Court Opinion

ID: 9518243
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:47:50.994676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:54.438020
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CAHILL, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. The majority writes: "The defendants failed to present evidence that the rewiring of the switch is a complex procedure or that an average garbage truck operator would not have the knowledge necessary to accomplish the modification.” 284 Ill. App. 3d at 221. Here from the record is a drawing of the circuitry that prevented the defendant’s product from working unless the truck to which it was attached was in neutral gear: [[Image here]] The record also includes the same drawing with penciled notations in an unknown hand. That drawing was in the possession of the Village of Skokie. The evidence established that the penciled notations, if followed, would enable one so disposed to alter the circuitry to bypass the safety feature of the product. The record is silent on who rewired the device and devoid of evidence that could create an inference that it was the act of the deceased operator. Only speculation remains, and the possibility that the rewiring was the act of an industrial saboteur is as rational a fancy as a sanitation worker with a degree in electrical engineering. As the trial court pointed out, the affidavit of the plaintiffs expert established nothing more than that the wiring represented by the drawing was easily accessible within the cab of the truck and that the affiant, familiar with electrical wiring, could do the deed in five minutes. It says nothing about the skill or expertise required once access takes place. We here twist the rule that a manufacturer is not absolved of liability if he can reasonably foresee that his product can be easily modified by the operator to defeat a safety feature, and make a jury question of whether or not the average sanitation worker can decipher a wiring diagram for an electronic device. Reasonably foreseeable means that which is objectively reasonable to expect, not that which might conceivably occur. Winnett v. Winnett, 57 Ill. 2d 7, 13, 310 N.E.2d 1 (1974). The trial court ruling got to the nub of this case: an affidavit of an expert that he could decipher the wiring diagram and easily modify the device is irrelevant when the test is whether or not the device is easily modified by the operator. That is my understanding of the law in Illinois. DeArmond v. Hoover Ball & Bearing, Uniloy Division, 86 Ill. App. 3d 1066, 408 N.E.2d 771 (1980); Woods v. Graham Engineering Corp., 183 Ill. App. 3d 337, 539 N.E.2d 316 (1989); Coleman v. Verson Allsteel Press Co., 64 Ill. App. 3d 974, 382 N.E.2d 36 (1978). The trial court found that the affidavit of the plaintiffs expert confused easy access with easy modification. I agree and would affirm.