Court Opinion

ID: 9555901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-15 17:00:52.414629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:36:29.988984
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 22-2825
JASON BURNS,
                                                  Plaintiff-Appellant,
                                 v.

SHERWIN-WILLIAMS CO.,
                                                 Defendant-Appellee.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
           Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
            No. 1:19-cv-5258 — Steven C. Seeger, Judge.
                     ____________________

     ARGUED APRIL 19, 2023 — DECIDED AUGUST 15, 2023
                 ____________________

   Before HAMILTON, BRENNAN, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.
    KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. Jason Burns, a truck driver, injured
himself while delivering products to a Sherwin-Williams
paint supply store. Burns and a store employee used the com-
pany’s walkie—a hand-operated electric forklift—to move
pallets holding the products from Burns’s truck, up a small
ramp, and into the store’s warehouse. When they ﬁnished un-
loading, Burns backed the walkie down the ramp in reverse
to return the now-empty pallets to his truck. He moved in the
2                                                 No. 22-2825

direction of a dumpster and other pallets that were laying on
the ground beside it. But as he approached the pallets and
dumpster, Burns miscalculated how long it would take to
stop the walkie. He failed to stop it as he approached the pal-
lets, trapping his foot and breaking his ankle.
    Burns sued Sherwin-Williams, alleging that the company
failed to exercise ordinary care by leaving the empty pallets
in the work area and providing an unsafe walkie. Sherwin-
Williams moved for summary judgment, arguing that it owed
no duty to Burns under Illinois law and that Burns had failed
to produce evidence suggesting that the walkie was unsafe.
Sherwin-Williams also moved to exclude one of Burns’s ex-
perts, arguing that the expert’s opinions were unreliable and
unhelpful. The district court granted both motions, and Burns
now appeals. We aﬃrm.
                               I
    Jason Burns worked as a truck driver for a transportation
management company. As part of his job, he delivered prod-
ucts to various Sherwin-Williams stores and helped with the
unloading process. In May 2018, Burns made a delivery to the
Sherwin-Williams store in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Burns drove
to the back of the store and backed up in front of the garage.
A ramp with a slight slope of about four degrees led from the
parking area up to the garage door. A large dumpster was
No. 22-2825                                                 3

located several feet to the right of the ramp. The photograph
below shows their relative locations.

The scene looked a little diﬀerent on the day of the accident,
however. Unlike in the photograph above, in which there is
just one pallet beside the dumpster, there were multiple pal-
lets stacked alongside the dumpster when Burns made his de-
livery. These pallets were about three to four feet from the
slope’s edge, as shown in the next photograph (which we’ve
rotated for an easier view).
4                                                  No. 22-2825

    When Burns arrived at the store, the only Sherwin-Wil-
liams employee on site, Ramiro Bahena, came out to help un-
load the products from the pallets. Burns climbed inside the
trailer and moved the pallets to the edge of the truck. Bahena
then used a walkie forklift—which is depicted in the photo-
graph above—to lift the pallets out of the truck and move
them up the small ramp into the warehouse.
   A walkie diﬀers from a prototypical forklift. It has the rec-
ognizable set of forks for moving freight but is much smaller
than a standard forklift, and its operator walks behind it ra-
ther than in or on it (hence, “walkie”). The operator controls
the walkie’s direction with a thumb switch. Walkies can stop
one of two ways. The ﬁrst is by triggering the emergency
No. 22-2825                                                    5

brake, designed to bring the machine to an immediate stop.
Alternatively, the operator can push the thumb switch in the
opposite direction, which will slow the walkie to a stop before
beginning to move in the new direction. This method is
known as “plugging.”
    Burns and Bahena repeated this process of unloading pal-
lets a few times. At one point, Bahena went inside the store to
answer a phone call. Burns began manning the walkie him-
self, as he had done during prior deliveries to this store. After
unloading the last pallet from the truck, Burns went to re-
trieve the empty pallets from inside the warehouse. He drove
the walkie up the ramp, entered the garage, and lifted the
empty pallets. Burns then backed the walkie down the ramp.
Since he was moving in a forks-trailing direction, Burns
needed to rotate the walkie 180 degrees to align the load of
empty pallets with his truck. He planned to do a three-point
turn by backing towards the dumpster. Things did not go as
planned.
    As Burns backed up, he looked all around to try to avoid
hitting anything. But Burns miscalculated how long it would
take to stop the walkie as he approached the pallets. He ﬁrst
tried to come to a gradual stop by plugging the walkie for-
ward. When he noticed the walkie wasn’t stopping fast
enough, he pulled the emergency brake. By then it was too
late: Burns wedged his right foot between the machine and
the discarded pallets, causing him to fall backwards and
break his right ankle.
   Burns sued Sherwin-Williams in state court, alleging that
the company failed to exercise ordinary care by leaving the
empty pallets in the work area and that it provided an unsafe
walkie. Sherwin-Williams removed the case to federal court
6                                                   No. 22-2825

