Martin v. Chicago Transit Authority

• Decision Date: 19 September 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-1111,83-1111
• Citation: 128 Ill.App.3d 837,471 N.E.2d 544,84 Ill.Dec. 15
• Parties: , 84 Ill.Dec. 15 Harold MARTIN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY, a municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 544

471 N.E.2d 544

128 Ill.App.3d 837, 84 Ill.Dec. 15

Harold MARTIN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY, a municipal corporation Defendant-Appellee.

No. 83-1111.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Third Division.

Sept. 19, 1984.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing, Dec. 19, 1984.

Leonard M. Ring & Associates, Chicago (Leonard M. Ring and Judith E. Fors, Chicago), for plaintiff-appellant.

Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, Chicago (Donald M. Flayton and James D. Jordan, Chicago, of counsel), for defendant-appellee.

WHITE, Justice.

The sole issue presented by this appeal is whether our supreme court's decision in Fancil v. Q.S.E. Foods, Inc. (1975), 60 Ill.2d 552, 328 N.E.2d 538, required the circuit court of Cook County to enter summary judgment in favor of defendant, Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), and against plaintiff, Harold Martin. We hold that it did not.

The depositions before the circuit court upon the CTA's motion for summary judgment reveal the following undisputed facts. In 1978, Martin was employed by the Chicago Police Department and was assigned to the Department's Mass Transit Unit. He worked primarily on the CTA's Jackson Park-Englewood elevated train line. On June 6, 1978, shortly after 9 p.m., Martin boarded the second car of an eastbound CTA train at the Central Avenue station on the Lake Street line. He was off duty and not in uniform, but he was carrying his service revolver. The train had travelled one or two stops when three men boarded the car in which Martin was riding. After the train started to move, one of these men reached into his pocket, pulled out a handgun, and fired a shot into the ceiling of the car. This man announced that the three men were going to take over the train and rob the passengers. Martin responded by drawing his service revolver and simultaneously identifying himself as a police officer. Several shots were exchanged, and Martin was shot in the head, shoulder and leg.

Martin's complaint alleged negligence on the part of the CTA in that the CTA failed to supply guards, failed to warn passengers of the dangers of riding the Lake Street elevated train, failed to prevent persons armed with weapons from riding its elevated trains, and failed to screen passengers. Martin further alleged that as a direct and proximate result of one or more of these negligent acts or omissions, he was shot and severely injured. The circuit court, relying exclusively on Fancil v. Q.S.E. Foods, Inc., entered summary judgment in favor of the CTA and against Martin. Martin now appeals from the judgment.

In Fancil, our supreme court held that the wife of a police officer who was fatally shot by burglars while making a routine security check of defendant's grocery store failed to state a cause of action for negligence against defendant, because her amended complaint failed to establish the existence of a duty to exercise reasonable care for the police officer's safety. The amended complaint had alleged, among other things, that defendant had negligently failed to provide adequate lighting in the area of a wire enclosure attached to his building, and that as a direct and proximate cause of defendant's negligence, burglars concealed themselves on the premises and ambushed the officer while he was in the process of conducting a security check. After stating that Illinois law imposes "upon the possessor of land, as to a policeman or a fireman who is on the premises in the performance of his official duties at a place where he might reasonably be expected to be, the same duty which the possessor of land owes to an invitee" (60 Ill.2d at 556, 328 N.E.2d 538), our supreme court held that the relation between defendant and the decedent was not such as to give rise to a duty owed by the defendant for the protection of the decedent. Our supreme court reasoned:

The risk to which the decedent was subjected because of the conditions which existed upon the defendant's premises was the same risk which every police officer encounters while conducting security checks in both residential and commercial areas. The danger of being ambushed by criminals lurking in poorly illuminated areas, in shadows or behind objects is a risk inherent in the occupation. Hence, the danger to which the decedent was subjected was not an unreasonable risk for a police officer. Also the allegations that the decedent and the other officers were armed to protect themselves from burglars whom they might discover while checking the premises for the presence of unauthorized persons establishes that the officers realized the danger inherent in their occupation and protected themselves against it.

60 Ill.2d at 558, 328 N.E.2d 538.

We believe that the inherent risk principle announced in Fancil should not be extended beyond the limited context of landowner/occupier liability. Martin seeks to impose liability on the CTA, not as a landowner/occupier, but based upon the high degree of care that a common carrier is bound to exercise toward its passengers to prevent injuries which could have been reasonably foreseen and avoided by the carrier (see McCoy v. Chicago Transit Authority (1977), 69 Ill.2d 280, 285, 13 Ill.Dec. 690, 371 N.E.2d 625; Katamay v. Chicago Transit Authority (1972), 53 Ill.2d 27, 29, 289 N.E.2d 623; Neering v. Illinois Central R.R. Co. (1943), 383 Ill. 366, 374, 50 N.E.2d 497).

The inherent risk principle announced in Fancil is analogous to the "fireman's rule" (Washington v. Atlantic...