Coleman v. Provena Hospitals

2018 IL App (2d) 170313No. 2-17-0313
Opinion filed May 14, 2018
Modified upon denial of rehearing June 14, 2018
______________________________________________________________________________
IN THE
APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS
SECOND DISTRICT
______________________________________________________________________________
DOROTHY COLEMAN, Administrator of ) Appeal from the Circuit Court
the Estate of Johnnie Russell III, Deceased,
) of Kane County.
)
Plaintiff-Appellant, )
)
v. ) No. 11-L-421
)
PROVENA HOSPITALS, d/b/a Provena )
Mercy Medical Center, ) Honorable
) Mark Pheanis,
Defendant-Appellee. ) Judge, Presiding.
______________________________________________________________________________
JUSTICE SCHOSTOK delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Justices Zenoff and Burke concurred in the judgment and opinion.
OPINION
¶1 Johnnie Russell III was a patient of the defendant, Provena Hospitals, doing business as
Provena Mercy Medical Center. The day after Russell was admitted, a nurse discovered that he
had a gun. Shortly thereafter, during a confrontation with the Aurora Police Department, Russell
was shot to death. The plaintiff, Dorothy Coleman, Russell’s sister and the administrator of his
estate, filed a wrongful-death action against the defendant, alleging that it was negligent in not
searching Russell for weapons on the day he was admitted. The circuit court of Kane County
subsequently granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the plaintiff
could not establish that the defendant had proximately caused Russell’s death, because there was
2018 IL App (2d) 170313no evidence that Russell had a gun when he was admitted. For the reasons that follow, we
reverse and remand for additional proceedings.
¶2 BACKGROUND
¶3 In November 2006, Russell was shot to death after he pulled a gun and engaged in a
confrontation with Aurora police officers while being evaluated at the defendant’s hospital. The
plaintiff initially filed suit against both the Aurora Police Department and the defendant in
federal court, but she later voluntarily dismissed that action as to the defendant. In 2011, the
plaintiff filed a wrongful-death action against the defendant in the circuit court of Kane County.
The complaint alleged that the defendant’s agents and employees were aware of Russell’s
“mentally defective condition and prior psychiatric history” but failed to conduct a reasonable
search to determine whether Russell possessed any contraband that could cause harm to himself
or others.
¶4 In December 2011, the defendant filed its answer, asserting the affirmative defense of
comparative negligence and alleging that one or more of Russell’s acts “was the proximate cause
of his death.” Specifically, the defendant asserted that Russell “came to Provena Mercy Medical
Center of his own accord carrying an inherently dangerous weapon, namely a gun.” The
affirmative defense further alleged that the defendant was entitled to offset any judgment in favor
of the plaintiff by “an amount commensurate with [Russell’s] own degree of comparative
negligence.” The plaintiff did not file an answer to the affirmative defense.
¶5 During the pretrial proceedings, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment,
arguing that there was no evidence that its acts or omissions were a proximate cause of Russell’s
death. On July 1, 2014, the trial court (Judge F. Keith Brown) denied the motion, noting the
submission of evidence that agents of the defendant had been aware that Russell was exhibiting
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313“paranoid, psychotic, and aggressive behavior” and knew of his psychiatric history, which
included a report that he had threatened to kill his neighbors with his guns; had already sedated
Russell once after he became aggressive with staff and had decided to transfer him to the
behavioral health unit; and had had Russell remove his clothing and don a hospital gown but had
failed to check his belongings for items that could cause harm to Russell or others. The trial
court found that this evidence presented a genuine dispute as to whether the conduct of the
defendant’s agents was a “substantial factor or a material element in bringing about” (i.e., a
proximate cause of) Russell’s death. The case was given a trial date of November 17, 2014, with
a pretrial conference to be held on November 6. On October 22, 2014, the defendant filed a
motion to deem its affirmative defense admitted, on the basis that the plaintiff had not filed an
answer denying it.
¶6 On October 23, 2014, the trial court (Judge Thomas Mueller) granted the defendant’s
motion to deem the affirmative defense admitted. The defendant subsequently filed a motion for
judgment on the pleadings, arguing that, as the affirmative defense had been deemed admitted,
the plaintiff could not establish that any of the defendant’s conduct was the proximate cause of
Russell’s death. On November 6, the trial court granted the defendant’s motion and entered
judgment on the pleadings in favor of the defendant. Following the denial of her motion to
reconsider, the plaintiff appealed.