based on diversity jurisdiction. After the close of discovery,
Sherwin-Williams moved to exclude one of Burns’s experts,
Christopher Ferrone, who oﬀered multiple opinions about the
safety of the worksite and the machine. Sherwin-Williams ar-
gued that Ferrone’s opinions—most of which were based on
a series of tests he performed on the walkie—were unreliable
and unhelpful under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Sherwin-
Williams also moved for summary judgment, arguing (1) that
it owed no duty to Burns because the pallets were an open
and obvious condition that he could have avoided himself,
and (2) that Burns failed to produce evidence suggesting that
the walkie was unsafe. The district court resolved both mo-
tions in Sherwin-Williams’s favor, and Burns now appeals.
We address each motion in turn.
                               II
    We start with the question of whether the district court
erred when it granted summary judgment to Sherwin-Wil-
liams. We review this decision de novo. Ross v. First Fin. Corp.
Servs., Inc., 60 F.4th 1046, 1049 (7th Cir. 2023). Summary judg-
ment is appropriate when “there is no genuine dispute as to
any material fact” and the moving party “is entitled to judg-
ment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). In applying this
standard, we draw all reasonable inferences in the light most
favorable to Burns, the nonmoving party. See McCarty v.
Menard, Inc., 927 F.3d 468, 471 (7th Cir. 2019). Burns’s claims
are governed by Illinois law, so “our role is to decide ques-
tions of state law as we predict the Illinois Supreme Court
would decide them.” Sutula-Johnson v. Oﬀ. Depot, Inc., 893
F.3d 967, 971 (7th Cir. 2018).
   Burns argues that Sherwin-Williams was careless when it
placed the discarded pallets by the dumpster, just a few feet
No. 22-2825                                                   7

from the ramp, and that the pallets posed a hazard to work-
ers such as himself. Burns has not speciﬁcally framed this ar-
gument as either a negligence or a premises liability claim,
keeping the door open to both possibilities. But under either
theory, Sherwin-Williams cannot be held liable unless it owed
Burns a duty of care to protect him from the discarded pallets.
McCarty, 927 F.3d at 471; Bruns v. City of Centralia, 21 N.E.3d
684, 688−89 (Ill. 2014). Whether a duty exists is a question of
law for the court to decide. Bruns, 21 N.E.3d at 689. And be-
cause we conclude that Sherwin-Williams did not owe a duty
to Burns, our analysis ends there.
    To determine whether a defendant owed the plaintiﬀ a
duty of care, Illinois law considers four factors: “(1) the rea-
sonable foreseeability of the injury, (2) the likelihood of the
injury, (3) the magnitude of the burden of guarding against
the injury, and (4) the consequences of placing that burden on
the defendant.” Id. at 689. If a hazard would be considered an
open and obvious danger to a reasonable person, this aﬀects
how we view the ﬁrst two factors (foreseeability and likeli-
hood of injury). McCarty, 927 F.3d at 471. The open and obvi-
ous doctrine is an objective inquiry that considers whether a
reasonable person with the plaintiﬀ’s knowledge of the situa-
tion would appreciate the risk and know to avoid the hazard.
Id. If so, we consider the risk of harm slight and expect that
person to avoid the hazard on their own. As long as the facts
are undisputed, it is a question of law whether the open and
obvious doctrine applies. Bruns, 21 N.E.3d at 690.
   Burns concedes that the discarded pallets were an open
and obvious condition but argues that the doctrine’s deliber-
ate encounter exception applies. This exception applies
“where the possessor of land has reason to expect that the
8                                                     No. 22-2825

