Court Opinion

ID: 9541683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:27:51.149827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:04:28.887918
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION STOUDER, J. I do not agree with the majority of the court. My disagreement is limited to the narrow issue upon which the result reached by the majority rests, namely that evidence of special injury was insufficient to require the issue to be submitted to the jury. In my opinion, there is ample evidence in the record supporting the contention that plaintiff sustained a special injury as a direct result of defendant’s misconduct. If plaintiff lost his job as a result of the service of the wage demand on plaintiff’s employer by defendant, the plaintiff has sustained a special injury and the majority of the court does not dispute this conclusion. The question posed is whether or not the evidence tends to show this cause and effect relationship. The evidence is substantially undisputed, (1) that a wage demand was served on plaintiff’s employer, (2) that plaintiff’s employer did not honor wage demands, (3) that plaintiff was discharged shortly after the wage demand was served and (4) plaintiff’s supervisor, the only person testifying having personal knowledge thereof, indicated that plaintiff’s job performance was satisfactory and that the (supervisor) had made no complaint with respect thereto. The above evidence standing alone amply tends to prove the cause and effect relationship, and in my opinion is quite sufficient to support a jury’s verdict in favor of plaintiff. The prima facie case so presented required that the issue be resolved by the jury. The majority opinion ignores the legal effect of plaintiff’s evidence and instead relies on an assertion of Gade (an employee of plaintiff’s employer) that plaintiff was not discharged as the result of the wage demand. Both the trial court and the majority of this court in accepting the statement of Gade as conclusive have improperly weighed the evidence and substituted their opinions on an issue which ought to have been resolved by the jury. It also appears according to the majority opinion, that the only evidence which could support the cause and effect relation in question would be direct testimony that plaintiff’s employer told plaintiff or someone else that plaintiff was discharged solely on account of the service of a wage demand. This to me places an intolerable burden upon the plaintiff and as indicated in Freides v. Sani-Mode Mfg. Co., 33 Ill2d 291, 211 NE2d 286 (dealing with probable cause) no such burden is required or necessary. Employers may or may not give reasons for the discharge of employees, and even where a reason is given, it may or may not be true. That other evidence might be more persuasive if it existed ought not to deprive a litigant of the probative value of that evidence which is available and which tends to prove the issue involved.