Court Opinion

ID: 9712891
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:02:13.70136+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:15.059718
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE KILBRIDE, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree with the majority that the trial court erred in giving the special interrogatory because the jury’s answer could not have resolved an ultimate issue in this case. 215 Ill. 2d at 113. I also agree with the majority that the risk-utility test does not apply in negligence cases. 215 Ill. 2d at 97. The majority then, however, unnecessarily analyzes the applicability of the simple machine exception to the risk-utility test. If the risk-utility test does not apply, it follows that the simple machine exception to that test is likewise inapplicable. The majority discusses the holdings in Bates, Todd and Scoby and concludes that the results in those cases “buttress our rationale by showing that even in strict liability cases where the risk-utility test is applied, the obvious danger of the product may still bar liability as a matter of law in some cases.” (Emphases in original.) 215 Ill. 2d at 109. The majority further asserts that this court in Hansen “seems to recognize the Scoby exception as valid.” In actuality, we held in Hansen that Scoby was inapposite because the danger of the device in question was not obvious and the mechanism was not simple. Hansen, 198 Ill. 2d at 437. Contrary to the majority’s claim, we clearly did not address the validity of the simple machine exception. We merely held the exception, whatever its merits, had no application under the facts of that case. In the matter before us, we do not decide that the mechanism of the compactor is “simple.” Thus, the discussion of the simple machine exception to the risk-utility analysis that has only been applied in strict liability cases does not buttress the opinion’s rationale and is nothing more than obiter dicta. The simple machine exception to the risk-utility test would be more appropriately addressed in a case when that issue is decisive. I cannot join in the majority’s finding that the Scoby exception is further support for the conclusion that courts may decide whether the patent-danger rule “negates a duty in negligence as a matter of law in some cases.” 215 Ill. 2d at 112. I therefore respectfully dissent from that portion of the opinion.