Court Opinion

ID: 9519161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:10:36.589544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:43:51.332445
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE INGLIS, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the majority and would affirm the order of the circuit court. I believe the result reached by the majority in this case imposes an unreasonable duty on IBC. The majority concludes that, by taking an active role in the events surrounding plaintiffs’ injuries, it was reasonable for IBC to foresee that the vehicle in which plaintiffs were occupying would speed through a stop sign and would collide with another vehicle. The test here is whether the first wrongdoer reasonably might have anticipated the intervening cause as a natural and probable result of its own wrongdoing. Lindenmier v. City of Rockford, 156 Ill. App. 3d 76, 91 (1987). I do not believe IBC reasonably could have anticipated that the vehicle plaintiffs were occupying would disregard the law merely because they were participating in a game. " 'As a practical matter, legal responsibility must be limited to those causes which are so closely connected with the result and of such significance that the law is justified in imposing liability.’ ” Novander v. City of Morris, 181 Ill. App. 3d 1076, 1080 (1989), quoting W. Prosser, Torts § 41, at 236 (4th ed. 1971). After concluding that there is a foundation for proximate cause, the majority further imposes a duty on IBC to inspect the route of the treasure hunt for obscured stop signs, a step not mandated by their analysis of foreseeability. The implications of this result would foreclose all group-sponsored activity using vehicles. The duty imposed by the majority would seemingly require IBC to trim foliage obscuring stop signs. Is IBC to undertake the responsibility of the agencies to which we pay our tax dollars to maintain the public highways? The costs and consequences of creating such a duty are great. In this case, I would affirm the dismissal of the Village’s complaint against IBC on the issue of proximate cause.