Glass v. Ingalls Memorial Hospital

• Decision Date: 12 September 1975
• Docket Number: No. 60164,60164
• Citation: 336 N.E.2d 495,32 Ill.App.3d 237
• Parties: George GLASS, Administrator of the Estate of Carolyn Glass, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. INGALLS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, a corporation, and Scientific Blood Bank, Inc., a corporation, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 495

336 N.E.2d 495

32 Ill.App.3d 237

George GLASS, Administrator of the Estate of Carolyn Glass Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. INGALLS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, a corporation, and Scientific Blood Bank, Inc., a corporation, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 60164.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Fifth Division.

Sept. 12, 1975.

Karlin & Fleisher, Chicago (Barry M. Woldman, Chicago, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellant.

Crooks & Gilligan, Chicago (Kendal A. Crooks and John W. Gilligan, Chicago, of counsel), for Scientific Blood Bank, Inc.

Lord, Bissell & Brook, Chicago (Harold L. Jacobson, Williams P. Dorr and Thomas W. Dempsey, Chicago, of counsel), for Ingalls Memorial Hospital.

DRUCKER, Justice:

This action was brought to recover damages for the wrongful death of plaintiff's decedent. The complaint charged that defendants were strictly liable in tort for the sale and distribution of blood which was 'defective and unreasonably dangerous.' Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the action was barred by Chapter 91, Section 181 et seq. of the Illinois Revised Statutes. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1973, ch. 91, par. 181 et seq.) The court below granted defendants' motions, and plaintiff appeals contending that these statutes violate the prohibition against special legislation contained in Article IV, Section 13, of the Illinois Constitution of 1970.

Plaintiff's complaint was predicated solely upon the doctrine of strict liability in tort. Count I alleged that plaintiff's decedent had been a patient at defendant, Ingalls Memorial Hospital, in December 1971, that 'as part of the services rendered to Plaintiff's decedent,' the hospital sold her blood for purposes of transfusion, that this blood was 'defective and unreasonably dangerous' thereby causing her to contract serum hepatitis and that as a result of this disease she died on March 6, 1972. Count II of the complaint alleged that defendant, Scientific Blood Bank, Inc., sold and distributed to the hospital the defective and unreasonably dangerous blood which was given to plaintiff's decedent. Both defendants filed motions to dismiss claiming that plaintiff's cause of action was barred by recently enacted 'blood legislation' (Ill.Rev.Stat.1973, ch. 91, par. 181 et seq.) Plaintiff in answer to these motions argued that these statutory provisions were unconstitutional. The trial judge rejected plaintiff's constitutional attack and granted defendants' motions to dismiss. He gave leave to plaintiff to file an amended complaint 'based upon ordinary negligence.'

Opinion

In a landmark 1965 decision the Supreme Court in Suvada v. White Motor Company, 32 Ill.2d 612, 210 N.E.2d 182, held that manufacturers of products whose defective condition makes them unreasonably dangerous are strictly liable to the user or consumer who is injured as a proximate result of the defective condition, and it is not necessary to show that the manufacturer was negligent. Five years later the court applied the Suvada doctrine to a factual situation similar to the one at bar. In Cunningham v. macNeal Memorial Hospital, 47 Ill.2d 443, 266 N.E.2d 897, the plaintiff sought damages on a theory of strict liability on the ground she contracted serum hepatitis as the result of a blood transfusion administered at the defendant hospital. The court held at page 447, 266 N.E.2d at page 899 that '(w)hile whole blood may well be viable, human tissue, and thus not a manufactured article of commerce, we believe that it must in this instance be considered a 'product' in much the same way as other articles wholly unchanged from their natural state which are distributed for human consumption' and therefore ruled that the plaintiff's complaint adequately stated a cause of action on the theory of strict tort liability.

In response to Cunningham ¹ legislation was enacted stating, in part, that whole blood, plasma and blood derivatives distributed for transfusion are to be considered, for purposes of liability in tort, a service and not a sale even if remuneration is paid, and that strict tort liability is not applicable to such transactions. (See Ill.Rev.Stat.1973, ch. 91, par. 182.) ² Plaintiff contends that this legislation has immunized the class of persons selling blood for transfusions from the burden of strict tort liability imposed upon all other merchants selling all other goods in Illinois and therefore violates the constitutional prohibition against special legislation.

Article IV, Section 13, of the Constitution of 1970, provides that '(t)he General Assembly shall pass no special or local law when a general law is or can be made applicable. Whether a general law is or can be made applicable shall be a matter for judicial determination.' Plaintiff argues that in Cunningham the Supreme Court has already made the judicial determination that for purposes of strict tort liability sellers of blood should be treated in the same manner as all other merchants. We disagree.

The issue before us is totally different from the one presented in Cunningham. There the Supreme Court was merely asked to decide whether, in the absence of any legislation to the contrary, the Suvada rule applied to the distribution of blood. As noted above, its decision prompted the legislature to enact Sections 181, et seq. The issue before us is whether this enactment violates Article IV, Section 13, of the Illinois Constitution. Clearly Cunningham bears, at most, only tangenitally on our determination of the constitutionality of a statute enacted subsequent to its issuance.

The Supreme Court has provided us with well established guidelines for determining whether a statute violates the constitutional prohibition against special legislation. In People ex rel. Conservation District v. Lenover, 43 Ill.2d 209, 217--218, 251 N.E.2d 175, 179, it held:

'Establishing classifications is primarily a legislative function. (Citations.) Classifications made by the legislature need not be logical, harmonious, scientific or even accurate, provided they will accomplish the legislative design and are not arbitrary. (Citations.) Only if it can be said that the classification is clearly unreasonable and palpably arbitrary will a court declare the statute invalid. (Citations.) And 'A distinction in legislation is not arbitrary if any state of facts can reasonably be conceived that would sustain it, . . ..' (Citations.) Summarizing, a legislative classification is sustainable where founded upon a rational difference of situation or condition existing in persons or objects upon which the class rests, and where there is a reasonable basis for the classification in light of the objects and purposes to be accomplished. (Citations.)'

See also People ex rel. City of Salem v. McMackin, 53 Ill.2d 347, 364, 291 N.E.2d 807; McRoberts v. Adams, 60 Ill.2d 458, 462--463, 328 N.E.2d 321.

Furthermore, it is to be presumed that before enacting the instant classification, the legislature surveyed the conditions existing in the state and pursued the various means available to it but not available to the judiciary. (See People v. Palkes, 52 Ill.2d 472, 288 N.E.2d 469.) We will not nullify a legislative classification merely on the ground that our judgment differs from that of the...