invitee will proceed to encounter the known or obvious dan-
ger because to a reasonable man in his position the ad-
vantages of doing so would outweigh the apparent risk.”
Dunn v. Menard, 880 F.3d 899, 908 (7th Cir. 2018) (cleaned up)
(quoting Sollami v. Eaton, 772 N.E.2d 215, 223 (Ill. 2002)).
Courts most commonly apply the deliberate encounter excep-
tion in circumstances involving some economic compulsion,
such as when a worker “‘is forced to choose between facing
danger and neglecting his duties’ to an employer.” Dunn, 880
F.3d at 908-09 (quoting Atchley v. Univ. of Chi. Med. Ctr., 64
N.E.3d 781, 791 (Ill. App. Ct. 2016)); see also Kleiber v. Freeport
Farm & Fleet, Inc., 942 N.E.2d 640, 648 (Ill. App. Ct. 2010)
(“The deliberate-encounter exception recognizes that individ-
uals will make deliberate choices to encounter hazards when
faced with employment concerns and that those encounters
are reasonably foreseeable by possessors of property.”). The
focus is on “what the landowner anticipates or should antici-
pate the entrant will do.” Kleiber, 942 N.E.2d at 648.
    Burns argues that the district court erred in concluding
that the deliberate encounter exception did not apply and that
the foreseeability and likelihood of injury were slight. The dis-
trict court framed its analysis in terms of whether Burns was
obligated to unload the truck in the manner that he did, by
backing the walkie towards the discarded pallets and dump-
ster. The court concluded that, because Burns could have
done the job without encountering the danger by reversing
away from the pallets, the deliberate encounter exception did
not apply.
    On appeal, Burns contends that the district court misap-
plied Illinois law by focusing on the reasonableness of his ac-
tions rather than Sherwin-Williams’s. He emphasizes that
No. 22-2825                                                     9

Illinois law adjudges foreseeability from the perspective of
what the landowner may reasonably expect the invitee would
do in the face of the hazard, rather than from the plaintiﬀ’s
perspective. See LaFever v. Kemlite Co., 706 N.E.2d 441, 448 (Ill.
1998). But an analysis of what a landowner may reasonably
expect necessarily requires us to also consider the reasonable-
ness of the plaintiﬀ’s actions. Hastings v. Exline, 760 N.E.2d
993, 997 (Ill. App. Ct. 2001) (clarifying that while we look to
what the landowner could have reasonably anticipated,
“analysis under the deliberate encounter doctrine must in-
volve at least some focus on the actions and motivations of the
entrant.”); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343A cmt. f (1965)
(allowing recovery when the landowner “has treason to ex-
pect that the invitee will proceed to encounter the known or
obvious danger because to a reasonable man in his position
the advantages of doing so would outweigh the apparent
risk”) (relied upon in LaFever, 706 N.E.2d at 448). For instance,
if a plaintiﬀ’s chosen course of action was completely unrea-
sonable, we cannot say that the defendant should have rea-
sonably foreseen the risk of harm. Here, the question is
whether Sherwin-Williams should have reasonably foreseen
that Burns would back up in the direction of the pallets be-
cause there was some advantage to doing so that outweighed
the obvious risk. See Dunn, 880 F.3d at 908.
   Burns focuses much of his argument on Ralls v. Village of
Glendale Heights, 598 N.E.2d 337 (Ill. App. Ct. 1992). There,
construction workers repeatedly used an ice-covered incline
on a jobsite to access a particular area, even though a safer
route existed. Id. at 341. When a foreman slipped and fell, he
sued and successfully invoked the deliberate encounter ex-
ception. Id. at 341, 345. The court reasoned that since the other
path was inconvenient, requiring workers to walk around the
10                                                  No. 22-2825

