SPRINGFIELD— Parents whose children's blood lead screenings were paid for by Medicaid can't now sue paint companies to demand they pay for the screenings, because it was taxpayers, and not the parents, who paid for those screenings, the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled.
The ruling was rendered May 21 by Justice P. Scott Neville Jr., with concurrence from Chief Justice Anne Burke and Justices Rita Garman, Lloyd Karmeier, and Mary Jane Theis. Justices Thomas Kilbride and Michael Burke did not take part.
The ruling reversed a decision by the Illinois First District Appellate Court, which would have allowed the lawsuit to continue.
The Supreme Court ruling reinstated the 2016 decision by Cook County Judge Peter Flynn, who had thrown out the class action filed in 2000 by Mary Lewis and Tashswan Banks. Defendants included companies Atlantic Richfield, ConAgra Grocery Products, Sherwin-Williams, and NL Industries, which made and sold lead paint when such paint was legal. However, the plaintiffs claimed the companies allegedly knew the paint posed a health risk.
The plaintiffs lived in areas the Illinois Department of Public Health designated as high risk for lead poisoning, which required children ages 6 months to 6 years old to be screened for lead in their blood. The plaintiffs wanted the defendants to reimburse them and other similarly situated parents and guardians for the costs of such tests done between Aug. 18, 1995, and Feb. 19, 2008.
Medicaid paid the cost of the screenings, but plaintiffs claimed the cost was nonetheless an injury inflicted on them, deserving of recompensation.
Justice Neville would have none of it.
"Courts generally recognize that there must be an actual loss to the interest of the plaintiff before a cause of action accrues," Neville said. "The wrongful or negligent act of the defendant, by itself, gives no right of action to anyone."
Neville continued, saying, "Plaintiffs here do not allege a cause of action based on physical injury to their children. They instead claim that defendants caused a pure economic injury personal to Lewis and Banks arising from the costs of their children’s tests. But no such economic injury occurred in this case."
The plaintiffs contended the Family Expense Act and the collateral source rule applied to the case. The act makes parents responsible for their minor children's expenses. The source rule says benefits received by an injured party from a source independent of, and collateral to, the party causing the injury, known in legal terminology as the "tortfeasor," does not diminish the damages recoverable from the tortfeasor.
However, Neville stopped both these lines of argument by pointing out the plaintiffs experienced no harm.
"We hold that the Family Expense Act cannot be extended to create a liability or expense where one never arose," Neville said.
Neville was apparently persuaded by Dan Webb, an attorney for the defendants, who, in oral arguments told the state high court, "I don't understand the argument that they have incurred expenses that they have never had an obligation to pay, did not pay, the law does not require them to pay it, and they're never going to have to pay it, and still they have a financial loss."
As far as the source rule, Neville said, "None of the underlying rationales for the collateral source rule applies when a plaintiff has suffered no injury."
Neville went on to point out the consequences if the appellate ruling was not countermanded.
"It would allow plaintiffs who have themselves suffered no injury, economic loss, or damages to sue anyway. We observe that such a result cannot be squared with the basic principle of standing that requires “some injury in fact to a legally cognizable interest," Neville said in quoting a 1988 Illinois Second District Appellate Court decision.
Neville concluded, "If plaintiffs cannot prove economic injury, that is, if plaintiffs have incurred no economic loss due to defendants’ conduct, they have no claim at all."
The case has been in the appellate court four times during its 20-year life.
The defendants' attorney Webb is with the Chicago firm of Winston & Strawn.
Michael Moirano, of the Chicago firm of Moirano Gorman Kenny, argued for the plaintiffs.