Court Opinion

ID: 9729552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:42:15.269483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:59.487331
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the court: Appellants Wilma Britton, Roger David Britton, Michael S. Brit-ton, and Daniel Lee Britton appeal from an order of the trial court granting summary judgment for appellee Dr. Francis Soltes. Appellants argue that the trial court erred in finding that they could not maintain an action against Soltes. In August 1985, Roger S. Britton and appellants, Britton’s ex-wife, Wilma, and his children Roger David, Michael S., and Daniel Lee, filed suit against Soltes alleging that during 1983 and 1984 Brit-ton was under the care of Soltes and that Soltes failed to discover that Britton was suffering from tuberculosis. It was further alleged that during that period, Britton resided next door to appellants, that Britton visited appellants on a frequent basis, and that because of Soltes’ failure to diagnose Britton’s condition appellants also contracted tuberculosis. Soltes filed a motion for a partial summary judgment against appellants. In his motion, Soltes pointed out that Roger S. and Wilma Britton both stated in their depositions that Soltes had never treated Wilma or the children. Soltes noted that under the supreme court’s decisions in Kirk v. Michael Reese Hospital & Medical Center (1987), 117 Ill. 2d 507, 513 N.E.2d 387, and Renslow v. Mennonite Hospital (1977), 67 Ill. 2d 348, 367 N.E.2d 1250, a medical malpractice action could not be maintained absent a direct physician-patient relationship or a special relationship between the patient and the plaintiff. Soltes argued that because there was no physician-patient relationship between himself and appellants and because the relationship between Britton and appellants was not special within the meaning of Renslow, he was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. The trial court granted Soltes’ motion for a partial summary judgment. The court refused to find that Soltes’ duty extended to appellants, stating that appellants’ exposure was fortuitous and not the result of a special relationship. This appeal followed. Prior to 1977, Illinois courts did not recognize any duty on the part of hospitals or doctors to nonpatient third parties injured as a result of a negligent act performed against a patient. In 1977, for the first time, a nonpatient third party was allowed to maintain an action against a hospital and doctor. (Renslow v. Mennonite Hospital (1977), 67 Ill. 2d 348, 367 N.E.2d 1250.) In Renslow, the supreme court held that a child could maintain an action against a hospital for negligence committed against her mother 8V2 years before the child’s birth. When the mother of the plaintiff in Renslow was 13 years old, defendants negligently transfused her Rh-negative blood with Rh-positive blood. The transfusion with the incompatible blood caused the mother’s blood to become sensitized. Defendants did not inform the mother that she had been transfused with incompatible blood, and she first learned that her blood had been sensitized eight years later, when she was pregnant with plaintiff. Because of the earlier sensitization of her mother’s blood, plaintiff suffered permanent damage to her brain, various internal organs, and her nervous system. In holding that plaintiff could maintain an action against defendants, the court noted that the risk of injury to an Rh-positive fetus of an Rh-negative woman who had been previously sensitized was long known and that, therefore, the risk of harm to the plaintiff was reasonably foreseeable. (67 Ill. 2d at 353-54.) On the issue of duty, the court noted that, historically, negligence could not be founded upon the breach of a duty owed to some person other than the plaintiff. However, the court also noted that the law allowed recovery in the case of injuries to unborn infants in a previable state whose existence was not apparent at the time of the negligent act. The court stated that it would be illogical to bar relief for an act done prior to conception where the defendant would be liable for the same act if unbeknownst to him a child had been conceived prior to his act. Stating that it believed that there was a right to be born free from prenatal injuries foreseeably caused by a breach of duty to one’s mother, the court concluded that logic and sound policy required the extension of legal duty. 67 111. 2d at 357-58. In the 13 years since Renslow, there has been no other case in which the supreme court has found a duty to nonpatient third parties. In Kirk v. Michael Reese Hospital & Medical Center, the court refused to extend its holding in Renslow. In Kirk, the plaintiff was injured while a passenger in a car driven by a former psychiatric patient at the defendant hospital. The plaintiff sued the hospital and two of its doctors alleging that they negligently failed to warn their patient that prescribed drugs would diminish his physical and mental abilities. The court reiterated its holding in Renslow, stating: “A wrong against one person may invade the protected rights of one who has a special relationship with the first party, as the law recognizes a limited area of transferred negligence. (Renslow v. Mennonite Hospital (1977), 67 Ill. 2d 348, 357; see also Hofmann v. Blackmon (Fla. App. 1970), 241 So. 2d 752.1) The transfer of duty is limited by a court’s policy decision that the duty to act with reasonable care should be transferred to the third-party plaintiff. This duty, however, arises from a special relationship between either the defendant and the other party or the third-party plaintiff and the other party. The duty in Renslow was based primarily on the injury’s being a direct result of alleged negligence to the infant’s mother, which was found to have invaded the protected rights of the child, who was intimately related to the mother.” Kirk, 117 Ill. 2d at 528. In Kirk, the court found that defendants owed no duty to plaintiff. The court stated that because there was no patient-doctor relationship between defendants and plaintiff, or a special relationship as in Renslow between the patient and plaintiff, plaintiff’s action against defendants was properly dismissed. 117 Ill. 2d at 532. Appellants’ brief does not address the relationship between Wilma Britton and Roger S. Britton. However, Roger David, Michael S. and Daniel Lee Britton argue that as the children of Roger S. Britton, their relationship to him is “special” within the meaning of Renslow and Kirk. We disagree.  Our reading of the Renslow and Kirk cases does not lead us to conclude that the supreme court intended to extend duty in all cases involving familial or parent-child relationships. We read Renslow and Kirk as providing that a duty will be extended only where the relationship between the patient and the third party is such that negligence to the patient necessarily results in injury to the third party. In Renslow the court pointed out that a duty was found to exist in Kirk because the negligent acts invaded the protected rights of the child. The court found that this type of relationship did not exist between the patient and a passenger in his car. 117 Ill. 2d at 528. We do not believe that the court’s decision would have been different if the passenger in Kirk had been related to the patient. In that situation, it could not be argued that the injury to the passenger was the result of a special relationship with the plaintiff; nor could it be said that the passenger’s protected rights were invaded by the action of the defendants toward their patient.  Similarly, in the present case, it cannot be said that Soltes’ action toward Roger S. Britton invaded any of appellants’ protected rights or that the relationship between Britton and appellants was such that Soltes’ failure to diagnose Britton necessarily resulted in injury to appellants. This is especially true in light of evidence in the record that at the time Roger S. Britton fell ill he was divorced and living apart from his family. Under these circumstances, we believe that the trial court correctly found that the appellants’ injury was caused by chance and not by any special relationship. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of Cook County. Affirmed. CERDA, P.J., concurs.  We are aware that the Hofmann case involves a fact situation somewhat similar to that in the present case. However, under Florida law, physicians have a duty to warn family members of a patient suffering from a contagious disease. Thus, the issue in Hofmann was whether the duty arose when the physician negligently failed to diagnose the contagious disease. No such duty to warn exists in Illinois, and we do not believe that the supreme court’s citation to Hofmann indicates an intent to adopt a concept of duty as broad as that present under Florida law.