Court Opinion

ID: 9720268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:23:26.850272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:14.979010
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HOLDRIDGE, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. Summary judgment is required where the pleadings, depositions, admissions and affidavits on file show that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. 735 ILCS Ann. 5/2 — 1005(c) (Michie 1996); Machinery Transports v. Morton Community Bank, 293 Ill. App. 3d 207 (1997). Here, there is no genuine issue of material fact, so the issue before this court is whether the trial court erred in determining that the defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The state of the law in Illinois on this issue is clear: where a defendant is alleged to be liable in tort for the suicide or attempted suicide of a plaintiff or a plaintiffs decedent, the act of suicide is an independent intervening act which breaks the chain of causation and shields the alleged tortfeasor from liability, unless the injured party is insane or bereft of reason and attempts suicide while in that state. Stasiof v. Chicago Hoist & Body Co., 50 Ill. App. 2d 115 (1964), aff'd sub nom. Little v. Chicago Hoist & Body Co., 32 Ill. 2d 156 (1965); see also Moss v. Meyer, 117 Ill. App. 3d 862, 865-66 (1983). Here, there is no dispute that Nathan was not insane nor bereft of reason. Plaintiffs own expert testified in his deposition that Nathan understood and appreciated his acts and that he intended to kill .himself. Given these undisputed facts, and the state of the law under Stasiof, Little, and Moss, the trial court properly granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. While the majority notes that some of our sister jurisdictions have chosen to adopt a rule of law that creates liability for health care providers based upon a concept of a heightened duty to protect potentially suicidal patients from self-harm, no such duty has, to date, been created in Illinois. In light of our own supreme court’s holding in Little, it would have been error for the trial court to have relied upon precedent from other jurisdictions to deny the summary judgment motion. I believe that it is error for our court to do so. For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the trial court’s granting of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and I dissent on that basis.