Tarulis v. Prassas, 1
| Decision Date | 22 September 1992 |
| Docket Number | D,No. 1,No. 1-91-2991,1,1-91-2991 |
| Citation | 603 N.E.2d 13,236 Ill.App.3d 56 |
| Parties | , 177 Ill.Dec. 232 George J. TARULIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Philip G. PRASSAS, Elaine Chipman, Philip G. Prassas Family Trust, and Josephine D. Prassas Trustefendants-Appellants (Laurette Rathz, Defendant). |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Pavalon & Gifford, Chicago (Eugene I. Pavalon, Michael L. Lauzon, Gallagher and Petrak, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.
Schoen & Smith, Ltd., Chicago (Lee J. Schoen and Carolyn M. Diggins, of counsel), for defendants-appellants.
MODIFIED ON DENIAL OF REHEARING
On the afternoon of November 8, 1988, defendant Laurette Rathz was traveling east on 103rd Street near Kedzie in Chicago, heading for a shopping center owned by defendants Philip G. Prassas, Elaine Chipman, Philip G. Prassas Family Trust, and Josephine D. Prassas Trust No. 1 (the Prassas defendants). As Rathz turned left into the driveway of the shopping center parking lot, she lost control of the car. She came to a stop after hitting the driver's side of a vehicle belonging to plaintiff George J. Tarulis, who was getting out of his car. Tarulis sued the Prassas defendants and Rathz as a result of his injuries. The Prassas defendants filed a contribution claim against Rathz, who filed her own contribution claim against them. A jury found Rathz 88% liable and the Prassas defendants 12% liable, and it awarded Tarulis $1.4 million. The circuit court denied the Prassas defendants' motions for a directed verdict during the trial and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict afterward. The Prassas defendants appeal both orders; they also claim error arising from admission of certain evidence, exclusion of other evidence, and confusing verdict forms. For the reasons stated below, we reverse.
In its final version, Tarulis's complaint alleged that the Prassas defendants were negligent in that they (1) located the wheel stop too close to the east side of the driveway; (2) did not paint the wheel stop a bright color or otherwise provide sufficient contrast to enable an eastbound driver to see it; (3) did not define, by striping or otherwise, the edges of the driveway, so people making a left turn into the parking lot were likely not to see the wheel stop; (4) allowed the slope of the driveway to exceed the maximum allowed under the Chicago Municipal Code, which limited the visibility of the stop; and (5) did not inspect the driveway and the adjacent area on the east to determine whether the driveway was reasonably safe for those turning left from 103rd Street. Defendants filed two summary judgment motions, but the record contains no order disposing of either motion.
Prior to trial, defendants filed a motion in limine. Among the items it addressed were the exclusion of evidence of subsequent remedial measures and of "mention of insurance * * * which would severely prejudice defendants['] case." The circuit court's order states only that "[t]he Defendants, PRASSAS FAMILY's, various and routine Motions in Limine have been agreed upon by all parties."
Tarulis began presentation of his case with testimony by the investigating police officer. Officer Susan Urban stated that when she questioned Rathz at the scene of the accident, Rathz said she had hit a wheel stop on the east side of the driveway, lost control of her car, and hit Tarulis. Officer Urban did not recall if the driveway had striping at its edges in 1988.
Rathz, who was 86 years old at the time of the accident, testified that she was traveling no more than five miles per hour when she entered the driveway, having stopped to wait for westbound traffic on 103rd Street to pass before she turned left into the parking lot. She remembered nothing between hitting the wheel stop and coming to rest after sideswiping Tarulis's car, other than being in shock. When asked if the wheel stop had any striping on it in 1988, she replied She stated that the day in question was the first time that she ever had turned left into the lot from 103rd Street; even though she had lived in the area for over 30 years and had entered that driveway "many times," she had been driving only 10 years and had always entered from the right, traveling from her home to the east.
Tarulis described the accident as follows:
* * * "
He agreed that Rathz was already inside the parking lot, about 50 feet away, when he first saw her. He "ha[d] no idea" at trial why Rathz's car came toward him, and he was unable to say the highest speed Rathz's car had reached.
He further stated that the wheel stop should have been placed "at least one and a half car widths [away from the driveway] to get it away from the close proximity of that entrance." Placed where it was, he continued, standard practice would be to make it readily identifiable by painting it with contrasting stripes such as orange or yellow. He also stated that standard practice called for painting the driveway boundaries yellow or orange, to make them readily identifiable, or putting a fluorescent cone out to define the boundary. Later, however, he conceded that TimeSavers merely advises contrast and definition, without specifying how to achieve it. He also stated that the minimum acceptable height for a permanent object in such a location was 24 inches.
Keiser testified that with regard to the driveway slope, as slope increases, sightlines decrease, creating a safety problem. Although the dimensional difference between the maximum driveway slope allowed by the Municipal Code of the City of Chicago and the actual slope of the driveway at issue was approximately one-half inch, he later conceded that the Municipal Code section he referred to concerned slope requirements for clear and unobstructed passage and drainage, not for sightlines.
After Tarulis presented his case, the Prassas defendants moved for a directed verdict, arguing that Tarulis had failed to meet his burden of proof against them with regard to causation. In particular, they emphasized that Rathz had never testified that she hit the wheel stop because she could not or did not see it, so to permit a jury to infer that their having not properly located or defined the wheel stop caused the accident would be improper as speculation. The court denied the motion.
Paul Box, a licensed engineer testifying for the Prassas defendants, headed his own traffic engineering consultant firm and was co-editor and co-author of the current Manual of Traffic Engineering Studies. Half his time was spent investigating cases, with the other half devoted to traffic studies and the like; he also had written a textbook, Parking Principles, on the design of parking facilities, as well as over a hundred other related publications. Often, he produced parking lot "geometric design plans," which he gave to architects or civil engineers to incorporate into their projects. He described wheel stops as precast concrete, seven or eight inches wide at the top and 10 inches at the bottom, approximately seven feet long, held in place by foot-long pins driven into the ground.
When asked about dimensions in parking lot design, Box stated that engineers make the ultimate decision based on flexible guidelines, not on "standards," which to him meant inflexible rules. As for the driveway and wheel stop here, Box stated that "the edge of [the wheel stop was] two feet or so east of the east edge of the driveway we're talking about." He remarked that on Tarulis's survey, this dimension scaled as 2.4 feet. Two feet was an...
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