entire perimeter of the site, “it was reasonably foreseeable that
workers would use the shortest path.” Id. at 344. Burns’s situ-
ation is diﬀerent. Unlike the workers in Ralls, Burns gained no
advantage by backing the walkie towards the discarded pal-
lets. He could have just as easily backed up in the opposite
direction and completely avoided any danger posed by the
pallets. Both paths were of equal (short) length, and required
the same amount of time and eﬀort, yet Burns chose the more
dangerous one. We cannot say that this is a choice Sherwin-
Williams should have reasonably foreseen. Accordingly, the
deliberate encounter exception does not apply and the ﬁrst
two factors (foreseeability and likelihood of injury) weigh
against ﬁnding a duty.
    The open and obvious exception is not a per se bar to ﬁnd-
ing a duty, see id., so we must turn to the third and fourth
factors: the magnitude of the burden of guarding against the
injury and the consequences of placing that duty on the de-
fendant. Burns argues that requiring Sherwin-Williams to
place the pallets elsewhere would impose only a minimal bur-
den that is naturally placed on them. Maybe, but even so, this
is not enough to outweigh a ﬁnding that the foreseeability and
likelihood of harm were slight because of the open and obvi-
ous nature of the pallets. See Caselberry v. Home Depot U.S.A.,
Inc., 2019 WL 10894136, at *3 (N.D. Ill. 2019) (“Possessors of
land almost never owe a duty to their invitees to protect
against open and obvious dangers because the foreseeability
and likelihood of injury are so low.”). The pallets needed to
be disposed of and had to go somewhere, the natural place
being by the dumpster. We ﬁnd no reason to micromanage
their exact placement. To do so would impose an unreasona-
ble consequence on landowners unsupported by Illinois law.
Accordingly, Sherwin-Williams did not owe Burns a duty of
No. 22-2825                                                     11

care, so his claims related to the discarded pallets must fail.
This leaves only Burns’s claims related to the safety of the
walkie.
                                III
     We next consider whether the district court erred in ex-
cluding Christopher Ferrone’s expert testimony. Burns relied
on Ferrone to support his theory that the walkie was unsafe
and unsuitable for the job. Though his expert report oﬀered a
list of twelve “opinions/conclusions,” they can essentially be
condensed into two. Ferrone opined (1) that the walkie failed
to stop fast enough and (2) that the proximity of the discarded
pallets to the ramp rendered the worksite unsafe. The district
court found that Ferrone was qualiﬁed as an expert but that
his opinions failed to satisfy the requirements of Federal Rule
of Evidence 702. We agree.
    Rule 702 provides that a qualiﬁed expert witness may oﬀer
an opinion only if: (a) the expert’s scientiﬁc, technical, or other
specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand
the evidence or to determine a fact in issue; (b) the testimony
is based on suﬃcient facts or data; (c) the testimony is the
product of reliable principles and methods; and (d) the expert
has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of
the case. Anderson v. Raymond Corp., 61 F.4th 505, 508 (7th Cir.
2023). When analyzing whether an expert’s reasoning or
methodology is scientiﬁcally valid, some factors we consider
are: “(1) whether the particular scientiﬁc theory can be (and
has been) tested; (2) whether the theory has been subjected to
peer review and publication; (3) the known or potential rate
of error; (4) the existence and maintenance of standards con-
trolling the technique’s operation; and (5) whether the
12                                                  No. 22-2825

technique has achieved general acceptance in the relevant sci-
entiﬁc or expert community.” Id. at 509 (cleaned up).
    When reviewing a district court’s exclusion of expert tes-
timony, we ﬁrst assess whether the court adhered to Rule 702
in coming to its decision. Id. If it applied the proper standard,
we review the court’s decision with deference and will not
disturb its ﬁndings “unless they are manifestly erroneous—
that is, only if they amount to an abuse of discretion.” Id. But
when we conclude that the court did not adhere to Rule 702,
we review de novo. Id. Here, we conclude that the district
court properly applied Rule 702, so we review for abuse of
discretion.
    Ferrone’s opinion regarding the safety of the walkie was
based on a series of tests. In each test, Ferrone’s assistant
drove an unloaded walkie before either braking or plugging.
Ferrone then estimated both the time and distance it took the
walkie to stop. Ferrone believed that most tests revealed no
problems, with the machine stopping quickly. But Ferrone
was troubled by the results of Test 12, which was designed to
mimic the accident. This test consisted of four runs on the site
of the accident, outside the garage and on the ramp. Ferrone’s
assistant backed the walkie down the ramp and initiated a
stop by plugging (as Burns did on the day of the accident).
Ferrone did not take any measurements for two of the runs,
believing that the machine stopped in an appropriately quick
manner. But for the other two runs, Ferrone estimated that it
took longer (approximately 60 to 64 inches) for the machine
to come to a stop. In his opinion, this extended distance indi-
cated a defect.
   The district court correctly concluded that Ferrone’s ﬁrst
opinion—that the walkie did not stop fast enough and was
No. 22-2825                                                   13