¶7 On December 18, 2015, this court reversed the trial court’s judgment and remanded for
additional proceedings. Coleman v. Provena Hospitals, 2015 IL App (2d) 150368-U (Coleman
I). We explained that, read liberally, the plaintiff’s complaint alleged that Russell was suffering
from an impaired mental state at the time of the incident. Specifically, it alleged that, when
Russell was admitted to the hospital, he was “suffering from conditions including altered mental
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313stability, *** speech and language deficits, paranoid personality and Dilantin toxicity.” The
complaint also alleged that Russell was in the process of being transferred from the emergency
room to the behavioral health unit. These allegations of an impaired mental state controverted
the affirmative defense’s allegations that Russell was acting “knowingly” or “willfully” during
the incident. They also raised a fair question as to whether Russell was able to appreciate the
consequences of his actions at the time, the recklessness and dangerousness of those actions, and
the need to follow the orders of medical personnel and the police. Thus, we held, the trial court
erred in finding that the allegations of the affirmative defense regarding Russell’s mental state
had been admitted. Id. ¶ 19.
¶8 We also found that, to the extent that the affirmative defense alleged that Russell’s
actions amounted to comparative negligence and were “the proximate cause of his death,” those
allegations were conclusions that were not admitted by the failure to reply. We further found,
however, that the plaintiff did admit certain factual allegations, specifically that Russell came to
the hospital while carrying a gun on his person and that he took hospital staff and patients
hostage. Id. ¶¶ 20-21.
¶9 Pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 366(b) (eff. Feb. 1, 1994), we modified the trial
court’s order of October 23, 2014, to deem admitted only the affirmative defense’s allegations of
fact that did not relate to the defendant’s mental state and were not conclusory. Based on the
modified trial court order, we held that the trial court erred in determining that the admission of
those facts mandated the entry of judgment on the pleadings in favor of the defendant. Coleman
I, 2015 IL App (2d) 150368-U, ¶¶ 22, 25.
¶ 10 Following remand, on February 2, 2017, the defendant filed a motion for summary
judgment on the basis that the plaintiff had failed to present evidence to support the element of
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313proximate cause. The defendant asserted that there was no evidence that the defendant had a gun
when he was admitted, as it was just as plausible that he obtained the gun sometime later. In
response, the plaintiff argued that questions of material fact remained that precluded the entry of
summary judgment. In support of her response, the plaintiff relied on the 2013 opinions and
deposition testimony of her expert, Timothy Hawkins. Hawkins stated that the defendant had a
policy to search for contraband when a patient was admitted to the behavioral health unit.
Hawkins opined that the defendant should have adhered to that policy throughout the medical
center. Hawkins opined that, if the defendant’s staff had done that, they would have found the
gun and confiscated it pursuant to the “Custody of Firearms Presented at Provena Mercy Center”
policy and Russell would be alive today.
¶ 11 On April 6, 2017, the trial court (Judge Mark Pheanis) granted the defendant’s motion for
summary judgment, holding that there was no evidence that would allow the plaintiff to establish
proximate cause. The trial court explained:
“We do not have any evidence, number one, that had the Mercy mental health rules and
regulations for a search been followed, that this particular weapon would have been
found. And the crux of this case, according—and it’s really a case that comes down to
the expert testimony, is that there shouldn’t have been this binary set of rules. The search
should have been followed in the emergency room for someone who exhibited the type of
presentation that the decedent did. And the problem we have with that is, without
evidence as to whether that search would have disclosed the weapon, there is no
proximate cause. And a jury is going to have to speculate as to whether that would have
occurred.
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313Tie in, in addition to that, the fact that we don’t know—we don’t have any
evidence that the gun was in his possession at the time he came into the hospital as
opposed to being provided to him later, and I know that’s, that’s a difficult—it’s a
difficult ruling, but I can’t allow a jury to simply use speculation, conjecture, or guess to
make those conclusions that are really necessary. And that’s why I asked the question,
are there any facts, do we have any facts whatsoever, and would the Mercy mental health
policy have revealed that. And the only way I can see that it would reveal that is if it
required strip search or some type of metal detector/wanding-type thing.
