Court Opinion

ID: 9861195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:48:34.125149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:27:34.372988
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE NICKELS, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion finding a right of contribution between joint tortfeasors, where one tortfeasor is liable for willful and wanton conduct. The Joint Tortfeasor Contribution Act apportions liability based on the relative fault of the parties where they are "subject to liability in tort arising out of the same injury to person or property, or the same wrongful death.” (740 ILCS 100/2(A) (West 1992).) As a court of law, our duty is to determine the intent of the legislature where a statute is unclear or ambiguous. Gerrill Corp. v. Jack L. Hargrove Builders, Inc. (1989), 128 Ill. 2d 179, 203. Although I agree that the term "tort” is ambiguous, unlike the majority I acknowledge that this court has already interpreted the statute as encompassing only negligent tortfeasors. In Gerrill Corp., this court considered whether the term "tort” in the Joint Tortfeasor Act encompassed intentional conduct. This court reviewed the legislative history of the Act and determined that "statements made during the floor debates by both the Senate and House sponsors of the bill that was to become the Contribution Act demonstrate that the statute was meant to create a right of contribution for negligent tortfeasors.” (Emphasis added.) (Gerrill Corp., 128 Ill. 2d at 204-05.) Thus, this court found that there was no right of contribution for intentional tortfeasors because the Act applies to only negligent conduct. In Burke v. 12 Rothschild’s Liquor Mart, Inc. (1992), 148 Ill. 2d 429, this court directly considered the relationship between negligence and conduct that is willful and wanton. This court held that comparative fault principles cannot be applied to reduce the compensatory damages awarded to a negligent plaintiff, where the defendant’s liability was premised on willful and wanton conduct. In support, this court stated that "[b]ecause of the qualitative difference between simple negligence and willful and wanton conduct, and because willful and wanton conduct carries a degree of opprobrium not found in merely negligent behavior, we hold that a plaintiffs negligence cannot be compared with defendant’s willful and wanton conduct.” (Burke, 148 Ill. 2d at 451-52.) I see no reason to depart from this reasoning finding a qualitative difference between negligence and willful and wanton conduct that prevents application of comparative fault principles. Unhappy with the application of our precedent, the majority finds that the legislature "intended” to allow a defendant found liable for his willful and wanton conduct to seek contribution from a negligent joint tortfeasor, as long as the willful and wanton conduct is not intentional. Thus, after acknowledging the confusion surrounding the concept of willful and wanton conduct, the majority further muddies the waters by carving it into "recklessly willful and wanton conduct” and "intentionally willful and wanton conduct.” Contribution is then proper where the willful and wanton conduct is not intentional. The majority justifies this legislative line drawing by blurring the distinctions between willful and wanton conduct and simple negligence. I agree with our precedent recognizing a significant distinction between conduct that is merely negligent and that which is willful and wanton. Although sharing characteristics of both intentional and negligent conduct, willful and wanton conduct is analytically distinct from either concept. Engaging in intentional conduct where the injurious results are "substantially certain” to follow is the most wrongful form of conduct. In contrast, negligence is conduct that creates unreasonable risks of harm, without reference to a culpable mental state. The rule transferring the cost of an injury where an actor is negligent rests not on the culpable nature of the wrongdoing, but on the belief that the person who creates unreasonable risks should bear the cost of a resulting injury. Negligent conduct should be distinguished from willful and wanton conduct because such conduct involves a quasi-mental state. (W. Keeton, Prosser & Keeton on Torts § 34, at 212-13 (5th ed. 1984); Burke, 148 Ill. 2d at 449.) Willful and wanton conduct occurs where the actor is aware of a specific risk, and acts in conscious disregard of that risk or with utter indifference to the consequences. While the harm may not be "substantially certain” to follow, consciously disregarding an obvious risk carries with it a culpable mental element absent in simple negligence. (See Burke, 148 Ill. 2d at 451.) The law attaches significance to this distinction. For example, immunities can be lost and punitive damages can be awarded where conduct is willful and wanton. That such drastic consequences attach to the characterization of conduct as willful and wanton belies the majority’s assertion that such conduct should be compared the same as negligent conduct. I recognize that forbidding a right of contribution where a party’s conduct is willful and wanton, but only slightly responsible for an injury, can produce injustice. Similarly, a party is not entitled to contribution where his conduct is intentional, but only accounts for a small amount of the damages. I note that the legislature has recently introduced legislation to address the application of comparative fault principles to willful and wanton conduct. I believe that the solution to this problem lies in amendment to the Joint Tortfeasor Contribution Act by the legislature, rather than blurring the distinctions between negligent, willful and wanton and intentional conduct. The majority not only acts as a super legislature in creating this dual concept of willful and wanton conduct for purposes of the Contribution Act, but also acts in place of the jury in applying the new concept to the present cause. The majority finds that "[t]he record in the present cause does not reflect that the jury found Soo Line’s willful and wanton misconduct to have been intentionally committed. As a result, Soo Line’s misconduct did not preclude its claim for contribution from Milwaukee Motor.” (161 Ill. 2d at 282.) I fail to understand how the jury in the present case could have considered the nature of the willful and wanton conduct, where the distinction between "intentional willful and wanton conduct” and "reckless willful and wanton conduct” had been neither pleaded, proved, nor specifically asked of the jury. In passing, I question what effect this holding has on the concept of willful and wanton conduct in general. Does a municipality lose immunity under the Tort Immunity Act only where there is "intentional wilful and wanton conduct” or when there is "reckless willful and wanton conduct”? Which type of willful and wanton conduct is proper for imposing punitive damages? Are there now two forms of willful and wanton conduct that should be pleaded in separate counts? Based upon all the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent. JUSTICE HEIPLE joins in this dissent.