FIRST DISTRICT APPELLATE COURT DECIDED WHAT TRIAL JUDGE CALLED A "TRAGICALLY BIZARRE CASE"
During the last few weeks of December, the First District Illinois Appellate Court decided what one trial judge called a "tragically bizarre case." As experienced Illinois personal injury attorneys, we read new court rulings on a regular basis. The "tragically bizarre case" was Zokhrabov v. Park, 2011 Ill. App. LEXIS 1298 (1st Dist. 2011). There, eighteen year-old Hiroyuki Joho was killed when an Amtrak train struck him while he was in a crosswalk at a Chicago Metra Station. A large portion of Joho's body "was propelled about 100 feet onto the southbound platform where it struck 58-year-old Gayane Zokhrabov from behind, knocking her to the ground. She sustained a shoulder injury, a leg fracture, and a wrist fracture." 2011 Ill. App. LEXIS 1298, *2. Zokhrabov sued Joho's estate for her injuries. The parties filed cross motions for summary judgment as to the proximate cause of the incident. Zokhrabov claimed Joho owed her a duty while walking in and around the Metra station and that he breached that duty when he: "(a) carelessly and negligently failed to keep a proper lookout for approaching trains; (b) carelessly and negligently ran in the path of an approaching [Amtrak] train; or (c) carelessly and negligently failed to yield the right-of-way to approaching trains." Id. Park, on behalf of Joho's estate, argued Joho did not owe Zokhrabov a duty of care. The trial court ruled in favor of Park. Zokhrabov appealed.
The First District Illinois Appellate Court, applying a traditional analysis of duty, reversed and remanded, finding Zokhrabov was a foreseeable plaintiff and that as a result, Joho owed her a duty. What does that mean? When determining whether a duty of care exists in a particular set of circumstances, Illinois courts will consider, among other factors, the reasonable foreseeability that the defendant's conduct may injure another. Other factors that courts consider are the reasonable likelihood of an injury, the magnitude of the burden imposed by guarding against the harm, and the consequences of placing the burden on the defendant. Id. at *10.
In the Zokhrabov case, the First District Appellate Court decided that it was reasonably foreseeable that a train would strike, kill and fling Joho's body onto the passenger platform where Zokhrabov was waiting for her train to arrive. The Court further found that Joho acted negligently by crossing the tracks when he did and that his negligence could cause someone else's injury. The reasonable likelihood of causing an injury was great given the speed and force of the oncoming Amtrak train. The magnitude of the burden imposed by guarding against the harm was insignificant; Joho only needed to take a moment to pause, look at the tracks and cross when it was safe. Finally, placing this burden on Joho would have been minimal. Id. at 22.
What about the fact that the trial judge called the accident "tragically bizarre"? That doesn't sound like something that can be considered "foreseeable," does it? The First District Appellate court had an answer: There is a general proposition that there is no duty to anticipate and prevent injuries that occur due to unusual and extraordinary circumstances. See, Cunis v. Brennan, 56 Ill. 2d 372 (1974). However, the Appellate Court did not find that proposition persuasive in this case. Since there are no Illinois cases factually similar to the Zokhrabov case, the Court relied on traditional duty analysis and found that the injury was foreseeable, thereby creating a duty of care.
