Court Opinion

ID: 9745236
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:42:38.044015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:57.899509
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE STOUDER, dissenting: I dissent from the majority view that the city of Kankakee had no duty to warn the individual defendant, Richard Vorwerk, that he was approaching a dangerous intersection. The primary case relied upon by the plaintiffs in support of their position is Janssen v. City of Springfield (1980), 79 Ill. 2d 435, 404 N.E.2d 213, which is summarized in the majority opinion. Contrary to the view of the majority, I believe that the reasoning of the holding in Janssen can be applied directly to the case at hand in support of the plaintiffs’ argument that the city of Kankakee had a duty to warn the individual defendant of an approaching dangerous intersection. The court in Janssen stated that section 11 — 304 of the Illinois Vehicle Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 95 Va, par. 11 — 304), requiring local authorities to post signs to regulate, warn or guide traffic on highways under their maintenance jurisdiction, “imposes an obligation on local authorities to warn motorists of those hazards which are incident to that portion of a highway which remains under local maintenance jurisdiction.” (Janssen v. City of Springfield (1980), 79 Ill. 2d 435, 404 N.E.2d 213, 219.) The court further stated that the traffic island projecting into the continuation of the outer part of the street on which the plaintiff was traveling presented a hazard to motorists using the part of the street, a part which was within the original maintenance jurisdiction of the city of Springfield (the outer 14 feet of pavement on each side of the road). The city of Springfield was, therefore, under a duty to warn motorists of this approaching hazard even if the hazard itself, the traffic island, was not within a city controlled part of the street. I agree with the majority and the city of Kankakee that the Janssen court's decision was not premised upon the fact that the city had entered into a subsequent maintenance contract with the State in which the city agreed to maintain that portion of the subject street the State had originally promised to maintain (the center 24 feet of pavement) in return for reimbursement of expenses by the State, resulting in actual maintenance of the entire street by the city. Contrary to the argument made by the plaintiffs, the existence of the subsequent maintenance contract was not relied upon by the Janssen court to support its holding. Therefore, the fact that the city of Kankakee entered into a subsequent maintenance contract with the State of Illinois in which the city ultimately bore responsibility for the maintenance of the entire street in question is not a consideration in my opinion. Here, we have a situation which is quite similar to that presented in Janssen. An individual defendant was traveling on a street in the city of Kankakee which was controlled jointly by the city and by the State in that the city had maintenance jurisdiction over the parking lanes on either side of the road and the State had maintenance jurisdiction over the traffic lanes of the street. The plaintiffs have stated that the parking lane on the left side of the street becomes an area available for turning as it approaches the allegedly dangerous intersection. Nothing in the complaint would preclude the possibility of producing evidence at trial showing that the defendant driver turned left into the intersection from this turning area over which the city had maintenance jurisdiction. This area, controlled by the city of Kankakee, would be immediately incident to an allegedly hazardous intersection, and, therefore, subject to the reasoning set forth in Janssen, namely, that the city had a duty to warn motorists of hazards incident to that portion of the roadway under the maintenance jurisdiction and, therefore, control of the local authorities. Based upon by interpretation of Janssen and the facts presented in the case at hand, I would reverse the decision of the trial court granting the city of Kankakee’s motion for summary judgment.