Provenzano v. Illinois Central Railroad

272 Ill. App. 475, 1933 Ill. App. LEXIS 153
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 21, 1933
DocketGen. No. 36,700
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 272 Ill. App. 475 (Provenzano v. Illinois Central Railroad) 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
Provenzano v. Illinois Central Railroad, 272 Ill. App. 475, 1933 Ill. App. LEXIS 153 (Ill. Ct. App. 1933).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Scanlan

delivered the opinion of the court.

Plaintiff ¡sued defendant to recover damages for personal injuries and property loss sustained as the result of a collision between a truck owned and driven by plaintiff and a train of defendant, at a grade crossing in Hillside, Cook county, Illinois, on August 18, 1928. A jury returned a verdict finding defendant guilty and assessing plaintiff’s damages at $4,000. Defendant has appealed from a judgment entered upon the verdict.

In a former trial of this case there was a directed verdict for defendant at the close of plaintiff’s case. Upon appeal we held (Provenzano v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 263 Ill. App. 530) that plaintiff’s evidence made out a clear prima facie case against defendant and that the trial court erred in directing a verdict. To save repetition we refer to our former opinion for a statement of the pleadings, the locus in quo and plaintiff’s theory of fact.

Defendant contends that “the trial court erred in sustaining plaintiff’s demurrer to defendant’s special plea invoking provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act in defense of plaintiff’s claim for damages for personal injuries.” Almost five years after the accident occurred, during the second trial of this cause and at a time when plaintiff had offered most of his proof, defendant asked leave to file this special plea. Counsel for defendant admitted to the trial court* that in the first trial they had not attempted to interpose the defense raised by -that plea, and they gave no excuse for their dilatory conduct. Plaintiff urges a number of grounds in support of the court’s action in sustaining the demurrer to this plea, but it is unnecessary to refer to all. The plea assumes, in the introductory part, to answer the whole declaration, as follows: “Now comes the defendant, . . . leave of court being first had and obtained, and for a further and special plea herein says that the plaintiff, Louis Provenzano, ought not to have and maintain his aforesaid action against it, the said defendant, because the defendant says,” etc. The plea is clearly bad as against the claim for property damage, as the Workmen’s Compensation Act provides compensation only for accidental injuries or death. In Gebbie v. Mooney, 121 Ill. 255, 257, the court said:

“Chitty says: ‘If a plea profess, in its commencement, to answer the whole cause of action, and after-wards answers only a part, the whole plea is bad,’ and he says the proper course is to demur. 1 Pleadings (7th Am. ed.) 554, * 555.”

“A special plea in bar, which commences as an answer to the whole declaration, and answers only one cdunt, is bad, and where it professes to answer the whole declaration, but only answers a part, it is bad. ’ ’ (Puterbaugh’s Com. Law Pl. & Pr. (10th ed.) p. 114.)

“It is to "be observed, that a plea which only contains an answer to part of the declaration must be qualified accordingly in the commencement.” (Ib.)

“It is a familiar rule, that a plea which professes to answer the whole declaration, but only answers a part, is bad; that principle controls here. The demurrer will have to be sustained to the two pleas.” (Peabody v. Kendall, 145 Ill. 519, 526.)

(See also Titcomb v. Straight, 57 Ill. App. 331, 332; Kopf v. Yordy, 200 Ill. App. 409, 415; City of Marshall v. C., C., C. & St. L. Ry. Co., 80 Ill. App. 531, 535; Hartzell v. Cincinnati, H. & D. Ry. Co., 218 Ill. App. 553; People v. McClellan, 137 Ill. 352, 359; People v. McCormack, 68 Ill. 226; Goodrich v. Reynolds, Wilder & Co., 31 Ill. 490, and People v. Weber, 92 Ill. 288, 291.) In Puterbaugh, pp. 114-5, the author gives the various forms used where qualification is necessary. Defendant’s position, as we understand it, is that plaintiff, the Central Lime& Cement Company and defendant were all operating under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, and were subject to its provisions; that any claim the plaintiff may have as the result of the accident must be determined in the first instance by the industrial commission, and that the only jurisdiction the circuit court would have would be to review,, by a writ of certiorari, the action of the commission. In other words, defendant’s special plea is one to the jurisdiction of the circuit court. It requires no authorities in support of the established rule that a plea that seeks to oust a circuit court of jurisdiction for matters not appearing from an inspection of the record must be certain to every intent and must contain proper averments of facts accurately and logically stated, excluding every intendment of jurisdiction; and deductions, arguments, inferences and conclusions of the pleader are not sufficient, Tested by this rule the plea is not sufficient, We may add that after carefully considering that part of the record that bears upon the instant question we are impressed with the fact that the plea was offered more for the purpose of appeal than for any benefit that might have been gained during the trial of the case, had the demurrer been overruled.

Defendant next contends that the third count of the amended declaration is insufficient to charge a wilful and wanton injury. No demurrer was filed to this count, and neither at the close of plaintiff’s case nor at the close of all the evidence did defendant offer a separate motion and a separate instruction as to it. Not only did defendant fail to challenge, in any apt way, the sufficiency of the count, but its instructions ten and eleven are based upon the theory that plaintiff had the right to recover if the jury found from the evidence that the defendant was guilty of wilful and wanton conduct in the operation of its train which proximately caused the injury in question, and having, by its conduct, permitted the case to be submitted to the jury upon that theory, it should not now be heard to contend that the third count was insufficient. Count three alleges, inter alia, that “the plaintiff was possessed of and was lawfully driving a certain automobile truck upon and along a certain public highway there, to-wit, Harrison Street, in a westerly direction, at near and over a certain crossing of the said public highway and a certain railroad of the defendant, . . . and the defendant was then and there possessed of a certain locomotive engine, with a train of cars then attached thereto, which said locomotive engine and train were then and there under the care and management of divers then servants, agents and employees of the defendant, who were then and there driving and operating the same upon and along the said railroad, near and toward and over the crossing aforesaid; and the plaintiff avers that the defendant, by its then agents, servants and employees, drove, managed, and controlled said locomotive engine at near and over said crossing in a wilful and wanton manner, and drove, managed and ran said locomotive engine on upon and over said crossing into, upon and against the said automobile truck of the plaintiff, then and there proceeding on, upon and over said crossing,- and thereby the plaintiff was then and there thrown with gréat force and violence from and out of the said automobile truck,” etc.

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272 Ill. App. 475, 1933 Ill. App. LEXIS 153, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/provenzano-v-illinois-central-railroad-illappct-1933.