Court Opinion

ID: 9737117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:16:25.186658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:56.616774
License: Public Domain

Supplemental Opinion Upon Denial of Rehearing JUSTICE BOWMAN delivered the opinion of the court: In a petition for rehearing, plaintiff has brought to our attention a new statute that may have abolished the fireman’s rule. We use the word “may” because, facially, it is not quite clear to us what the statute intends. The statute may intend to impose a duty of reasonable care upon an owner/occupier where none existed under the common law. Alternatively, it may serve as an attempt to codify the portion of the fireman’s rule that places upon an owner/occupier a duty of reasonable care to maintain his or her property so as to prevent injury to a fireman from a cause independent of the emergency. At the moment, the legislative materials that might ordinarily allow us to gain some insight into the legislature’s intent are not yet available. However, we need not belabor the issue by resorting to a long statutory interpretation. Regardless of which interpretation we give the new statute, the result is the same. Defendants cannot be held culpable for their purported negligent acts in causing the explosion.  The new statute came into effect on July 22, 2003, adding section 9f of the Fire Investigation Act (Pub. Act 93 — 233, § 5, eff. July 22, 2003 (adding 425 ILCS 25/9f)). Section 9f provides: “The owner or occupier of the premises and his or her agents owe firefighters who are on the premises in the performance of their official duties conducting fire investigations or inspections or responding to fire alarms or actual fires on the premises a duty of reasonable care in the maintenance of the premises according to the applicable fire safety codes, regulations, ordinances, and generally applicable safety standards, including any decisions by the Illinois courts. The owner or occupier of the premises and his or her agents are not relieved of the duty of reasonable care if the firefighter is injured due to the lack of maintenance of the premises in the course of responding to a fire, false alarm, or his or her inspection or investigation of the premises.” Pub. Act 93 — 233, § 5, eff. July 22, 2003 (adding 425 ILCS 25/90. Section 9f goes on to state that this provision applies to “all causes of action that have accrued, will accrue, or are currently pending before a court of competent jurisdiction, including courts of review.” Pub. Act 93 — 233, § 5, eff. July 22, 2003 (adding 425 ILCS 25/9f). Defendants maintain that the provision applying section 9f retroactively is unconstitutional.  Recently, in Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Will County Collector, 196 Ill. 2d 27 (2001), our supreme court adopted the approach to retroactivity endorsed by the United States Supreme Court in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 128 L. Ed. 2d 229, 114 S. Ct. 1483 (1994). Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 38-40. Under the Landgraf test, a clear expression by the legislature regarding a statute’s temporal reach should be given effect, unless the constitution prohibits it. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 38. The old approach, as set forth in First of America Trust Co. v. Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d 282, 289 (1996), provided that an amended law could not be retroactively applied if the application of the change in the law would affect a vested right. Vested rights are interests that are protected from legislative interference by Illinois’s due process clause (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 2). Armstead, 171 Ill. 2d at 289. “While a vested right is difficult to define, it has frequently been defined to consist of something more than a mere expectation, based upon an anticipated continuance of the existing law, and it must have become a title, legal or equitable, to the present or future enjoyment of property, or to the present or future enjoyment of the demand, or a legal exception from a demand made by another.” Harraz v. Snyder, 283 Ill. App. 3d 254, 262 (1996). The most factually relevant case to the present matter is Henrich v. Libertyville High School, 186 Ill. 2d 381 (1998). There, a student injured in physical education class sued the school district based on its negligent and willful and wanton misconduct. Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 384-85. After his claims were dismissed, the plaintiff challenged the dismissal of his claim alleging willful and wanton misconduct. Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 386. In its initial opinion, the supreme court determined that the Tort Immunity Act barred plaintiffs willful and wanton claim. Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 395. However, a day before the court issued its opinion, the legislature amended the Tort Immunity Act to permit claims of willful and wanton misconduct against school districts. Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 403. The plaintiff argued that the amended statute should be applied, thereby efiminating the school district’s immunity. Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 403. In a supplemental opinion, the court decided that the amended statute did not apply because the school district had a vested right to total immunity as provided by the unamended statute. Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 404. The court explained that an exemption from a demand or an immunity from prosecution in a suit is as valuable to a party as the right to enforce a demand or proceed with prosecution is to another party. Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 404. Thus, a vested ground of defense, like a vested cause of action, is fully protected from being cut off or destroyed by an act of the legislature. Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 404-05. The court concluded that the amended statute “cannot reach back and take that vested right away, impose a new duty on the school district, and breathe life into this previously barred claim.” Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 405.  Later, in Commonwealth Edison Co., the supreme court expounded upon its original holding in Henrich in light of the fact that it had adopted the Landgraf approach to retroactivity. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 45-49. In the court’s view, Hen-rich remained relevant insofar as it defined the interests that are protected from legislative interference by the due process clause of the Illinois Constitution. