Heastie v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 01 November 2007
• Docket Number: No. 102428.,102428.
• Citation: 226 Ill.2d 515,877 N.E.2d 1064
• Parties: Almon B. HEASTIE, Appellee, v. Daniela ROBERTS et al., Appellants.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

877 N.E.2d 1064

226 Ill.2d 515

Almon B. HEASTIE, Appellee, v. Daniela ROBERTS et al., Appellants.

No. 102428.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

November 1, 2007.

Robert Marc Chemers, Edward H. Nielsen and Scott L. Howie, of Pretzel & Stouffer, Chrtd., Chicago, for appellant Daniela Roberts.

Michael E. Prangle and Benjamin E. Patterson, of Hall Prangle & Schoonveld, LLC, and Hugh C. Griffin and Adam L. Frankel, of Lord, Bissell & Brook LLP, all of Chicago, for appellants Josephine Onyema et al.

Lawrence R. Kream and Sharon K. O'Connell, of David J. DeJong & Associates, Ltd., of Chicago, for appellee.

OPINION

Justice KARMEIER delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion:

Plaintiff, Almon B. Heastie, brought an action in the circuit court of Cook County to recover damages for personal injuries he sustained in a fire which took place while he was involuntarily restrained on a cart while awaiting treatment in the emergency room of the Columbia Olympia Fields Osteopathic Hospital and Medical Center (the Hospital). Named as defendants were the Hospital; Jason Humphrey, one of the Hospital's security guards; an emergency room technician named Dawn Epley; and two registered nurses who were involved in plaintiff's care, Daniela Roberts and Josephine Onyema. Following a jury trial, a verdict was returned in favor of all defendants and against plaintiff. The appellate court reversed and remanded for a new trial on the grounds that the circuit court had erred in dismissing, on the pleadings, a negligence count asserted by plaintiff based on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. No. 1-03-3463 (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23). We granted defendants' petition for leave to appeal. 210 Ill.2d R. 315. For the reasons that follow, the judgment of the appellate court is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cause is remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

The litigation which gave rise to this appeal commenced in the fall of 1998, approximately nine years ago. The trial court proceedings lasted more than half a decade, culminating in a month-long jury trial during the summer of 2003 involving the testimony of approximately two dozen witnesses. The resulting record is voluminous. For now, we need only summarize the basic facts of the case. Additional details will be supplied as necessary during the course of our analysis.

Plaintiff is a 50-year-old male whose intelligence is in the extremely low to borderline deficient range. On the evening of October 3, 1998, paramedics responded to a call that he was in need of medical attention. When they arrived on the scene, they found him lying intoxicated in a residential driveway and transported him to the emergency room of the Hospital, a Level 1 trauma center. Plaintiff had a history of alcohol abuse and had been taken to the same emergency room in an intoxicated condition before.

When plaintiff arrived at the Hospital, medical personnel assessed his condition. They determined that he was not suffering from anything requiring immediate medical intervention. He was, however, extremely drunk, unable to stand, uncooperative, disoriented, and incapable of making rational decisions for himself.¹ He was also yelling and combative.

Daniela Roberts, who was serving as the Hospital's emergency room's charge nurse, believed that plaintiff was in immediate danger of harming himself or others. In accordance with the Hospital's restraint and seclusion policy, nurse Roberts therefore decided that he should be restrained on a cart and moved to an area away from other patients. To accomplish this, nurse Roberts required the assistance of three other persons: defendants Onyema, who was also a nurse; Dawn Epley, the emergency room technician; and Jason Humphrey, the hospital security guard.

Roberts, Onyema and the others succeeded in placing plaintiff on the cart and securing him there using four-point "hard" (i.e., rigid) restraints, which were locked over plaintiff's wrists and ankles, then attached to the cart with straps and buckles. Once plaintiff was thus restrained, he was wheeled into a separate section of the emergency room area known as the cast room, so called because it was where casts were applied to the limbs of injured patients.

The cast room was partitioned off from the other parts of the emergency room by windowless walls and a door. The room contained a sink, electrical outlets, lights and equipment, and a variety of supplies used in applying casts. Because of the danger of fire in such an environment, the room was equipped with a heat detector. It did not, however, have a smoke detector.

