Smith v. Illinois Cent. R.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 30 November 2006
• Docket Number: No. 102060.,102060.
• Citation: 223 Ill.2d 441,860 N.E.2d 332,307 Ill.Dec. 678
• Parties: Marvin SMITH et al., All Indiv. and As Representatives of All Persons and Entities Who Are Members of the Class Described Herein, Appellees, v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

860 N.E.2d 332

223 Ill.2d 441

307 Ill.Dec. 678

Marvin SMITH et al., All Indiv. and As Representatives of All Persons and Entities Who Are Members of the Class Described Herein, Appellees, v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant.

No. 102060.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

November 30, 2006.

Kurt E. Reitz, Robert J. Wagner and Heath H. Hooks, Belleville (Thompson Coburn, L.L.P., of counsel), for appellant.

Edward J. Kionka, Carbondale, Joseph M. Leberman, of Bryant & Kautz, P.C., Marion, and Jodee Favre, Belleville, for appellees.

Stephanie A. Scharf, John K. Min, of Jenner & Block, L.L.P., Chicago (Hugh E. Young, Jr., Reston, Virginia, of counsel), for amicus curiae Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc.

Karen L. Kendall, Brad A. Elward, Craig L. Unrath, of Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, Peoria, for amicus curiae Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel.

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

Marvin Smith and 10 others (plaintiffs) filed an action in the circuit court of Perry County against the Illinois Central Railroad Company, doing business as the Canadian National/Illinois Central Railroad (Railroad), on behalf of themselves and those persons and businesses who allegedly sustained personal injuries and property damage as a result of a train derailment in Tamaroa, Illinois. The circuit court granted the plaintiffs' motion to certify the case as a class action and the appellate court affirmed. 363 Ill.App.3d 944, 300 Ill.Dec. 814, 845 N.E.2d 703. This court granted leave to appeal. 177 Ill.2d R. 315. For the following reasons, we reverse the judgments of the appellate and circuit courts, and remand the cause for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

On February 9, 2003, 21 cars of a north-bound freight train owned and operated by the Railroad derailed in Tamaroa, a small rural community in southern Illinois. Tank cars containing hydrochloric acid, vinyl chloride, methanol, and a methanol/formaldehyde mixture ruptured during the derailment, spilling a portion of their contents onto the ground. Some of the cars containing methanol also caught fire. As a result, more than 1,000 individuals were subjected to a mandatory evacuation. Additional chemical discharges occurred on February 20, 2003, and May 7, 2003. Shortly after the derailment, the railroad initiated a claims process by which it reimbursed numerous individuals and businesses in and around Tamaroa for a variety of alleged losses relating to the spill and evacuation in exchange for written releases agreeing to release the Railroad from liability as to all known claims.

On June 16, 2003, plaintiffs filed a complaint in the circuit court of Perry County containing counts for negligence, negligence based on res ipsa loquitur, nuisance, abnormally dangerous activity, and trespass. The complaint alleged that the proposed class plaintiffs "were injured and damaged in one or more of the following ways:

a. They breathed the harmful chemicals, causing present and potential future damage to their lungs and other bodily organs and tissues;

b. Their skin was exposed to the harmful chemicals, resulting in present and potential future damage to their skin and other bodily organs and tissues;

c. The harmful chemicals polluted and contaminated their food and water supplies;

d. They have experienced physical and mental pain and suffering, fear, anguish, discomfort, and emotional distress, and they will continue to do so in the future, including the fear of future adverse medical consequences and dread diseases;

e. They were required to evacuate their homes and business, resulting in severe inconvenience and, in some cases, expense and/or loss of income;

f. They have incurred medical and related expenses, and will incur such expenses in the future;

g. They have lost wages, earning capacity, and other income, and will experience such losses in the future;

f. [sic] They will be required to expend sums to clean the harmful chemical contamination from their real and personal property;

g. [sic] To the extent that they are unable to clean the harmful chemical contamination from their real and personal property, the property will be diminished in value as a result of the contamination;

h. [sic] The harmful chemicals have caused damage to the plaintiffs' real and personal property;

i. [sic] The plaintiffs will be required to undergo medical monitoring to detect future physical harm that may result from contact with the harmful chemicals;

j. [sic] The plaintiffs will be required to sample their property to determine whether their property has been contaminated and the extent of that contamination."

