SUPREME COURT CLARIFIES RULES ON LEGAL CAUSE VS. CAUSE IN FACT

July 12, 2004

Steven P. Garmisa
Hoey & Farina Attorney
garmisa@hoeyfarina.com
1-888-425-1212

The City of Chicago's failure to send an ambulance in response to emergency calls about a woman in labor was a cause in fact of an accident that occurred when a friend had to drive the expectant mother to the hospital. But reversing the Illinois Appellate Court -- and describing another Appellate Court ruling on causation as "questionable," the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the city's conduct was not a legal cause of the collision.

The friend, blasting her car horn, apparently drove through a red light after checking for oncoming traffic, but their vehicle was hit by a car driven by a drunken, drugged motorist who was zooming at as much as 80 mph and whose license had been suspended.

The Supreme Court concluded that the city merely created a condition for the collision, and that the city "could not have reasonably anticipated" its failure to send an ambulance for a woman in labor would result in the friend's decision to drive through a red light "at the same time that a substance-impaired driver was speeding through the intersection on a suspended license." Abrams v. City of Chicago, 2004 WL 1118533 (May 20).

The city was arguably negligent in not sending an ambulance for Patricia Abrams in response to two emergency calls made when Abrams went into labor. Unable to get a private ambulance after being turned away by the city's dispatchers, Henrietta Young drove Abrams to the hospital.

"As they drove to the hospital," Justice Robert R. Thomas wrote, recounting the undisputed facts, "Young generally observed the speed limit and obeyed traffic signals. However, when Young came to the intersection [of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Pershing Road], she held down her horn and went through a red light. According to Young's deposition, she looked both ways before proceeding, but did not see any traffic coming. In the intersection, Young's car collided with a vehicle driven by Gregory Jones.
"Jones was speeding at the time, traveling between 75 and 80 mph. In a handwritten statement to police, Jones admitted that he had a beer, two double shots of rum, and crack cocaine, before getting behind the wheel of his car. He also admitted that he was driving on a suspended license.

"Abrams was seriously injured in the collision. She spent two weeks in a coma, and her baby, Georgia Sabrina White, died after delivery.

"Plaintiff sued the city, alleging willful and wanton misconduct in the failure to provide ambulance service. The city filed a motion for summary judgment, contending that it had no duty to provide an ambulance, and in any event, the failure to provide an ambulance was not the proximate cause of plaintiff's injury and her child's death.

"The trial court granted the city's motion, finding that its conduct was not the proximate cause of plaintiff's and her daughter's injuries. The trial court found it unnecessary to reach the duty issue.
"The Appellate Court reversed. Without citing any authority on point, it found that the trial court 'erred in ruling on causation while declining to rule on the issue of whether the city owed plaintiffs a duty of care.' The Appellate Court then proceeded to resolve the case on the proximate cause issue, without reaching the merits of the duty issue.

"The Appellate Court found that 'the dispatchers (the "first wrongdoers") reasonably might have anticipated the efficient intervening cause (Brown running the red light and being struck by Jones's car) as a natural and probable result of the dispatcher's own negligence. The plaintiff arguably showed legal cause because the city arguably could have reasonably foreseen the disregard of a traffic signal by someone attempting to transport a woman in labor to a hospital, after the city refused to send an ambulance.' According to the Appellate Court, the cases cited by the city were 'distinguishable, as they did not involve drivers transporting women in labor to the hospital.'

The Supreme Court, however, disagreed. Here are some highlights of Thomas' unanimous opinion (with various omissions not noted in the quoted text):

"The primary issue raised by the parties on appeal is whether the city's failure to send an ambulance to transport plaintiff to the hospital was the proximate cause of the injuries sustained on the way to the hospital.

"To recover damages based upon a defendant's alleged negligence involving willful and wanton misconduct, a plaintiff must allege and prove that the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff, that the defendant breached this duty, and that the breach was the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries.

"Although the issue of proximate cause is ordinarily a question of fact determined by the trier of fact, it is well-settled that it may be determined as a matter of law by the court where the facts as alleged show that the plaintiff would never be entitled to recover.

