Articles Posted in Appellate Procedure

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On Aug. 10, 2009, Dolores Trujillo was a passenger in a vehicle driven by Adam Delgado.The Delgado vehicle was involved in a collision.  Allstate Property and Casualty Insurance insured Delgado and his car.  The other car involved in the collision was insured by American Access Insurance Co.

Trujillo settled her claim against American Access for $20,000, which was the policy limit, and then settled her claim against Delgado for the $100,000 insurance policy limit on his Allstate policy. 

Trujillo also claimed $80,000 from Allstate as under-insured motorist coverage. The $80,000 represented the difference between Allstate’s maximum under-insured coverage $100,000 and the $20,000 she received from American Access.

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Illinois law provides for losses suffered when an Illinois insurance company goes bankrupt, is liquidated or cannot meets its obligations.  The Illinois Insurance Guarantee Fund is available to step in when an insurance company fails.

In this case, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed and remanded a decision written by the Fifth District Appellate Court in the case of Roy Dean Rogers II. Rogers, age 18, was struck by a car driven by John Winterrowd in 2009.  Roy died as a result of this incident and his injuries.

Winterrowd was intoxicated at the time.  Rogers’s parents received in settlement two insurance payouts.  One was for $26,550 from Winterrowd’s insurance company and another $80,000 was received from the Rogers’s own automobile insurance company.

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Teodoro Ramirez was injured while working for his employer and subcontractor, Sullivan Roofing. The case was tried before a jury in Cook County against the general contractor on the project, FCL Builders. At the end of the trial, the trial judge included Sullivan Roofing on the jury verdict form for apportioning fault under Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, §2-1117. 

The jury’s verdict of $1.588 million against FCL included a finding that Ramirez was 20 percent at fault for his own injuries while FCL and Sullivan were held to be 40 percent at fault each. 

FCL appealed, arguing that Sullivan Roofing should not have been on the verdict form. 

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The City of Country Club Hills, a Chicago suburb west of the Tri-State Tollway along Interstate 80, maintained a governing body of  ten aldermen — two aldermen from each of the city’s five wards. 

In the 2012 general election, a referendum was put to the vote of the citizenry asking them whether they wanted to reduce the number of aldermen to five, one from each ward. 

The current ten aldermen would continue to serve to the end of their terms and then the number of aldermen would be reduced to five if the referendum passed. There were no objections filed, and the referendum question was referred to the county clerk to be put on the ballot. 

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Laura Turczak and Robert Lew purchased a house in 2007. They arranged a mortgage with Wells Fargo Bank for $391,250.  They also took out a second mortgage with First American Bank for $73,335. In 2002, Lew and Turczak stopped paying the loans. 

Wells Fargo filed to foreclose its mortgage in June 2010. The same month, First American sued Lew and Turczak for repayment of the second mortgage.

On Sept. 3, 2010, Wells Fargo received a variable foreclosure order that found Lew, Turczak and First American in default.  Judgment was entered for foreclosure and sale in the total amount of $408,597.92. 

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Anthony Williams filed a lawsuit against BNSF Railway Co. under the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) (45 U.S.C. §51) (2006) claiming an employment-related injury. BNSF filed a third-party complaint for contribution and contractual indemnification against third-party defendant Quality Terminal Services (QTS). At the jury trial, a verdict in favor of Williams was returned with total damages in the amount of $2,676,950. However, the jury assigned 50 percent of the negligence in the case to Williams and divided the remaining responsibility at 37.5 percent to BNSF and 12.5 percent to QTS. The jury also returned a verdict in favor of QTS on BNSF’s contractual indemnity claim.

BNSF appealed claiming that the circuit court erred in denying its motion for a directed verdict on the contractual indemnity claim. BNSF also maintained that the trial judge erred in refusing to allow evidence related to Williams’s termination of employment with BNSF. And finally, BNSF contended that the circuit court erred in allowing evidence of the loss of household services, including unsupported opinion testimony regarding the value of those services. 

At the outset, Williams and QTS argued that the appellate court lacked jurisdiction to decide this appeal because BNSF did not file its notice of appeal within 30 days of the trial court’s oral ruling on all posttrial motion. Williams filed a motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction and QTS joined. The appellate court noted that in Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, 237 Ill. 2d. 217, 251-52 (2010), the reviewing court has a duty to consider its jurisdiction and to dismiss the appeal if it determines that jurisdiction is wanting. 

