treat the facts that are before us. Based on the rule of contra preferentem (strict construction against the insurer that drafted the policy), I think it entirely possible that the Illinois courts would not reach the result favored by the majority here. But, of course, one cannot be sure.