Without those two actions, simply asking someone if he has a weapon, simply
asking someone to empty their pockets, and relying on the compliance of the patient isn’t
going to necessarily solve this particular situation.”
¶ 12 Following the trial court’s ruling, the plaintiff filed a timely notice of appeal.
¶ 13 ANALYSIS
¶ 14 On appeal, the plaintiff argues that the trial court erred in granting the defendant’s motion
for summary judgment, because a question of fact remains as to whether the gun would have
been recovered from the defendant had a proper search been conducted. In response, the
defendant maintains that summary judgment in its favor was proper because, not only did its
actions not proximately cause Russell’s death, it owed no duty to Russell to protect him from his
own criminal acts. The defendant further argues that summary judgment was proper because the
plaintiff cannot recover any damages that were based on Russell’s criminal acts.
¶ 15 The purpose of a motion for summary judgment is to determine whether a genuine issue
of material fact exists (People ex rel. Barsanti v. Scarpelli, 371 Ill. App. 3d 226, 231 (2007)),
and such a motion should be granted only when “the pleadings, depositions, and admissions on
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact
and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law” (735 ILCS 5/2-1005(c)
(West 2016)). In determining the existence of a genuine issue of material fact, a court must
construe the pleadings, depositions, admissions, and affidavits strictly against the movant and
liberally in favor of the opponent. Purtill v. Hess, 111 Ill. 2d 229, 240 (1986). Summary
judgment may be granted only where the facts are susceptible to a single reasonable inference.
Consolino v. Thompson, 127 Ill. App. 3d 31, 33 (1984). An order granting summary judgment
should be reversed if the evidence shows that a genuine issue of material fact exists or if the
judgment is incorrect as a matter of law. Clausen v. Carroll, 291 Ill. App. 3d 530, 536 (1997).
We review de novo the trial court’s grant of a motion for summary judgment. AUI Construction
Group, LLC v. Vaessen, 2016 IL App (2d) 160009, ¶ 16.
¶ 16 In order to succeed in a negligence action, the plaintiff must prove three elements: (1) the
defendant owed a duty of care, (2) the defendant breached that duty, and (3) the plaintiff’s
resulting injury was proximately caused by the breach. Espinoza v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ry.
Co., 165 Ill. 2d 107, 114 (1995). Whether the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff is a question
of law, to be decided by the court. Id. Whether the defendant breached its duty and whether the
breach was the proximate cause of the injury are factual questions, for a jury to decide, as long as
there is a genuine issue of material fact about breach and causation. Stanphill v. Ortberg, 2017
IL App (2d) 161086, ¶ 30.
¶ 17 The defendant’s argument that it did not owe Russell a duty to protect him is without
merit. A court will find a duty where a plaintiff and a defendant stand in such a relationship to
one another that the law imposes upon the defendant an obligation of reasonable conduct for the
benefit of the plaintiff. Simpkins v. CSX Transportation, Inc., 2012 IL 110662, ¶¶ 18-21. The
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313“relationship” referred to in this context acts as a shorthand description for the sum of four
factors: (1) the reasonable 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. The determination of such a “relationship,” as sufficient to
establish a duty of care, requires considerations of policy inherent in these four factors, and the
weight accorded each factor in any given analysis depends on the circumstances of the case at
hand. Id. It has long been recognized, however, that hospitals are under a duty to exercise
reasonable care to protect their patrons from harm. Darling v. Charleston Community Memorial
Hospital, 33 Ill. 2d 326, 331 (1965); Stearns v. Ridge Ambulance Service, Inc., 2015 IL App (2d)
140908, ¶ 16; Stogsdill v. Manor Convalescent Home, Inc., 35 Ill. App. 3d 634, 662 (1976).
¶ 18 The defendant insists that it owed no legal duty to Russell, because the harm that befell
him was not reasonably foreseeable. The defendant maintains that it was not foreseeable that
Russell would engage in a series of bizarre acts that would ultimately result in his being shot and
killed by police officers.
¶ 19 Arguably, the defendant here is improperly positing a “fact-specific formulation of duty.”