therefore unsuitable for use—was unreliable under Rule 702.
It is neither “based on suﬃcient facts or data” nor “the prod-
uct of reliable principles and methods.” Fed. R. Evid. 702. A
key problem with Ferrone’s opinion is that there is no indus-
try standard for how long it should take for a walkie to stop
while plugging. Ferrone and both parties agree that the only
standard provided in the machine’s equipment manual is that
a fully loaded walkie moving at full speed should stop within
approximately 68 inches after braking. The manual says noth-
ing about how long it should take to stop when not fully
loaded or by plugging rather than braking. Ferrone testiﬁed
that since the equipment manual states the machine will stop
within 68 inches when fully loaded, it should take less time
when not fully loaded. He also insisted that 60 to 64 inches is
too long. But there is nothing Ferrone can point to in support
of this conclusion. And when asked in his deposition what he
believed a safe stopping distance would be, he testiﬁed, “I ha-
ven’t really considered it since you asked this question. I don’t
know.” The issue is not just that Ferrone fails to support some
arbitrary line that he has drawn, but that Ferrone cannot even
say where to draw it. He simply claims that wherever that line
may be, 60 to 64 inches is on the wrong side.
   Given all of this uncertainty, the district court did not
abuse its discretion in excluding Ferrone’s opinion regarding
the safety of the machine as unreliable under Rule 702. The
opinion cannot be tested and is not subject to peer review, we
cannot determine an error rate for the tests, and the assertion
that 60 to 64 inches is too far is not generally accepted in the
industry. Anderson, 61 F.4th at 509 (citing Daubert v. Merrell
Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579,593–94 (1993)). Instead, it is a
bare conclusion which was properly excluded. C.W. ex rel.
Wood v. Textron, Inc., 807 F.3d 827, 834 (7th Cir. 2015) (“When
14                                                  No. 22-2825

a district court concludes that there is simply too great an an-
alytical gap between the data and opinion proﬀered such that
the opinion amounts to nothing more than the ipse dixit of the
expert, it is not an abuse of discretion under Daubert to ex-
clude that testimony.”) (cleaned up). Ferrone also opined that
Sherwin-Williams failed to maintain the braking system on
the walkie and failed to inspect the equipment. But he pro-
vides no support or foundation for these opinions. He only
recites facts of the case without providing an analysis. Ac-
cordingly, this testimony is inadmissible as well. Metavante
Corp. v. Emigrant Sav. Bank, 619 F.3d 748, 761 (7th Cir. 2010)
(an expert “cannot simply assert a ‘bottom line.’”) (citation
omitted).
    Ferrone’s second opinion fails to satisfy a diﬀerent ele-
ment of Rule 702: helpfulness. An expert witness may not of-
fer an opinion unless “the expert’s scientiﬁc, technical, or
other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to un-
derstand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” Fed. R.
Evid. 702. Ferrone opined that Sherwin-Williams failed to
keep its dock area in a reasonably safe condition because it
allowed oversized, discarded pallets to lay by the dumpster.
But this observation is entirely unhelpful because a factﬁnder
is equally able to assess the risk posed by the pallets. The pho-
tos speak for themselves. Thus, the district court was well
within its discretion to exclude this opinion.
   Burns conceded at argument that he cannot prove the
walkie was unsafe without Ferrone’s testimony. Because we
hold that Ferrone’s report was properly excluded, Burns’s
product liability claims related to the walkie must fail.
                                                      AFFIRMED
No. 22-2825                                                    15