The Hospital had a different room it normally used to sequester patients. The cast room was used for plaintiff instead because the regular seclusion room was in use and the cast room was available. In accordance with the Hospital's policy, Hospital staff were required to search plaintiff for contraband when he was restrained and sequestered. That was not done. Pursuant to Hospital policy, a physician was supposed to review the need to restrain him within an hour. That was not done. Hospital policy also required that staff check on plaintiff's behavior and degree of control at 15-minute intervals. While nurse Roberts did look in on plaintiff according to that schedule for the first hour, she became occupied with another emergency room patient and did not check on plaintiff after 9 p.m.

Sometime after 9 p.m., an intern working in the emergency room heard plaintiff yelling and went into the cast room to see what he wanted. The intern ascertained that plaintiff required a urinal, then left, advising a nurse of what was going on. Epley, the emergency room technician, subsequently closed the door to the cast room so that other emergency room patients would not have to listen to the noise plaintiff was making.

At approximately 9:30 p.m., the heat alarm in the cast room activated the emergency room's fire alarm bells. A psychotherapist named Tim Jenkins, who had been standing nearby, was the first to respond. He opened the door and saw smoke and fire. Plaintiff was still secured to the cart by the rigid restraints. He was on fire, as was the wall behind him. Flames from the fire were so high they reached the ceiling.

Jenkins attempted to extinguish the flames on plaintiff's body using a curtain that divided treatment bays in the cast room, but the smoke and flames drove him from the room before he could put the fire out. An intern named Dr. David Gilchrist then located a fire extinguisher and was able to use it to stop the fire.

According to Epley, there was also fire on the floor of the room. Epley got down on her hands and knees and put it out using a sheet she had carried with her into the room. She then released the brakes on the cart to which plaintiff was restrained and wheeled him into a trauma room. Once plaintiff was in the trauma room, Epley cut the restraints from his wrists and ankles. A physician named Simeakis realized that plaintiff needed to be resuscitated and intubated him to enable him to breathe. By this time a trauma team was on the scene and plaintiff, who was badly burned, was transported by helicopter to Loyola University Medical Center (Loyola).

When examined by doctors at Loyola, plaintiff was found to be suffering from third degree burns to both upper extremities, inhalation injury, and full thickness burns to the anterior torso, bilateral groins, genitalia, and bilateral lower extremities. Extensive debridement and grafting was required. His right thumb and some of his fingertips had to be amputated. Multiple surgeries were ultimately required, including surgery on his penis and surgery to repair and reconstruct his hands. Plaintiff remained on a respirator and unconscious for weeks after the accident. As a result of his injuries he is unable to live independently and will require the assistance of a caregiver for the remainder of his life.

An investigation of the fire was conducted by law enforcement authorities, led by a detective from the Olympia Fields police department. The detective was never able to reach an opinion as to how or by whom the fire was started. A lab report indicated the presence of an accelerant in plaintiff's pants, but where the accelerant came from was unknown. Although a State police officer reported to the Olympia Fields detective that he had found a disposable lighter on the floor of the cast room sometime after the fire had been extinguished, the significance of that discovery, if it had any, could never be ascertained by authorities. None of the witnesses who were involved in putting the fire out or who were in the cast room immediately before or after the blaze ever saw the lighter, the lighter exhibited no apparent signs of fire damage, it bore no fingerprints, and there was no evidence linking it to plaintiff. Plaintiff himself could not even recall being at the Hospital, much less how the fire started.

Four days after the fire, the Hospital, through one of its administrators, sent a letter to Daniela Roberts, the emergency room charge nurse on duty when the accident occurred. The letter advised nurse Roberts that her employment with the Hospital was being terminated because of the incident involving plaintiff. Termination was to take effect immediately based on an employee-behavior policy authorizing such termination in cases involving negligence or patient abuse or mistreatment.

Plaintiff ultimately brought a negligence action against defendants in the circuit court of Cook County to recover damages for the personal injuries he sustained as a result of the fire. As the case progressed, plaintiff amended his complaint multiple times. The fifth version, and the one at issue here, contained three counts. Count I alleged that defendants had been negligent for restraining him improperly, for failing to search him for contraband before restraining him on the cart, for not adequately...