The plaintiffs filed a motion to certify the class. The circuit court granted class certification, defining the class as:

"All persons, firms, and legal entities residing, maintaining a place of business, owning property, employed, attending school, or otherwise present in or in the vicinity of Tamaroa, Illinois, or its environs on or after February 9, 2003, February 20, 2003, or May 7, 2003, and who or which have sustained legally cognizable compensatory or punitive damages or may incur or may claim to have incurred legally cognizable compensatory or punitive damages as a proximate result of the Canadian National train derailment which occurred on February 9, 2003, in Tamaroa, Illinois."

The Railroad filed a petition for interlocutory review pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 306(a)(8) (210 Ill.2d R. 306(a)(8)). The appellate court denied leave to appeal. The Railroad then filed a petition for leave to appeal to this court. This court denied leave to appeal, but entered a supervisory order directing the appellate court to hear the appeal. Smith v. Illinois Central R.R.Co., 212 Ill.2d 554, 288 Ill.Dec. 243, 817 N.E.2d 893 (2004) (supervisory order).

On appeal, the Railroad argued that personal injury actions should not be certified as class actions because such actions would trigger an unworkable array of fact-intensive, claimant-specific questions that would inevitably result in numerous minitrials that defy class treatment. In rejecting this argument, the appellate court noted that while courts historically have been reluctant to employ class certification in mass tort cases because significant questions regarding damages and affirmative defenses would require multiple minitrials, more recent federal and state decisions have found class certification to be appropriate for actions based on a single catastrophic incident such as train derailments, and for mass tort actions alleging exposure to hazardous substances. The court found that such cases demonstrate that the commonality requirement can be met despite the differences in individual claims of injuries and damages. 363 Ill.App.3d at 951, 300 Ill.Dec. 814, 845 N.E.2d 703.

The Railroad also argued that the circuit court abused its discretion in finding that the plaintiffs satisfied the commonality requirement for class certification in the present case. The appellate court disagreed, finding that the liability issues, which the court found could be determined on a classwide basis because the claims arose from a single catastrophic event with a common nucleus of operative facts, were predominate. The court reasoned that the only issues distinguishing the class members were the extent of each member's exposure to harmful contaminants and the resulting personal injuries and property damage sustained, and that if differences in the amount of individual damages would make a class action improper, a class action would never be possible because variations in the amount of damages among class members is almost inevitable. 363 Ill.App.3d at 953, 300 Ill.Dec. 814, 845 N.E.2d 703.

The Railroad also argued that the class definition was "unworkably overbroad" because the terms "vicinity" and "environs" were not defined by geographic borders and that limiting membership to those who have sustained legally cognizable claims made membership contingent on whether a given person's claim was meritorious, and not objectively ascertainable without individualized fact-finding. Noting that the circuit court did not have the opportunity to address these arguments and that a preliminary review of the record demonstrated that these deficiencies could be corrected, the appellate court remanded the cause to the trial court to consider the Railroad's objections to the class definition and to make appropriate modifications. 363 Ill.App.3d at 956, 300 Ill.Dec. 814, 845 N.E.2d 703.

Justice Welch dissented, arguing that questions such as the existence of damages, the proximate cause of damages, and the extent of damages are so individualized and so predominate over any common issues of law or fact that class certification was not appropriate. 363 Ill.App.3d at 956, 300 Ill.Dec. 814, 845 N.E.2d 703.

We granted the Railroad's petition for leave to appeal.

II. ANALYSIS

On appeal, the Railroad argues that the circuit court abused its discretion in granting plaintiffs' motion for class certification. Specifically, the Railroad argues that (1) the common issues of law and fact do not predominate over the individualized injury and causation issues; (2) the class definition will require individualized claim reviews to determine class membership; (3) numerous expert and governmental reports demonstrate the lack of connection between the derailment site and the amorphous geographic area incorporated by the class definition; and (4) the proposed class is insufficiently numerous.

Section 2-801 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-801 (West 1998)) provides that an action may proceed as a class action only if the circuit court finds: (1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impractical; (2) there are questions of fact or law common to the class, and those common questions predominate over any questions affecting only individual members; (3) the representative parties will fairly...