"The city argues that the Circuit Court correctly entered summary judgment on its behalf because plaintiff cannot satisfy the 'legal cause' requirement of the proximate cause test. In First Springfield National Bank & Trust v. Galman, 188 Ill.2d 252 (1999), this court harmonized the proximate cause test articulated in Lee v. Chicago Transit Authority, 152 Ill.2d 432, 455 (1992), with other long-standing precedent articulating proximate cause concepts. In Galman and Lee, this court found that 'the term "proximate cause" describes two distinct requirements: cause in fact and legal cause.

"A defendant's conduct is a 'cause in fact' of the plaintiff's injury only if that conduct is a material element and a substantial factor in bringing about the injury. A defendant's conduct is a material element and substantial factor in bringing about the injury if, absent that conduct, the injury would not have occurred.

" 'Legal cause,' by contrast, is largely a question of foreseeability. The relevant inquiry is whether the injury is of a type that a reasonable person would see as a likely result of his or her conduct.
"Galman reconciled the above-stated proximate cause precepts of Lee with a special subset of proximate cause cases involving injuries caused by the intervening acts of third persons -- as was the case in [Briske v. Village of Burnham, 379 Ill. 193, 199 (1942); Merlo v. Public Service Co. of Northern Illinois, 381 Ill. 300, 318 (1942); and Thompson v. County of Cook, 154 Ill.2d 374, 382 (1993)].

"Galman rejected the notion that Briske, Merlo and Thompson are distinct from and wholly incompatible with Lee. Instead, it found that those three cases address a situation where the plaintiff's injury results not from the defendant's negligence directly but from the subsequent, independent act of a third person.

"In that type of case, it has been stated that the test is 'whether the first wrongdoer reasonably might have anticipated the intervening efficient cause as a natural and probable result of the first party's own negligence.' Galman, 188 Ill.2d at 257, citing Merlo, 381 Ill. at 317.

"If the negligence charged does nothing more than furnish a condition by the which the injury is made possible, and that condition causes an injury by the subsequent, independent act of a third person, the creation of the condition is not the proximate cause of the injury.

"Galman noted that when Briske, Merlo and Thompson ask whether the defendant might have reasonably anticipated the intervening efficient cause as a natural and probable result of his own negligence, they are in effect asking, as Lee did, whether the intervening efficient cause was of a type that a reasonable person would see as a likely result of his conduct.

"The city essentially concedes that the refusal to provide ambulance service was a cause in fact of the collision. But it argues that its conduct can in no way be considered the legal cause of plaintiff's injuries. Citing Galman, Thompson and [DiBenedetto v. Flora Township, 153 Ill.2d 66, 71 (1992)], the city contends that municipalities should not be exposed to liability for injuries that would not have occurred but for someone else's decision to break the law. It maintains that the reckless driving of Young and Jones were intervening causes that broke the causal connection between its conduct and the injury suffered.

"We agree with the city's contention that its conduct was not the legal cause of plaintiff's tragic and unfortunate injuries. The cases cited by the city provide strong support for its position.

"Galman reversed the denial of defendants' motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the basis of a lack of probable cause. There, one of the defendants had parked a tanker truck in a no-parking zone, 41 feet from an intersection with a crosswalk. The plaintiff's decedent, a pedestrian, walked the 41 feet from the intersection and attempted to cross the designated trucking street at mid-block near the tanker. The pedestrian was struck by a car in the street and killed.

"Galman found that the defendant's conduct in parking the truck was a 'cause in fact' of the decedent's fatal injuries, but then held that it clearly was not the 'legal cause' of those injuries: 'We have no quarrel with [the plaintiff's] assertion that "it was readily foreseeable that at school closing time school children might be crossing the street, and [a driver] might need both lanes of traffic to avoid an accident." That, however, is not the question. The question is whether it was reasonably foreseeable that violating a "no parking" sign at mid-block would likely result in a pedestrian's ignoring a marked crosswalk at the corner, walking to mid- block, and attempting to cross a designated truck route blindly and in clear violation of the law. Clearly, it would not. [Decedent's] decision to jaywalk, while undeniably tragic and regrettable, was entirely of her own making. [Defendants] neither caused [decedent] to make that decision, nor reasonably could have anticipated that decision as a likely consequence of their conduct. One simply does not follow from the other.' Galman, 188 Ill.2d at 260-61.

