Court Opinion

ID: 9860083
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:09:47.965525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:17:47.103779
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE KAPALA, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I concur with the majority’s decisions to reverse the trial court’s dismissal of count I of plaintiffs second amended complaint and to affirm the trial court’s dismissal of counts III, V and VII of plaintiffs second amended complaint. However, I cannot agree that plaintiff has alleged the facts necessary to support his claims of negligence against the NCRHA, the AHAI, and the IHOA, or that plaintiff has properly pleaded a cause of action for civil conspiracy. Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision to reverse the trial court’s dismissal of counts II, IV and VI of plaintiffs second amended complaint and count VIII of plaintiffs third amended complaint. I will first address plaintiffs claims of negligence against the organizational defendants (counts II, IV and VI) and then proceed to confront the insufficiency of plaintiffs civil conspiracy claim against the AHAI and the IHOA. I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the contact sports exception applies to sports organizations and that, as a result, these organizations have no legal duty to eliminate risks inherent in the sport itself, such as other players’ negligent conduct. I also agree with the majority that sports organizers have a duty not to increase the risks to a participant over and above those inherent in the sport and that this includes a duty not to cause willful and wanton conduct of the players toward one another. However, none of plaintiffs claims of negligence against the organizational defendants alleges facts sufficient to show any connection between the alleged actions and omissions of the organizational defendants and the alleged willful and wanton conduct of Strevell and Zimmerman. In counts II, ¡V and VI of his second amended complaint, plaintiff alleges that the organizational defendants were negligent in various ways, including failing to supervise, instruct, and discipline players, officials, and teams in regard to checking from behind, and by promoting, encouraging, and condoning checking from behind. However, plaintiff alleges only that the organizational defendants caused Benjamin’s injuries. Plaintiff does not allege facts showing how the actions of the organizational defendants caused Strevell’s and Zimmerman’s alleged reckless disregard for Benjamin’s safety. In fact, plaintiff does not allege that the actions of the organizational defendants had any effect on the players, but only that their actions caused Benjamin’s injuries. The majority suggests that “[a] fair reading of plaintiffs complaint leads us to conclude that he alleged that the organizational defendants’ negligence caused Strevell’s and Zimmerman’s allegedly willful and wanton conduct.” 369 Ill. App. 3d at 916. I disagree. Although pleadings must be liberally construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the failure to plead facts cannot be aided by any principle of liberal construction. Doe v. Chicago Board of Education, 213 Ill. 2d 19, 28 (2004). Plaintiff does not plead any facts to show how the organizational defendants’ failure to promote the rule against checking from behind caused the actions of Strevell and Zimmerman. Even aside from the organizational defendants’ specific effect on Strevell and Zimmerman, plaintiff never alleges any facts generally showing how the organizational defendants increased the risk of the players’ reckless disregard for the safety of other players above and beyond violating the rules of the game. Plaintiffs complaint at most suggests that the organizational defendants facilitated an environment that would cause players to break the rule against checking from behind. As the majority points out, another player’s breach of the rules of the game is an inherent risk that sports organizations have no duty to prevent. Therefore, in order to be negligent, the sports organization must do something more than facilitate an inherent risk in the game. Plaintiff alleges no facts to show how the organizational defendants’ actions caused Strevell and Zimmerman to act with reckless disregard for Benjamin’s safety, and thus there is no factual link in the complaint between the organizational defendants’ actions and Strevell’s and Zimmerman’s willful and wanton conduct that would support a claim of negligence on the part of the organizational defendants. Consequently, in my view, the trial court correctly dismissed counts II, IY and VI of plaintiffs second amended complaint. For similar reasons, the trial court also correctly dismissed count VIII of plaintiffs third amended complaint, in which he alleged that the AHAI and the IHOA engaged in a civil conspiracy. Although I agree with the majority that plaintiff has alleged that the AHAI and the IHOA made an agreement, I do not agree that plaintiff alleged facts showing that the AHAI and the IHOA made their agreement for the purpose of accomplishing an unlawful act of a lawful act by unlawful means, or that the AHAI and the IHOA committed a tortious act in furtherance of that agreement. The majority concludes that plaintiff has successfully alleged that the AHAI and the IHOA’s agreement not to enforce the rule had an unlawful purpose, because plaintiff has successfully alleged that the IHOA’s failure to enforce the rule was negligent. Initially, I question whether an agreement to commit a negligent act satisfies the requirement that a defendant knowingly and voluntarily participate in a common scheme to accomplish an unlawful purpose or a lawful purpose by unlawful means (Adcock v. Brakegate, Ltd., 164 Ill. 2d 54, 64 (1994)). “Since one cannot agree, expressly or tacitly, to commit a wrong about which he or she has no knowledge, in order for civil conspiracy to arise, the parties must be aware of harm or wrongful conduct at beginning of combination or agreement. Thus, civil conspiracy is an intentional tort requiring a specific intent to accomplish the contemplated wrong and, because negligence is, by definition, not an intentional wrong, the parties cannot engage in civil conspiracy to be negligent.” 16 Am. Jur. 2d Conspiracy §51 (1998). See also Lenahan v. University of Chicago, 348 Ill. App. 3d 155, 165 (2004). However, even assuming that plaintiff could show that agreeing to commit a negligent act satisfies the requirement that co-conspirators knowingly participated in a common scheme to commit an unlawful act, plaintiff has not alleged a tortious act in furtherance of the scheme. First, plaintiff never alleges that, following the agreement with the AHAI, the IHOA carried out the agreement by failing to enforce the rule against checking from behind in any AHAI games. However, even liberally inferring from the complaint that as a result of the agreement the IHOA failed to enforce the rule, as discussed above I do not agree that plaintiff alleged facts to show that the IHOA’s failure to enforce the rule was negligent. To state a cause of action for conspiracy, a plaintiff must allege not only that one of the conspirators committed an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, but also that such act was tortious or unlawful. Adcock, 164 Ill. 2d at 63. Because we have concluded that a sports organization does not breach its duty to a player when its conduct causes an injury that occurs as a result of another player breaking the rules, but only when it causes harm resulting from another player’s willful and wanton conduct, an organization’s failure to enforce the rules, in itself, does not constitute negligence on the part of the organization. Plaintiff has failed to allege facts to connect the IHOA’s failure to enforce the rule with Strevell’s and Zimmerman’s willful and wanton conduct, and thus has not alleged negligent conduct on the part of the IHOA. Therefore, plaintiff has not alleged a tortious act in furtherance of the alleged agreement and has not pleaded all the elements of civil conspiracy. As a result, I believe that plaintiff’s claim of civil conspiracy was properly dismissed. For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent from the judgment of the majority reversing the trial court’s dismissal of counts II, iy and VI of plaintiffs second amended complaint and count VIII of plaintiffs third amended complaint.