Court Opinion

ID: 9859541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 21:59:05.373513+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:52:22.118605
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting: Plaintiff Helen Calloway’s husband, Michael Calloway, was abusive to her throughout their marriage. Eventually, plaintiff sought and was granted an order of protection, which the sheriff of Effingham County, Arthur Kinkelaar, served upon Michael Calloway on March 20, 1991. On April 4, 1991, Michael Calloway called plaintiff at her workplace, threatening to kill himself in front of plaintiff and their daughter if she did not come to the marital home to retrieve the child. Plaintiff reported the threatening calls to the Effingham County sheriff’s department. The sheriff traveled to the marital residence and briefly observed the house. Plaintiff’s daughter was not at the marital residence. Subsequently, a dispatcher from the sheriff’s department telephoned plaintiff to inquire about her and her daughter. Plaintiff informed her that her daughter was safe, but that Michael Calloway was continuing his harassing phone calls. The sheriff’s dispatcher telephoned plaintiff again, and told her that officers in the department were advising plaintiff to call her attorney and ask him what should be done. Ten minutes later, Michael Calloway entered the restaurant where plaintiff was working and abducted her at gunpoint. Plaintiff drove Michael Calloway’s pickup truck. A law enforcement officer identified and followed the truck. Pursuant to orders, State troopers blocked the road in front of Michael Calloway’s truck. Plaintiff jumped out of the truck and concealed herself behind one of the parked squad cars. Michael Calloway shot himself inside the truck. Thereafter, plaintiff brought an action against the sheriff of Effingham County and the County of Effing-ham, seeking to recover damages for the extreme emotional distress and trauma and the appurtenant financial loss she suffered as a result of defendant’s failure to comply with the Illinois Domestic Violence Act of 1986. Plaintiff’s complaint alleged willful and wanton violation of statutory duties under the Act and negligent violations of the Act. The trial court dismissed the action in its entirety, concluding that plaintiff failed to state a cause of action. The appellate court reversed in part, reinstating the counts alleging willful and wanton violations of the Act. The majority herein affirms the appellate court. In so ruling, the majority first concludes that the Act does permit a cause of action in favor of those whose injuries are caused by police officers’ willful and wanton misconduct in failing to comply with the Act. Second, the majority concludes that plaintiff’s complaint is sufficient to state a cause of action for willful and wanton misconduct. While I agree that a plaintiff may bring an action for willful and wanton misconduct under the Act, I cannot agree that plaintiff’s complaint successfully alleges willful and wanton misconduct as a matter of law. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. The plaintiff’s complaint alleges that, after being notified of Michael Calloway’s threatening phone calls to plaintiff in violation of the order of protection, the sheriff "drove by Michael Calloway’s residence, briefly observed the residence from his squad car, and left without further investigation.” Moreover, after plaintiff informed the Effingham County sheriff’s department dispatcher that her daughter was safe, the dispatcher called plaintiff and "advised [her] that officers with the Sheriff’s department had advised that Plaintiff should call her attorney and seek advice as to what should be done.” The complaint also sets forth a list of what plaintiff contends defendants should have done under the Act but did not do: defendants "failed to provide or arrange transportation for Plaintiff to a place of safety”; "failed to arrest Michael Calloway”; "failed to disarm Michael Calloway”; and "failed to use all reasonable means to protect against further abuse and harassment.” To successfully allege willful and wanton misconduct, a plaintiff must do more than baldly assert that a defendant could have done better. Under the circumstances of the instant case, defendants’ actions do not approach the realm of willful and wanton misconduct. Defendant Kinkelaar drove by Michael Calloway’s home. Plaintiff’s daughter was not there. Shortly thereafter, defendants ascertained by telephone that plaintiff’s daughter was safe. Later, when it was determined that plaintiff was in actual and immediate danger, and was not merely being harassed with threatening phone calls, defendants at once hastened to rescue her, blocking Michael Calloway’s pickup truck, and ultimately saving plaintiff from any injury. She, in fact, received no physical injury of any kind. Her complaint is grounded solely in emotional trauma. Given these facts, the majority’s suggestion that they are somehow analogous to those in Doe v. Calumet City (1994), 161 Ill. 2d 374, is wrong. There is no similarity between this case and Doe. In Doe, not only did the police officers refuse to break down a door to rescue two young children who were being raped and brutalized by a home invader, they restrained the children’s mother and neighbors who attempted to rescue the children. That is willful and wanton misconduct. Given its most generous interpretation, plaintiffs complaint, at best, states a cause of action sounding in mere negligence. Although it may be argued that defendants negligently breached a duty of care they owed to plaintiff as a result of the affirmative obligations set forth in the Domestic Violence Act, the legislature expressly limited causes of action arising under the Act to acts which are a result of willful and wanton misconduct. 750 ILCS 60/305 (West 1992). In its effort to "liberally construe” the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, the majority fails to come to terms with the qualitative difference between negligence and willful and wanton misconduct. Instead, it reasons that the line between willful and wanton misconduct and simple negligence may be "difficult to draw in some circumstances.” (168 Ill. 2d at 322.) Relying on this court’s unfortunate decision in Ziarko v. Soo Line R.R. Co. (1994), 161 Ill. 2d 267, and its assertion that willful and wanton conduct is a "hybrid” between negligence and intentionally tortious behavior, the majority seizes the opportunity to further blur and even obliterate the distinction between willful and wanton misconduct and negligence. The majority leaves us with the conclusion that speculative allegations of negligence are sufficient to land a complaint somewhere within the majority’s negligent/willful and wanton/intentional conduct spectrum. It thereafter becomes a question of fact for the jury as to whether defendants’ willful and wanton misconduct proximately caused plaintiffs injuries. The majority’s understanding of willful and wanton misconduct cannot be reconciled with the legislature’s understanding of the concept, as evidenced by the plain language of the Tort Immunity Act: " 'Willful and wanton conduct’ *** means a course of action which shows an actual or deliberate intention to cause harm or which, if not intentional, shows an utter indifference to or conscious disregard for the safety of others or their property.” (745 ILCS 10/1—210 (West 1992).) It is this definition of willful and wanton conduct, and not the less stringent Ziarko version, which the legislature intended courts to use in reviewing allegations of misconduct brought under the Domestic Violence Act. The actions of the police officers as alleged in the complaint simply do not rise to an "utter indifference or conscious disregard for the safety” of the plaintiff. Police officers investigated her claim; they checked on her condition by telephoning her; and they ultimately rescued her. That they should have possibly done more under the Act is not sufficient to state a claim for willful and wanton misconduct. In Cook County alone, there were 21,679 orders of protection entered in 1994. (Illinois State Police Division of Administration Information Services Bureau, Entered Orders of Protections on Leads, at 15 (1994).) Extraordinary resources will have to be expended if police officers are now required, under the threat of tort liability, to arrest each person who is allegedly in violation of an order of protection or to provide or arrange transportation for the protected individual to a place of safety. I do not minimize the very real problem of domestic violence or the underlying purpose of the Domestic Violence Act. However, given the sheer number of entered orders of protection as well as the limits of already overburdened law enforcement agencies, it was understandable why the legislature chose to limit recovery under the Act to damages resulting from willful and wanton conduct. With this decision, not only does the majority effectively abolish any distinction between negligence and willful and wanton conduct which may have existed after Ziarko, it abrogates the legislature’s definition of willful and wanton misconduct. I cannot join in this departure from common sense and legislative intent. The decision of the trial court, dismissing the action in its entirety, should be affirmed. CHIEF JUSTICE BILANDIC joins in this dissent.