Court Opinion

ID: 9486652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:55:03.199269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:50.897669
License: Public Domain

FLAUM, Circuit Judge,
with whom CUMMINGS, CUDAHY and ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judges join, dissenting.
I cannot accept the court’s judgment and opinion. Our charge here is not to determine the best, most logical, or even the most efficient product-liability rules for the state of Illinois. If it were, I would be joining the court’s persuasive opinion. However, Article III of the Constitution only affords us the power to ascertain the law of Illinois and apply it to the litigants before us as if we were an inferior state court. Because I remain convinced that the law of Illinois required the federal district court to apply the risk-utility doctrine in this product liability case, I coneludé that our inquiry in1 this case should go no further.
When this court sits in diversity, federalism requires us to enforce the substantive law of the forum state, even when we conclude we see a more enlightened path. See Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78, 58 S.Ct. 817, 822, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938) (“Except in matters governed by the Federal Constitution or by acts of Congress, the law to be applied in any case is the law of the state.... [a]nd whether the law of the state shall be declared by its Legislature in a statute or by its highest court in a decision is not a matter of federal concern.”); see also Guaranty Trust v. York, 326 U.S. 99, 110, 65 S.Ct. 1464, 1470-71, 89 L.Ed. 2079 (1945) (“Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins has been applied with an eye alert to essentials in avoiding disregard of State law in diversity cases. A policy so important to our federalism must be kept free from entanglements with analytical or terminological niceties.”), overruled on other grounds by Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U.S. 460, 85 S.Ct. 1136, 14 L.Ed.2d 8 (1965). Federalism proscribes unwarranted federal judicial meddling in state matters because such interference would “prevent the informed evolution of state policy by state tribunals.” Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415, 429-30, 99 S.Ct. 2371, 2380, 81, 60 L.Ed.2d 994 (1979), citing Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U.S. 434, 445, 97 S.Ct. 1911, 1919, 52 L.Ed.2d 486 (1977).
While I appreciate the sound and persuasive policy reasons for limiting access to a risk-utility jury test when a plaintiff has freely undertaken to use a product with obvious risks, the Illinois' Supreme Court, in cases such as Lamkin, 138 Ill.2d at 528, 150 Ill.Dec. at 570, 563 N.E.2d at 457, and Doser, 142 Ill.2d at 197-98, 154 Ill.Dec. at 603, 568 N.E.2d at 824, appears to disagree. In Lam-kin, the Illinois Court defined a defective product as one that fails the risk-utility test. See Lamkin, 138 Ill.2d at 528, 150 Ill.Dec. at 570, 563 N.E.2d at 457. In Doser, the Illinois Court confirmed the appropriateness of the risk-utility test for products with patent dangers. 142 Ill.2d 176, 154 Ill.Dec. at 598, 568 N.E.2d at 819. When analyzing unreasonably dangerous products in Illinois, “[t]he balancing of the likelihood and gravity of harm must be weighted against the burden of the precaution which would be effective to avoid the harm.” Id., citing Burke v. Illinois Power Co., 57 Ill.App.3d 498, 511, 15 Ill.Dec. 670, 683, 373 N.E.2d 1354, 1367 (1st Dist. 1978). As the Illinois Supreme Court explained, in" Illinois, “[wjhether a product is unreasonably dangerous for failure to incorporate safety devices is ordinarily a question of fact which the jury should resolve.” Doser, 142 Ill.2d 176, 154 Ill.Dec. at 599 & 603, 568 N.E.2d at 820 & 824.
Neither Lamkin nor Doser hint at any limitation of the risk-utility doctrine in Illinois. While Scoby, a decision from the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court, may have rejected the risk-utility test as a means of analyzing whether lid-covers are required on cooking pots,1 211 Ill.App.3d 106, 155 Ill. *1415Dec. 536, 540, 569 N.E.2d 1147, 1151 (1991), Scoby cannot in any way constrain Lamkin and Doser. In a hierarchical judiciary, judges of inferior courts may not limit decisions of superior courts, despite their desire to improve the law. See Gacy v. Welborn, 994 F.2d 305, 310 (7th Cir.1993). It is a “fundamental principle of judicial construction that the lower judicial tribunals in Illinois are bound by decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court, and it is the duty of such tribunals to follow those decisions in similar cases.” Greenlee v. Shedd Aquarium, 36 Ill.App.3d 924, 925, 344 N.E.2d 788, 790 (1st Dist.1976) citing Agricultural Transp. Ass’n. v. Carpentier, 2 Ill.2d 19, 116 N.E.2d 863 (1953). Definitive pronouncements of the State’s Supreme Court, such as Lamkin and Doser, are binding upon inferior courts applying State law, “contrary [Illinois] appellate court decisions notwithstanding.” Greenlee, 36 Ill.App.3d at 925, 344 N.E.2d at 790. "Whatever the preferences of this court, the Illinois Supreme Court’s adoption of the risk-utility doctrine should not be refashioned by the interpretive prowess of this tribunal. Thus, I stand by my initial read of Illinois Supreme Court precedent, that Illinois’ law appears to require a risk-utility analysis in product liability cases, and therefore I dissent.

. A close reading of Scoby suggests that the Illinois appellate court may have actually conducted its own risk-utility test and concluded that a reasonable jury could never have found any economically feasible improvements to a cooking pot given the measured amount of risk. See Scoby, 211 Ill.App.3d 106, 155 Ill.Dec. 536, 540, 569 N.E.2d 1147, 1151. Perhaps Scoby reaches the correct result notwithstanding its reasoning.
Scoby tries to illustrate its risk-utility analysis with the point that economics will never force ordinary kitchen knives, with their obvious danger, to have retractable sheaths. However, ten years ago the same might well have been said *1415about the ordinary intravenous medical syringes which were then considered generally unimprovable. Today, because of new circumstances, a panoply of innovative designs, including a retractable sheath, have been provided by the market to protect health care workers from needle sticks.
Classical economic theory teaches that a market is the place for consumers to choose, according to their own information, the appropriate level of safety innovation in their products. Accordingly, the courts, lacking the information consumers have about their own individual circumstances, would be ill-suited for making such safely choices. Any judicially imposed risk-utility tests should be carefully reserved for those rare instances when transaction costs cause the market to fail to provide consumers any meaningful exchange with producers. However, the issue before this court is not economics, but the law in Illinois. My read of Illinois Supreme Court case law suggests that such economic theories are not reflected in its case law.