"Similarly, in Thompson v. County of Cook, 154 Ill.2d 374 (1993), this court also concluded that proximate cause was lacking as a matter of law. There, the driver of an automobile was speeding, drunk and eluding police when he left the road at a curve.

"Thompson held that Cook County's failure to maintain a sign warning of the curve was not a proximate cause of the plaintiff passenger's injuries. Rather, the driver's traffic violations were the sole proximate cause of the accident. The court noted that, 'Proximate cause is also absent where the independent acts of a third person break the causal connection between the alleged original wrong and the injury. When that occurs, the independent act itself becomes a proximate or immediate cause.' Thompson, 154 Ill.2d at 383.

"DiBenedetto v. Flora Township, 153 Ill.2d 66 (1992), is also instructive. There, the decedent's vehicle crossed the oncoming lane of traffic, left the roadway and landed in a drainage ditch erected by the defendant township. The plaintiff argued that the township located the ditch so as to pose a danger to traffic and it was foreseeable that a motorist could deviate from the roadway and wind up in the ditch. The Appellate Court found that the proximate cause of the accident was a jury question. This court, however, reversed the Appellate Court's determination and affirmed the Circuit Court's dismissal of the plaintiff's complaint.

"We succinctly concluded that, 'The proximate cause of the accident in this case was not the ditch. The proximate cause of the accident was the loss of control of the vehicle and its being driven off the traveled way.' DiBenedetto, 153 Ill.2d at 71.

"Applying Galman, Thompson and DiBenedetto to the present case, we conclude as a matter of law that the city could not have reasonably anticipated that a refusal to send an ambulance when labor pains are 10 minutes apart would likely result in plaintiff's driver running a red light at the same time that a substance-impaired driver was speeding through the intersection on a suspended license.

"Millions of women in labor make it safely to the hospital each year by private transportation. Thus, plaintiff was in no peril greater than that faced by women each day who make it safely to the hospital without the aid of an ambulance. The legal causes of the injury here were the two drivers in willful violation of the traffic laws, and not anything the city did or did not do.

"While all traffic accidents are to some extent remotely foreseeable, this is not the kind of harm that was sufficiently foreseeable from the refusal to send an ambulance so as to satisfy the 'legal cause' portion of a proximate cause analysis. In other words, the injury was not of a type a reasonable person would see as the likely or probable result of the refusal to send an ambulance. Instead, the city's conduct simply furnished a condition, making possible the injury caused by the independent, illegal acts of others. Plaintiff was endangered by the acts of Young and Jones, not by the city.

"Biel v. City of Bridgeview, 335 Ill.App.3d 526 (2002), and LoCoco v. XL Disposal Corp., 307 Ill.App.3d 684 (1999), the two cases cited by plaintiff in support of her position, are easily distinguishable. In Biel, the Appellate Court found that it was foreseeable that the defendant's failure to repair a broken streetlight might result in an injury to a pedestrian crossing at the relevant location, despite the pedestrian's own illegal conduct. The court noted the close similarity to Galman, but ultimately struggled to distinguish it. It concluded that the facts before it differed from Galman because in Biel other pedestrians routinely crossed at the same location and the area was dark.

"Aside from Biel's questionable attempt to distinguish Galman, we note that the facts of Biel differ significantly from the case at bar. Here, the city did not do or fail to do anything that made it more difficult to avoid an accident at the scene.

"In LoCoco, the township made an incomplete improvement where it painted stop bar lines on the roadway, but did not install corresponding stop signs. This created a confusing situation that reasonably could have led the plaintiff's decedent to think that she was at a four-way stop when in fact cross traffic was not required to stop. The Appellate Court found that placing stop bar lines for the cross traffic when it was not required to stop without corresponding traffic signs was 'the type of conduct by which a reasonable person may foresee an accident as a likely result.'

"In contrast to both Biel and LoCoco, the city in this case did nothing to make the intersection where the accident occurred dangerous or confusing."

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