Easley v. Apollo Detective Agency, Inc.

• Decision Date: 20 February 1979
• Docket Number: No. 78-484,78-484
• Citation: 387 N.E.2d 1241,69 Ill.App.3d 920
• Parties: , 26 Ill.Dec. 313 Dorothy EASLEY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. APOLLO DETECTIVE AGENCY, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 1241

387 N.E.2d 1241

69 Ill.App.3d 920, 26 Ill.Dec. 313

Dorothy EASLEY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. APOLLO DETECTIVE AGENCY, INC., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 78-484.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Second Division.

Feb. 20, 1979.

Rothschild, Barry & Myers, Chicago, for defendant-appellant; John J. Coffey, III, Chicago, of counsel.

Philip A. Doran, Ltd., Chicago, for plaintiff-appellee; William J. Harte, Ltd., Chicago, of counsel.

STAMOS, Presiding Justice:

Defendant, Apollo Detective Agency, Inc. (Apollo), appeals from a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff, Dorothy Easley, for damages suffered when an Apollo security guard, William Lee Brown, used a passkey to enter plaintiff's apartment and then assaulted her. The jury found Apollo guilty of wilful and wanton misconduct in hiring the guard and returned a verdict of $7,500 punitive damages on Count I of the Fifth Amended Complaint. Count II alleged that Apollo was responsible by statute for the conduct of its employee; the court directed a verdict against Apollo on the issue of liability, and the jury fixed compensatory damages at $20,000. ¹

Apollo appeals from the denial of its motion for a directed verdict on Count I, from certain evidentiary rulings by the trial court, and from the amount of compensatory damages assessed by the jury on Count II. No questions are raised on the pleadings or as to Apollo's liability under Count II. The issues on appeal are: (1) whether the court erred in denying Apollo's motion for a directed verdict on the issue of wilful and wanton misconduct; (2) whether the court erred in admitting evidence of an ordinance of the City of Chicago pertaining to licensing of "special policemen," and evidence that Apollo's employee was not required to be so licensed; (3) whether the court erred in admitting evidence of the fact that Brown had twice been arrested prior to his employment by Apollo; (4) whether the court erred in admitting into evidence personnel files compiled by Brown's prior employers; (5) whether the court erred in admitting evidence of a threat made to plaintiff by Brown after a criminal court proceeding which arose out of Brown's assault on plaintiff; and (6) whether the award of compensatory damages is excessive.

The pertinent facts are as follows. On February 1, 1972, plaintiff moved into an apartment in the Chicago Beach Tower Apartments at 5050 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois. Plaintiff went to bed that evening at about 10:00 P.M., after locking the doors to her apartment. At about 4:00 A.M. the next morning, February 2, plaintiff was awakened by the sound of footsteps in the apartment. She rose, donned a robe, picked up a glass bottle, and left the bedroom to investigate. Plaintiff discovered Brown, the building security guard, standing in her kitchen with his .357 magnum handgun pointed at her head and wearing his Apollo security guard uniform.

Upon discovering Brown, plaintiff threw the bottle into the air and began screaming and continued screaming as Brown brought the gun close to her head. Brown then grabbed her and shook her until she stopped screaming. He told her that he had used his passkey to enter her apartment and that he wanted to make love to her. Plaintiff broke away and tried to reach the kitchen door; Brown caught her, grabbed her again, pointed the gun at her head and said, "If you do that again, I will blow your head off." Brown then told her that he wanted to rape her, whereupon plaintiff threw up. Brown started pulling and shoving her, again threatened to kill her, and slammed the gun across her face, although on cross-examination plaintiff testified that Brown did not strike her with the gun.

Plaintiff tried to dissuade Brown while he held her for about ten or fifteen minutes. She then tried to break away but Brown caught her by the robe and threw her into the bedroom onto the bed. While holding his gun on her, Brown proceeded to run his other hand all over her body. He then started to undress and again threatened to kill her, while plaintiff continued trying to dissuade him. After about an hour, plaintiff was finally able to persuade Brown to leave, whereupon she became hysterical for a time. About a half-hour later, plaintiff used a phone in a neighbor's apartment to call the police, who brought Brown to plaintiff for an identification. Over objection, plaintiff testified that she next saw Brown two or three weeks later, after a proceeding in criminal court, at which time he was accompanied by Apollo's supervisor of guards, Captain Glenn. Brown walked up to her, pointed at her, and said, "I am going to get you."