Stearns, 2015 IL App (2d) 140908, ¶ 15. In any event, the defendant’s argument is undermined
by its policy to search people going into its behavioral health unit. The apparent purpose of this
policy is to prevent patients who are possibly mentally ill from harming themselves or others.
Based on the existence of this policy, it was reasonably foreseeable that someone would be
injured if the policy were not adhered to. Hawkins asserted that there was no reason why the
policy should not exist throughout the hospital. We believe that the allegations of the plaintiff’s
complaint sufficiently established that the defendant owed Russell a duty to protect him from
harming himself or someone else.
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313¶ 20 We next turn to proximate cause. There are two requirements for a showing of proximate
cause: cause in fact and legal cause. Lee v. Chicago Transit Authority, 152 Ill. 2d 432, 455
(1992); see also Knauerhaze v. Nelson, 361 Ill. App. 3d 538, 548-49 (2005). At issue in this case
is cause in fact. Cause in fact looks for sufficient facts to establish a reasonable certainty that a
wrongdoer’s conduct caused the damages involved. Lee, 152 Ill. 2d at 455.
¶ 21 The trial court essentially found that cause in fact did not exist, because there was no
evidence presented that, had Russell been searched, the gun would have been discovered. We
disagree. Hawkins testified that, if Russell had been searched, there was a high probability that
the gun would have been found. This testimony is consistent with what the defendant alleged in
its affirmative defense and what in Coleman I we found the plaintiff to have admitted: Russell
had the gun with him when he entered the defendant’s care. The trial court’s suggestion that it
was possible that Russell got the gun sometime after he was admitted was therefore both
improper speculation (Harris Trust & Savings Bank v. Otis Elevator Co., 297 Ill. App. 3d 383,
394 (1998)) and contrary to the law of the case (Radwill v. Manor Care of Westmont, IL, LLC,
2013 IL App (2d) 120957, ¶ 8).
¶ 22 Furthermore, Hawkins’ testimony supported another causal link: if the defendant’s staff
had removed the gun from Russell, he would not have engaged in the altercation with the police
that resulted in his death. Thus, through Hawkins’ testimony, the plaintiff presented enough
evidence to raise a genuine issue concerning cause in fact.
¶ 23 The defendant insists that there is no evidence that, had Russell been searched, (1)
Russell would have voluntarily yielded possession of the gun or (2) the gun would have been
confiscated without conflict. Both of those arguments might be true. However, those arguments
should be directed to the trier of fact, not this court, as we cannot say as a matter of law and
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313based on the evidence in the record that any search of Russell would have been pointless and
would not have prevented his untimely death.
¶ 24 In so ruling, we find the defendant’s reliance on Schuler v. Mid Central Cardiology, 313
Ill. App. 3d 326, 335 (2000), to be misplaced. In that medical malpractice case, the plaintiff
alleged that one doctor had gotten a second doctor to alter his diagnosis of the decedent. Id. at
334. The plaintiff, however, presented no direct or circumstantial evidence to support that
allegation. Id. at 336. On review, the appellate court held that the trial court had properly
instructed the jury to disregard a third doctor’s testimony regarding the possibly changed
diagnosis, because that testimony was based on nothing but conjecture. Id. at 335-36. Here,
unlike in Schuler, there was sufficient evidence to support the plaintiff’s theory that the
defendant’s failure to search Russell when he was admitted caused or contributed to Russell’s
death.
¶ 25 We are also unpersuaded by the defendant’s argument that it cannot be liable for
Russell’s death because the police officers’ response to Russell’s actions was the superseding
proximate cause of Russell’s death. The negligence of a defendant will not constitute a
proximate cause of a plaintiff’s injuries if some intervening act supersedes the defendant’s
negligence, but if the defendant could reasonably foresee the intervening act, that act will not
relieve the defendant of liability. Bentley v. Saunemin Township, 83 Ill. 2d 10, 15 (1980).
Again, the ostensible reason for searching some patients before they entered the hospital was to
protect them from being harmed or harming others. Thus, it was reasonably foreseeable to the
defendant that, if it did not search Russell before he was admitted to the hospital, he might be
harmed. That the defendant could not necessarily foresee the specific harm that would befall
Russell is of no significance. See Colonial Inn Motor Lodge, Inc. v. Gay, 288 Ill. App. 3d 32, 45
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313(1997) (although the foreseeability of an injury will establish the legal-cause prong of proximate
cause, the extent of the injury or the exact way in which it occurs need not be foreseeable).
