Kavanaugh v. Midwest Club, Inc.

517 N.E.2d 656, 164 Ill. App. 3d 213, 115 Ill. Dec. 245, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 3261
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedDecember 18, 1987
Docket2-87-0164
StatusPublished
Cited by61 cases

This text of 517 N.E.2d 656 (Kavanaugh v. Midwest Club, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kavanaugh v. Midwest Club, Inc., 517 N.E.2d 656, 164 Ill. App. 3d 213, 115 Ill. Dec. 245, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 3261 (Ill. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

JUSTICE REINHARD

delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiff, Marianne Kavanaugh, administrator of thé estate of her deceased husband, Thomas Kavanaugh, brought this wrongful death and survival action against defendants, Midwest Club, Inc., Village of Oak Brook (Oak Brook), and Du Page County, arising out of an occurrence in which her husband suffered an epileptic seizure while driving a vehicle, which then left the highway and became submerged in a retention pond on Midwest Club’s property, thereby resulting in his death by drowning. This interlocutory appeal by plaintiff under Supreme Court Rule 304(a) (107 Ill. 2d R. 304(a)) arises from an order dismissing the counts against Midwest Club and Oak Brook pursuant to section 2 — 615 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1985, ch. 110, par. 2 — 615). The trial court found that no duty to plaintiff’s decedent was owed by Midwest Club and that the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act (Tort Immunity Act) (Ill. Rev, Stat. 1985, ch. 85, par. 1 — 101 et seq.) barred recovery against Oak Brook. Du Page County is not a party to this appeal, and the counts against it are pending in the trial court.

On appeal, plaintiff contends that Midwest Club owed a duty of ordinary care under the circumstances because it was foreseéable that a vehicle could leave the highway and enter the retention pond or, if not foreseeable, the duty of ordinary care was owed because the deceased left the highway out of private necessity and therefore he was a rightful entrant upon Midwest Club’s property. As against Oak Brook, plaintiff maintains that police officers of Oak Brook were negligent in their voluntary rescue attempt and that the provisions of the Tort Immunity Act do not apply.

Plaintiff’s third amended complaint, in pertinent part, alleges the following. On November 29, 1984, Mr. Kavanaugh was driving a vehicle east on 31st Street in the Village of Oak Brook. Midwest Club owned and maintained a retention pond located in the vicinity of 31st Street and Midwest Road. After Kavanaugh suffered an epileptic seizure, his vehicle left the roadway, entered the retention pond, and became completely submerged. '

Thereafter, an off-duty security guard of Midwest Club telephoned the Oak Brook police department and informed them of the incident. Several officers were dispatched to the scene, none of whom carried the equipment necessary to perform underwater rescue.

Upon their arrival at the scene, the officers unsuccessfully attempted to rescue Kavanaugh, who was still alive, from his submerged vehicle. After the failed attempt, the Oak Brook police department requested assistance from the Lisle-Woodridge Recovery Team. The subsequent rescue efforts were also unsuccessful.

In the two counts against Midwest Club, plaintiff alleges that Midwest Club owed a duty to use reasonable care for the safety of Kavanaugh and was negligent by failing to erect guards or barriers around the retention pond, by failing to design the retention pond in a safe manner, by locating the retention pond too close to 31st Street, and by failing to erect a fence between the retention pond and 31st Street. The one count against Oak Brook alleges that upon dispatching the police officers to the scene of the incident, Oak Brook voluntarily undertook to rescue Kavanaugh and assumed the duty to perform the rescue without negligence. It further alleges that Oak Brook was negligent in delaying the arrival of trained water rescue personnel and by dispatching personnel with no diving or water rescue gear, and no training in water rescue.

Following the filing of motions to dismiss by Midwest Club and Oak Brook, the trial court dismissed all the counts against these parties, finding that Midwest Club owed no duty towards plaintiff’s decedent and that the Tort Immunity Act prevented the action against Oak Brook as pleaded.

Plaintiff contends that Midwest Club owed Kavanáugh a duty of reasonable care to maintain and guard the retention pond because it was foreseeable that a motor vehicle, in its ordinary course of travel, could leave the roadway and enter the pond. Midwest Club responds to the contrary and argues further that public policy considerations compel a finding of no duty requiring a landowner to prevent vehicles from coming in contact with natural or artificial conditions located near a roadway.

In determining whether a motion to dismiss was properly allowed, all well-pleaded facts will be regarded as true (Kirk v. Michael Reese Hospital & Medical Center (1987), 117 Ill. 2d 507, 514, 513 N.E.2d 387, 390), and all reasonable inferences should be construed in the plaintiff’s favor. (See Katz v. Belmont National Bank (1986), 112 Ill. 2d 64, 67, 491 N.E.2d 1157, 1158.) A cause of action should not be dismissed unless it clearly appears from the pleadings that no set of facts can be proved which will entitle plaintiff to recover. Charles Hester Enterprises, Inc. v. Illinois Founders Insurance Co. (1986), 114 Ill. 2d 278, 286, 499 N.E.2d 1319, 1322.

To be legally sufficient, a complaint for negligence must set out facts that establish the existence of a duty owed by defendant to plaintiff, a breach of that duty, and an injury proximately caused by the breach. (Kirk, 117 Ill. 2d at 525, 513 N.E.2d at 395-96.) The determination of whether a duty exists is an issue of law to be determined by the court. (Kirk, 117 Ill. 2d at 525, 513 N.E.2d at 396.) Reasonable foreseeability of harm is a key concern in determining whether a duty exists, although the court should also consider the likelihood of injury, the magnitude of the burden of guarding against it and the consequences of placing the burden on the defendant. Kirk, 117 Ill. 2d at 526, 513 N.E.2d at 396.

This court, in Boylan v. Martindale (1982), 103 Ill. App. 3d 335, 431 N.E.2d 62, addressed the issue of the duty owed by an owner or occupant of land to the occupant of a motor vehicle to protect against the harm resulting from the vehicle leaving the roadway and coming in contact with an artificial condition adjacent to the roadway. In Boylan, the court relied, in part, on section 368 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts when establishing the duty under these circumstances. (103 Ill. App. 3d at 344, 413 N.E.2d at 69.) Section 368 provides:

“A possessor of land who creates or permits to remain thereon an excavation or other artificial condition so near an existing highway that he realizes or should realize that it involves an unreasonable risk to others accidentally brought into contact with such condition while traveling with reasonable care upon the highway, is subject to liability for physical harm thereby caused to persons who
(a) are traveling on the highway, or
(b) foreseeably deviate from it in the ordinary course of travel.” Restatement (Second) of Torts §368 (1965).

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Bluebook (online)
517 N.E.2d 656, 164 Ill. App. 3d 213, 115 Ill. Dec. 245, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 3261, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kavanaugh-v-midwest-club-inc-illappct-1987.