Court Opinion

ID: 9739162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:09:51.968079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:10.376102
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE BRESLIN, dissenting: The plaintiff has not produced enough evidence of proximate cause to survive a motion for summary judgment in this matter. The only evidence regarding causation is the testimony of Willie Anderson that he heard an "uh” sound and then heard the decedent’s body hit the ground and the testimony of Deola Anderson that the decedent’s body was found lying on a patch of ice. In Roberts v. Allstate Life Insurance Co. (1993), 243 Ill. App. 3d 658, 612 N.E.2d 103, Roberts, a railroad employee, fell from a train and sustained injuries which resulted in his death. While working on the train with Roberts, a co-employee heard a "thud.” Upon investigating, he found Roberts lying on the ground near the train. The plaintiff argued that since an autopsy had ruled out heart attack or stroke, the only explanation for Roberts’ fall was that he had been struck by the train. The Roberts court held that no theory of causation can be established by circumstantial evidence unless the facts relied upon are of such a nature and so related to each other that it is the only conclusion that can reasonably be drawn from them. It found that there was a complete absence of probative facts to support the plaintiff’s theory of the case and thus summary judgment was correctly granted to the defendant. The case at bar encompasses almost exactly the facts in Roberts. In each case, the only witness merely heard a sound; no one actually witnessed the fall. The bodies of both decedents were found lying near the object believed to have caused the fall. However, in Roberts, the plaintiff was able to rule out heart attack and stroke as possible causes. The plaintiff at bar has not produced any such evidence. Just as the plaintiff in Roberts failed to show that the only probable cause of Roberts’ fall was his being struck by the train, so too, the plaintiff in the case at bar has failed to prove that the only probable cause of the decedent’s fall was the ice upon which his body was found. By relying on a lack of evidence to disprove causation instead of the production of positive evidence to establish it, the majority has shifted the burden of proof from the plaintiff to the defendants. Such a shift is contrary to our entire adversarial system of justice. Therefore, I cannot agree with the majority on the issue of proximate cause and respectfully dissent.