¶ 26 Finally, we consider the defendant’s argument that the plaintiff cannot recover for
damages arising from Russell’s criminal acts. Relying on Reed v. Witvoet, 311 Ill. App. 3d 735,
740 (2000), the defendant insists that a party cannot recover if his own illegal acts contributed to
his damages. Reed, however, actually undermines the defendant’s argument. In that case, a 13­
year-old minor died in a farm accident. The defendant had hired the minor at the request of one
of the plaintiffs, the minor’s father. Id. at 736. The minor’s father also transported the minor to
the workplace. The minor’s estate, consisting of his parents and his brother, filed a complaint
against the defendant. Id. The defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, alleging that the
plaintiffs had violated the Child Labor Law (820 ILCS 205/19 (West 1992)) when they allowed
the defendant to employ the minor and that such conduct barred them from any recovery.
Relying on Newton v. Illinois Oil Co., 316 Ill. 416 (1925), the trial court granted summary
judgment, finding that the parents were prohibited from recovering damages by their
participation in the minor’s illegal employment. Reed, 311 Ill. App. 3d at 737. The trial court
further found that the minor’s brother could not recover where the parents’ illegal act was a
contributing cause of the death. Id.
¶ 27 On appeal, the reviewing court affirmed the trial court’s judgment as to the minor’s
parents but not as to his brother. Id. at 740. The reviewing court found that Newton remained
good law as to the minor’s parents. Id. However, in Nudd v. Matsoukas, 7 Ill. 2d 608, 615-16
(1956), the supreme court had reexamined the principles underlying Newton and held that public
policy did not require barring an entire action simply because one beneficiary of the decedent’s
estate contributed to the injury. Reed, 311 Ill. App. 3d at 740. Based on Newton and Nudd, the
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313reviewing court held that, although the parents were barred from recovering damages, due to
their violation of the Child Labor Law, that violation did not defeat the estate’s ability to recover
in a wrongful-death action arising out of the violation. Id.¶ 28 Here, there is nothing in the record to suggest that the plaintiff gave Russell the gun that
he possessed at the hospital. Although the trial court found that it was possible that the gun was
provided to Russell after he was admitted to the hospital, as noted earlier that finding was
improper as it was contrary to the law of the case. See Radwill, 2013 IL App (2d) 120957, ¶ 8.
Accordingly, absent any evidence that the plaintiff contributed to Russell’s deadly altercation
with the police, she is not barred from pursuing her action against the defendant. See Reed, 311
Ill. App. 3d at 740.
¶ 29 At oral argument, the defendant refined its argument to emphasize that, because of
Russell’s criminal conduct, the plaintiff cannot recover on his behalf. In making this argument,
the defendant relies on Castronovo v. Murawsky, 3 Ill. App. 2d 168 (1954). There, the decedent
died after she consented to an illegal abortion that was negligently performed upon her. This
court found that the decedent’s estate was barred from any recovery based on the decedent’s own
“immoral or illegal act.” Id. at 170-71. Castronovo is readily distinguishable from the case at
bar. In that case, there is no indication that the decedent was suffering from any mental illness
that impacted her judgment when she committed an illegal act. Conversely, in the instant case,
and as the defendant acknowledges, Russell was acting with “a history of psychological
difficulties” when he engaged in his fatal confrontation with the Aurora police. Russell’s sanity
at the time of the confrontation is therefore crucial in determining whether his actions were
criminal. See 720 ILCS 5/6-2(a) (West 2016) (“A person is not criminally responsible for
conduct if at the time of such conduct, as a result of mental disease or mental defect, he lacks
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2018 IL App (2d) 170313substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct.”). As questions of one’s sanity
and mental health are questions of fact and within the exclusive purview of the finder of fact
(People v. McCullum, 386 Ill. App. 3d 495, 504 (2008)), Russell’s possibly criminal conduct is
not a basis on which to affirm the trial court’s order of summary judgment.
¶ 30 CONCLUSION
¶ 31 For the reasons stated, the judgment of the circuit court of Kane County is reversed and
the cause is remanded for additional proceedings.
¶ 32 Reversed and remanded.
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