Summary judgment was affirmed by the Illinois Appellate Court in favor of the defendant in a case involving a rear-end car crash that injured the plaintiff. Before trial, the defendant Kathleen Waldeck died from unrelated causes. The lawsuit then proceeded by the plaintiff against a special representative who stood in the place of the deceased defendant. On the motion for summary judgment, the defendant argued successfully that the plaintiff could not establish negligence and therefore summary judgment was appropriate.
The Illinois Appellate Court distinguished this case, the Peacock case, from two similar cases involving the Dead Man’s Act (Act) (735 ILCS 5/8-201) which both related to and proving negligence in rear-end car crashes.
The other Illinois cases established that a party opposing a motion for summary judgment may not rely on evidence barred by the act to establish the existence of a material fact. The purpose of the Dead Man’s Act is to avoid allowing testimony that cannot be rebutted because the only other witness is dead.
In this case, the plaintiff offering testimony that would rebut the defendant’s answer to the complaint that she lacked sufficient knowledge as to whether the plaintiff’s car was stopped before the collision was in violation of the Dead Man’s Act. In Burns v. Grezeka, a prima facie case of negligence was found and summary judgment was reversed after the deceased defendant admitted in the pleadings that the plaintiff’s car was stopped at a red light when the crash took place.
Here, the court stressed the lack of knowledge that is of no evidentiary significance. According to the plaintiff’s complaint, Andice Peacock was driving west on Roosevelt Road in DuPage County, Ill., on Oct. 6, 2011 and the defendant, Waldeck, was driving her car behind Peacock’s in the same lane. While Peacock was stopped for a stoplight, Waldeck’s car struck the rear of the plaintiff’s vehicle. Before Waldeck’s death, she filed an answer to the plaintiff’s complaint stating that she had a lack of knowledge sufficient to answer the allegation that plaintiff’s vehicle was stopped at a stoplight when the collision occurred. She neither admitted nor denied that allegation. The defendant admitted, however, the other allegations regarding the time and the place of the crash.
At the oral argument in the appellate court, the plaintiff’s counsel conceded that negligence cannot be inferred simply because defendant was traveling behind plaintiff and had an unobstructed view of the plaintiff’s vehicle. It was argued, however, that the defendant’s lack of knowledge of whether the plaintiff’s vehicle was stopped at a stop light permitted an inference that – as the plaintiff would have testified – it was indeed stopped.
In contrast to the pleadings in this case, if the defendant had actually admitted that the plaintiff was waiting at a stoplight when the crash occurred, the decision in Burns v. Grezeka, 155 Ill.App.3d 294 (1987), would have controlled the disposition of this appeal.
In Burns, the appellate court held that “although the fact of a rear-end collision into a parked vehicle is not sufficient to establish liability as a matter of law, it is adequate to raise a prima facie case of negligence on the part of the driver of the rear vehicle.” In this case, the Peacock case, the defendant did not admit that the plaintiff’s vehicle was stopped at a traffic light; she averred a lack of knowledge of the truth of the allegation.
Contrary to the position the plaintiff took at oral argument, the defendant’s lack of knowledge has no evidentiary significance. Given that the Dead Man’s Act was designed to bar testimony that a decedent could have refuted, plaintiff could have argued, perhaps, that the Dead Man’s Act should not apply to matters about which the decedent admittedly had no knowledge. That however, was not the argument that the plaintiff had made, so the appeals panel did not consider it further.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Circuit Court of DuPage County was affirmed dismissing the case and granting this motion for summary judgment.
Peacock v. Waldeck, 2016 IL App (2d) 151043.
Kreisman Law Offices has been handling rear-end car crash, truck injury cases, intersection crash cases, multiple vehicle crash cases, bicycle accident injury cases and motorcycle injury cases for individuals and families who have been harmed, injured or died as a result of the carelessness or negligence of another for more than 40 years in and around Chicago, Cook County and its surrounding areas, including Wheaton, St. Charles, Hinsdale, Roselle, Worth, Westchester, Crete, Dolton, Lynwood, Lincolnshire, Harvey, Berkeley, Berwyn, Beecher, South Holland, Blue Island, South Barrington, Chicago (Chinatown, Canaryville, Buena Park, Belmont Central, Back of the Yards, Archer Heights, Armour Square, Lincoln Square, Lithuanian Plaza, Little Italy, South Shore, St. Ben’s), Glendale, Glencoe and Lockport, Ill.
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