    HAMILTON, Circuit Judge, dissenting. I agree with my col-
leagues that summary judgment for defendant was proper on
plaintiﬀ’s claims relating to the “walkie” forklift. The majority
opinion correctly explains why plaintiﬀ’s expert testimony
was properly excluded. Without that testimony there is no
dispute of material fact regarding the forklift. But we should
reverse summary judgment on plaintiﬀ’s claims for negli-
gence and premises liability. Those issues should be decided
by a jury. Our duty under Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304
U.S. 64 (1938), is to abjure creating a federal law of Illinois
torts. We should instead do our best to follow decisions of Il-
linois courts on these issues.
    The district court held as a matter of law that the “deliber-
ate encounter” exception to the “open and obvious danger”
doctrine did not apply to this case. The court reached that con-
clusion because plaintiﬀ oﬀered no evidence that he had no
choice in which direction he turned the forklift. The court
wrote that the “existence of a choice — a safe path around the
danger — means that the exception does not apply.” Burns v.
Sherwin-Williams Co., 2022 WL 4329417, at *9 (N.D. Ill. Sept.
18, 2022). “The exception does not apply if [Burns] could have
done his job without encountering the danger.” Id. (emphasis
in original).
    That statement of Illinois law is just ﬂat wrong. In LaFever
v. Kemlite Co., 706 N.E.2d 441 (Ill. 1998), the plaintiﬀ was doing
his job picking up waste materials at the defendant’s factory.
He was hurt when he fell on some waste material that was
dangerously slippery. The defendant argued that the danger
was open and obvious and that the deliberate encounter ex-
ception could not apply unless there was no reasonable alter-
native available to the plaintiﬀ’s encountering the dangerous
16                                                   No. 22-2825

condition. The Illinois Supreme Court squarely rejected that
proposal: “The test proposed by Kemlite would require a
court to decide foreseeability by measuring the reasonable-
ness of the entrant's actions, and not those of the landowner,
even though the Restatement plainly requires otherwise.” Id.
at 448, citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343A, comment
f (Am. L. Inst. 1965).
    On that basis, the Illinois Supreme Court aﬃrmed a plain-
tiﬀ’s verdict in a premises liability case where the injured
plaintiﬀ had a reasonable alternative available to him but his
deliberate encounter with the risk was still foreseeable. Ac-
cord, Morrissey v. Arlington Park Racecourse, LLC, 404 Ill. App.
3d 711, 343 Ill. Dec. 636, 935 N.E.2d 644, 656–57 (Ill. App. 2010)
(reversing summary judgment for defendant, discussing La-
Fever, and rejecting defendant’s argument “that the deliberate
encounter exception applies only to situations where no rea-
sonable alternative is provided to the plaintiﬀ” because La-
Fever “speciﬁcally addressed and rejected” that argument);
Ralls v. Village of Glendale Heights, 598 N.E.2d 337, 344–45 (Ill.
App. 1992) (reversing summary judgment for defendant; de-
liberate encounter exception was available where workman
was injured in taking shorter but ice-covered path, despite
presence of alternative safer path). The district court here did
not cite these decisions by Illinois courts on the scope of the
“deliberate encounter” exception.
   A decision based on such a clear mistake in applying state
law should lead us to reverse. The error was not harmless be-
cause it was the fulcrum of the district court’s decision. The
majority opinion nevertheless aﬃrms by assuming in eﬀect
that the Illinois Supreme Court did not actually mean what it
said in LaFever. The majority opinion focuses on whether
No. 22-2825                                                                 17

plaintiﬀ acted reasonably in backing the forklift in the direc-
tion of the dumpster and the pallets lying around it. Ante at
9, citing not LaFever but Hastings v. Exline, 760 N.E.2d 993, 997
(Ill. App. 2001).
    In applying the deliberate encounter exception, Illinois
courts have consistently rejected the “no alternative” require-
ment in cases where the injured visitor was doing his or her
job and was, in the language of the cases, facing “economic
compulsion” or “employment concerns.” That was true in La-
Fever, Morrissey, and Ralls. It was also true in Atchley v. Univer-
sity of Chicago Medical Ctr., 64 N.E.3d 781, 793–94 (Ill. App.
2016) (reversing summary judgment for defendant); Grillo v.
Yeager Construction, 900 N.E.2d 1249, 1268 (Ill. App. 2008) (af-
ﬁrming verdict for injured workman); and Preze v. Borden
Chemical, Inc., 782 N.E.2d 710, 715 (Ill. App. 2002) (reversing
summary judgment in part: “the scope of a defendant’s duty
is not deﬁned by plaintiﬀ’s negligence”). 1
    The majority opinion does not address these cases involv-
ing injuries on the job where the Illinois courts reject the “no
alternative” requirement. The majority opinion relies instead
on Hastings, where the injured plaintiﬀ was a social visitor
(the property owner’s daughter-in-law). For at least two rea-
sons, Hastings is not a reliable guide for our “Erie prediction”

