The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled the Chicago Transit Authority is not liable for the death of a man killed by a train in a subway tunnel, because he was trespassing and should have known passing trains posed danger.
The Sept. 22 decision was penned by Justice Mary Jane Theis, with concurrence from Chief Justice Anne Burke and Justices David Overstreet, Michael Burke and Robert Carter. Justices P. Scott Neville Jr. and Lisa Holder White did not take part. The decision favored the Chicago Transit Authority in an action brought in 2018 in Cook County Circuit Court by the administrator of the estate of Ricardo Quiroz.
At about 6 a.m. on April 15, 2018, Quiroz fell from a catwalk inside a lighted CTA tunnel, connecting the Grand and Chicago stations. Quiroz landed on the ground next to the tracks.
Mary Jane Theis
| illinoiscourts.gov
He was trespassing, because the catwalk was for CTA workers. Quiroz was not hit by two trains that passed, but he apparently shifted his body, so when a third train passed, it struck and killed him.
The estate administrator alleged personnel on the two trains that passed should have seen Quiroz in the tunnel, and should have warned the CTA to stop the passage of trains through the tunnel. The administrator also contended if personnel did not see Quiroz, they were remiss for not keeping a proper lookout. In addition, the tunnel was under security camera surveillance, and in the administrator's view, proper monitoring would have alerted personnel to Quiroz' presence.
The CTA countered that Quiroz was a trespasser and it had no duty to protect him from the "open and obvious danger of a moving train."
Cook County Judge Brendan O'Brien agreed with the CTA and dismissed the suit.
A three-justice panel of the Illinois First District Appellate Court, in a ruling written by Justice Joy Cunningham, reversed O'Brien. The appellate justices said the CTA knew or should have known of Quiroz' presence and that Quiroz did not or could not recognize the danger. The CTA then appealed the matter to the state high court.
Justice Theis overruled the appeals court, quoting a 1992 Illinois Third District Appellate Court decision.
"'An intruder who comes on the possessor’s land without his permission has no right to demand that the possessor provide him with a safe place to trespass, or that the possessor protect the trespasser from his own wrongful use of the possessor’s property.' Flowing from this proposition, a railroad operator is not required to keep a lookout for persons on the track, especially in the subway tunnel where pedestrians are clearly not expected or anticipated," Theis stated.
In this vein, Theis pointed out: "A moving rapid transit train was an open and obvious danger that a trespasser is reasonably expected to appreciate and avoid. There is no duty to warn a trespasser of an open and obvious danger. The CTA did not put the decedent in a position of peril."
Theis noted it would be prohibitive for the CTA to protect trespassers from obvious dangers, and "trespassers are in the best position" to avoid injury by avoiding unauthorized areas.
"The CTA is not an insurer of a trespasser’s safety, and its focus must be on ensuring mass transit for the public ridership at large. While the accident was tragic, to charge the CTA with ensuring a trespasser’s safety under the allegations pled here would be unreasonable," Theis said.
The Quiroz estate administrator, Alejandro Quiroz, has been represented by attorney James P. Costello, of Costello, McMahon, Gilbreth & Murphy, of Chicago.
The CTA has been defended by in-house attorney Irina Yuryevna Dmitrieva.
The Illinois Trial Lawyers' Association, which lobbies on behalf of personal injury lawyers and other plaintiffs' lawyers statewide, filed friend-of-the-court arguments in support of the Quiroz administrator.
The Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation (Metra) and the Association of American Railroads filed briefs supporting the CTA.