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John Baugh sustained a severe brain injury when the Cuprum ladder that he was using to clean his gutters buckled and collapsed. Baugh’s wife Sharon filed a lawsuit on his behalf against Cuprum S.A.de C.V. claiming that the defective design and the manufacturer’s negligence was the cause of her husband’s injuries.  John could not testify as to what happened to him because of his injuries.

About three months before the beginning of the trial, the defendant, Cuprum, informed plaintiff’s attorney that it intended to use an exemplar of the actual ladder at the jury trial. The exemplar ladder was new, but had been built to the exact specifications to the ladder that Baugh had used. In a pretrial conference on Feb. 1, 2011, Cuprum’s exemplar ladder was marked as an exhibit “for Demonstrative Purposes.”  The plaintiff’s counsel objected to any use of the new exemplar ladder at trial. Discovery had been closed for two years. The ladder had not been included in Cuprum’s expert disclosures. 

In response to the objection, Cuprum argued that the exemplar ladder was for demonstrative purposes and that it would be used during direct examination of its expert witness. It was not intended to be substantive evidence.  Cuprum also argued that the exemplar ladder would be used to demonstrate and help the jury understand the expert’s testimony. 

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The Illinois Appellate Court has affirmed a partial summary judgment order for a defendant in a head-on crash and death case.  This case arose out of a collision in which the car driven by Jeffrey Pister was struck head-on by an employee of the defendant, Matrix Service Industrial Contractors.  At the time of the crash in April 2009, the Matrix driver, Brian Stultz, was nearing his destination in Champaign, Ill.  Stultz was scheduled to work there later that morning for Matrix. Stultz and Jeffrey Pister were killed in the collision.

Jeffrey’s widow, Tisha Pister, filed a third-amended complaint against Matrix and the Estate of Brian Stultz.  The Estate of Stultz was not part of the appeal.

In the lawsuit, the Pister family claimed that Matrix was liable for Jeffrey’s death under the doctrine of respondeat superior.  Pister asserted two theories:  (1) Brian was a “traveling employee” of Matrix, on which the court, before the trial granted summary judgment for Matrix, and (2) Brian was on a “special errand” for Matrix at the time of the crash. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Matrix on Pister’s “special errand” theory.

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On Aug. 31, 2009, the plaintiff, Juan Zamora, filed a lawsuit alleging negligence against the defendants for injuries he suffered.  A lawsuit was filed against defendants Cheri and Paul Payne. On March 24, 2010, that lawsuit was dismissed because it was barred by the exclusivity provisions of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act and included an Illinois Supreme Court Rule 304(a) finding. On April 23, 2010, Zamora filed a motion to reconsider the dismissal. On June 29, 2009, the trial judge allowed the defendants leave to file a third-party complaint seeking contribution against Ricardo Montiel, Newsboy Delivery Systems,

Inc. and Unique Distribution Services, Inc.

On July 11, 2012, more than two years after the Paynes filed their third-party claim, the trial court dismissed the Payne defendants’ contribution claim. On that date, Zamora asked the trial judge to make a new Rule 304(a) finding with respect to the March 24, 2010 dismissal order. On July 24, 2012, Zamora filed a notice of appeal regarding the March 24, 2010 dismissal order and the subsequent denial of his motion to reconsider.  On May 14, 2013, the trial judge dismissed all remaining causes of action directed against the Payne defendants. On June 5, 2013, Zamora filed the notice of appeal initiating the current appeal seeking reversal of the March 24, 2010 dismissal and the March 20, 2013 denial of his motion to renew the March 2010 Rule 304(a) finding.

 Illinois Supreme Court Rule 304(a) allows for the appeal of a final judgment in a case involving multiple claims or parties where the judgment concerns “one or more but fewer than all of the parties or claims.” To allow for a judgment to be appealed under the Rule, the trial court must make a finding that “there is no just reason for delaying either enforcement or appeal or both.”  Ill.S.Ct.R. 304(a) (eff. Jan. 1, 2006).

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