Plaintiff testified that she was "a nervous wreck" as a result of her experience with Brown, that she would be awakened by the slightest sound and be unable to get back to sleep. She testified that it was two years before she could sleep through a complete night without waking up thinking that someone was breaking into her apartment, and if she heard a sound and did not see a person directly in front of her, she would start screaming, believing that she was going to be attacked.

At the time of the incident, plaintiff was a staff employee in a political primary campaign. She had been in sales before working in the primary campaign, and had always found meeting and talking to people easy. However, after her position in the campaign terminated, she took an office job where she would not have to meet strangers, because meeting people frightened her after the incident. It was approximately seven or eight months before she was able to resume her sales career. Plaintiff sought no medical attention and incurred no medical expenses. Her only direct out-of-pocket expenses from the incident resulted from her missing seven or eight days of work at her political campaign job, at which she was paid $650 per month.

In her case-in-chief, plaintiff called several other witnesses. Frank Rogers, Apollo's office manager at the time Brown was hired, and president and part owner of Apollo at the time of trial, was called under section 60 of the Civil Practice Act. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1977, ch. 110, par. 60.) Rogers was hired to act as personnel director and office manager for Apollo. Although he had prior experience in interviewing, he had no prior contact or experience with the security industry. It was Rogers' duty to check the background of each Apollo job applicant, as reflected in an employment application, with particular emphasis on prior work history. This background check was made primarily by telephoning prior employers. Apollo had no formal inquiry letters in 1970-71, nor did it have any forms to record information received over the phone. Rather, any verification was accomplished by simply marking "ok" or "not ok" on the application, along with any other comments.

Rogers testified concerning Brown's job application, which he took from Brown when he interviewed him. The application indicated that Brown had been referred to Apollo by Apollo's supervisor of guards. Two numbers appearing on the application were identified as Illinois and Chicago gun registration numbers. Brown's application listed a present address but not the number of years he had lived there. Rogers did not check the prior addresses; he said that he had probably instructed an office girl to do it, as the responsibility for checking the applications was diffused throughout the office. While Rogers testified that there should have been marks on the application indicating that Brown's prior Illinois addresses had been checked, there were no such marks, nor were there any letters in the file to indicate that Brown's prior out-of-state addresses had been checked. Neither were there any marks indicating that Brown's personal references had been checked, although it was the practice of Apollo to mark "ok" if someone had been contacted.

The application revealed that Brown had completed two and one-half years of high school. He was not required to take any intelligence or psychological tests. Rogers stated that Brown showed him a security training program certificate and that this impressed him, but he did not retain a copy for the file. Brown stated on his application that he had never been arrested. Rogers testified that he was not aware of Brown's prior arrests until after Brown had assaulted plaintiff. He further testified that Apollo would not have hired Brown if Apollo knew that he had been arrested for something other than a minor traffic violation. The only way that Apollo would attempt to verify that an applicant had no such arrest record was by sending identifying information on the applicant to the State, which would send back an identification card after checking the applicant. In this case the card was not received until February 5, 1973, and thus, while the State did not prohibit employment of the applicant pending completion of the investigation, Apollo did not have the benefit of the State's investigation of Brown when Apollo hired him. Rogers further testified that although the two partners in the business at the time, Reiter and Kirk, were both Chicago Police officers, neither attempted to check whether Brown had an arrest record with the Chicago Police Department, nor did Rogers ask Brown to authorize such a check. Rogers testified that information on arrest records was not available to Apollo.

During her examination of Rogers, plaintiff introduced into evidence and read from sections of the Illinois Detectives and Investigators Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1975, ch. 38, pars. 201-1 Et seq.) and an ordinance of the City of Chicago relating to licensing of "special policemen" (Chicago Munic.Code (1973), ch. 173). Rogers testified that it was his understanding that Apollo was only required to comply with the State statute and not the ordinance, and thus Apollo did not require Brown or any employee to be licensed as special policemen by the City of Chicago.

Brown's application listed two...