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 47. However, the court added that there is more to assessing whether the due process clause has been violated than merely determining whether a right is vested or nonvested. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 47. Rather, the court explained as follows: “ ‘[T]he question of the validity of the application of a statute rests on subtle judgments concerning the fairness or unfairness of applying the new statutory rule to affect interests which accrued out of events which transpired when a different prior rule of law was in force. One fundamental consideration of fairness is that settled expectations honestly arrived at with respect to substantial interests ought not to be defeated. [Citation.] The determination of whether the application of the statute unreasonably infringes upon the rights of those to whom it applies involves a balancing and discrimination between reasons for and against the application of the statute to this class of individuals.’ ” Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 47, quoting Moore v. Jackson Park Hospital, 95 Ill. 2d 223, 241-42 (1983). In the end, the court concluded that Henrich had been correctly decided. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 48-49. It explained that applying the amendment to the Tort Immunity Act would have meant imposing a period of retroactivity on the school district of almost four years. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 48. It also would have meant resurrecting a claim that had previously been barred in its entirety. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 48. Thus, the “subtle judgments concerning fairness” required that the school district’s settled expectations not be disturbed. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 48-49. In the simplest scenario of the present case, section 9f can be viewed as an attempt by the legislature to codify the portion of the fireman’s rule that places upon an owner/occupier a duty of reasonable care to maintain his or her property so as to prevent injury to a fireman from a cause independent of the emergency. See Washington v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 66 Ill. 2d 103, 108 (1976). Section 9f states that an owner or occupier owes “firefighters who are on the premises in the performance of their official duties *** a duty of reasonable care in the maintenance of the premises.” Pub. Act 93 — 233, § 5, eff. July 22, 2003 (adding 425 ILCS 25/9f). Arguably, section 9f imposes no greater duty than previously existed under the common-law version of the fireman’s rule. For instance, under the fireman’s rule, an owner/ occupier already owed a duty of “reasonable care in the maintenance of the premises.” See, e.g., Dini v. Naiditch, 20 Ill. 2d 406, 416-17 (1960) (stating that “an action should lie against a landowner for failure to exercise reasonable care in the maintenance of his property”). Moreover, section 9f does not expressly declare that the common-law fireman’s rule has been abolished. This is in contrast to other statutes like section 2 of the Premises Liability Act (740 ILCS 130/2 (West 2002)), which expressly abolished the common-law distinction between invitees and licensees. 740 ILCS 130/2 (West 2002). Thus, if section 9f merely codifies the fireman’s rule, it does not impose any additional duties upon defendants. Consequently, it is unnecessary to discuss this interpretation any further.  The important question posed by section 9f is whether the duty of reasonable care extends to the scenario where a lack of proper maintenance causes the emergency situation in which the firefighter is hurt. To answer this question, section 9f can be viewed as imposing a broad duty of care, covering all situations, even where no duty previously existed. The second sentence of section 9f significantly advances this interpretation. There, section 9f states that an owner/occupier is not “relieved of the duty of reasonable care if the firefighter is injured due to a lack of maintenance of the premises in the course of responding to a fire, false alarm, or his or her inspection or investigation of the premises.” Pub. Act 93 — 233, § 5, eff. July 22, 2003 (adding 425 ILCS 25/9Í). Unfortunately, if this language serves as an attempt to abolish the fireman’s rule, section 9f incorporates an incorrect conception of the common-law rule. The fireman’s rule does not “reheve” an owner/occupier of a duty of reasonable care. The word “reheve” suggests that a duty, already in place, is being removed, or that the owner/ occupier is availing himself of a defense to the imposition of a duty. However, “[ujnlike an affirmative defense, the ‘fireman’s rule’ does not presuppose the existence of an otherwise valid cause of action.” Vroegh v. J&M Forklift, 165 Ill. 2d 523, 530 (1995). Rather, the rule “goes to the threshold question of whether an owner or occupier of land has any duty to fire fighters injured while fighting a fire on his premises. Where the rule applies, it means that no duty is imposed by the law.” Vroegh, 165 Ill. 2d at 530. Nonetheless, if section 9f does intend to abolish the fireman’s rule, it cannot be retroactively applied to defendants to impose a duty upon them that did not previously exist. Defendants in this case had a vested right to total immunity from the prosecution of plaintiffs negligence claim. See Henrich, 186 Ill. 2d at 404; see also Harraz, 283 Ill. App. 3d at 256-57 (applying a vested rights analysis where the vested right was derived from the common law, and later taken away by a statute). Under the fairness considerations of Commonwealth Edison Co., plaintiffs cause of action accrued on April 29, 1999, the date of the explosion. Section 9f s effective date was July 22, 2003. We would be imposing a new duty upon defendants approximately four years and three months after the accident occurred. By comparison, in Commonwealth Edison Co.’s examination of Henrich, the court found it unreasonable to retroactively impose a duty where the amendatory statute took effect less than four years after the student’s cause of action accrued against the school district. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 48. The supreme court further found it unreasonable that a claim that was once barred should be resurrected. Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 48. We have a similar situation in this case. Thus, the “subtle judgments concerning fairness” require that defendants’ settled expectations not be disturbed. See Commonwealth Edison Co., 196 Ill. 2d at 48-49. We conclude that defendants’ due process rights would be violated by retroactively using section 9f to allow plaintiffs negligence claim to proceed. Accordingly, we refuse to do so. O’MALLEY, P.J., and CALLUM, J., concur.