    1 The only arguable exception involving a person injured while doing

his job seems to be Lucasey v. Plattner, 28 N.E.3d 1046, 1057 (Ill. App. 2015),
where the relationship between property owner and visitor was very dif-
ferent. The injured plaintiff had been hired to appraise the value of a
house. He was hurt when he fell off a snow-covered retaining wall and
sued the homeowners. The court affirmed summary judgment for the
owners, saying they had no reason at all to expect that the appraiser would
choose to climb on top of that wall as part of his appraisal.
18                                                   No. 22-2825

about Illinois law here. First, as the cases cited above show,
the Illinois courts have been much more receptive to the de-
liberate encounter exception—without insisting on proof that
the plaintiﬀ had no reasonable alternative—in cases like this
one where the plaintiﬀ was injured in the course of his or her
employment. Hastings was diﬀerent and applied a diﬀerent
standard. Second, the court’s opinion in Hastings shows its
disagreement with the Illinois Supreme Court’s reasoning in
LaFever. Id. at 996–97 (noting “tension” in LaFever and Ralls,
“unexplained” points in Ralls, and “undeveloped” question
in LaFever, Ralls, and Restatement). The Hastings court’s re-
sistance to LaFever shows it is not a reliable guide on this point
of Illinois law, especially in course-of-employment cases.
   The majority opinion concludes its discussion of the delib-
erate encounter exception in a paragraph that balances risks
and burdens, concluding that plaintiﬀ acted unreasonably.
Ante at 10. That passage might be eﬀective as a closing argu-
ment to a jury about comparative fault, but it should not be
used to take the deliberate encounter issue away from a jury.
    This reluctance to apply LaFever—especially when the
plaintiﬀ has been injured in the course of employment—
seems surprisingly entrenched in federal courts in Illinois.
Like the district court, the majority opinion relies on federal
district court decisions applying or rejecting the deliberate en-
counter exception under Illinois law. With respect, those fed-
eral decisions simply cannot outweigh decisions of Illinois
courts on issues of Illinois law. Similarly, in Dunn v. Menard,
Inc., 880 F.3d 899 (7th Cir. 2018), we aﬃrmed summary judg-
ment for a defendant, reasoning that the deliberate encounter
exception did not apply because the injured plaintiﬀ had an-
other option available to him, seeking help from store
No. 22-2825                                                   19

employees. Id. at 908, citing Kleiber v. Freeport Farm & Fleet,
Inc., 406 Ill.App.3d 249, 347 Ill. Dec. 437, 942 N.E.2d 640, 648
(2010). Our opinion in Dunn did not cite the Illinois Supreme
Court’s discussion of the deliberate encounter exception in La-
Fever, perhaps because Dunn and Kleiber both involved in-
jured customers, not people who were doing their jobs and
subject to the economic pressure that plays a large role in Illi-
nois courts’ application of the deliberate encounter exception.
   Our duty under Erie Railroad is to apply Illinois law as de-
termined by the state’s supreme court. E.g., Smith v.
RecordQuest, LLC, 989 F.3d 513, 519 (7th Cir. 2021) (“[A]bsent
a conﬂict with the Constitution or a federal law, we cannot
overturn established state precedent. The so-called ‘Erie
guess’ is not an Erie veto.”), quoting Sanchelima Int’l, Inc. v.
Walker Stainless Equip. Co., LLC, 920 F.3d 1141, 1146 (7th Cir.
2019). I would correct the federal courts’ persistent and erro-
neous course on this issue of Illinois law, take LaFever at face
value, and allow a jury to decide the reasonableness of both
parties’ actions. I respectfully dissent.