{ "id": 3533275, "name": "IRENE TINSEY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY et al., Defendants-Appellants", "name_abbreviation": "Tinsey v. Chicago Transit Authority", "decision_date": "1986-01-22", "docket_number": "No. 85\u2014647", "first_page": "546", "last_page": "549", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "140 Ill. App. 3d 546" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "374 N.E.2d 460", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "70 Ill. 2d 51", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 5805361 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "67" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/70/0051-01" ] }, { "cite": "331 N.E.2d 243", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "29 Ill. App. 3d 971", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 2503465 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/29/0971-01" ] }, { "cite": "431 N.E.2d 1077", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1975, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "103 Ill. App. 3d 607", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 5480823 ], "year": 1975, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/103/0607-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 501, "char_count": 9425, "ocr_confidence": 0.736, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.4364059299939079e-07, "percentile": 0.6522976822200831 }, "sha256": "e8b23a1ceb5b599fc2d54f55d54628c09b9525cdf8b2fa5814c7c17af21c8294", "simhash": "1:0d5a10adfb4c9b28", "word_count": 1522 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:56:30.289204+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "IRENE TINSEY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY et al., Defendants-Appellants." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "JUSTICE McNAMARA\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nPlaintiff, Irene Tinsey, brought this action against defendant, Chicago Transit Authority, alleging she was injured while riding as a passenger on a bus driven by defendant Horace Flournoy. A jury returned a verdict in favor of defendants. The trial court, on its own motion, set aside the jury verdict and ordered a new trial as a sanction for defendants\u2019 failui 2 to comply with discovery procedures. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied defendants\u2019 motion to vacate its order granting a new trial. The trial court also denied plaintiff\u2019s motion for a new trial on the merits. We granted defendants\u2019 petition for leave to appeal the order granting a new trial.\nPlaintiff served interrogatories on defendants requesting names and statements. On November 4, 1980, defendants\u2019 supervisor of legal file investigations, Coleen Maurovich, answered that plaintiff, Barbara Smith and Mabel Taylor were witnesses. She also answered that CTA had no statements from any witness. Maurovich testified at the post-trial hearing that she inadvertently failed to list the CTA record of plaintiff\u2019s complaint of an accident, made in a telephone call taken by Eugene Jania, a CTA claims adjustor. The record listed Smith and Taylor as witnesses. In Maurovich\u2019s opinion, the record was not a statement, but was only a summary of a conversation. The CTA also had a questionnaire filled out by Mabel Taylor.\nOn October 14, 1980, plaintiff served a request to produce statements of witnesses. John Siena, then a staff attorney for CTA, responded that CTA had no statements. At the post-trial evidentiary hearing, Siena testified that his answer was in reliance on information from staff paralegals. He was unaware of the existence of a telephone complaint of a report summarizing the telephone conversation between plaintiff and Jania.\nBefore trial, during a Rule 237 conference, defendants\u2019 counsel provided plaintiff\u2019s counsel with the statement of the telephone call reporting the accident. After plaintiff had completed her case and after defendants had presented one witness, defense counsel informed the court that he had received a subpoena in regard to Jania concerning a voice-recorded statement. Jania no longer worked for CTA. Plaintiff\u2019s counsel informed the court that she wanted to call someone from CTA in rebuttal to Flournoy\u2019s testifying that he was unaware of any accident on the day in question. The trial court made it clear that the report should have been given to plaintiff during discovery and that sanctions would be considered after the trial was completed. The trial court subsequently stated that it would determine the amount of the sanctions.\nAt trial, plaintiff testified that on September 28, 1979, she was seated on a bus with a friend, Mabel Taylor. The bus made a sharp turn and plaintiff was thrown from her seat to the floor and was injured. Plaintiff testified that after she fell she spoke to the bus driver, complaining about his driving and asking for his badge number. She testified that the driver did not give his badge number or name and replied, \u201cLady, I didn\u2019t mean to hurt you.\u201d On direct examination plaintiff was not questioned about telephoning CTA to report the accident. On cross-examination, without being asked, plaintiff testified that she telephoned CTA when she arrived home.\nFlournoy testified as an adverse witness that he was unaware of any passenger being injured on his bus on September 28, 1979. He did not recall a passenger asking for his name.\nMabel Taylor testified for plaintiff that plaintiff fell on the bus and that the witness wrote down the bus number. Taylor remembered plaintiff talking to the driver after the incident, but did not know what was said.\nDonald Burton, a CTA claims representative, testified as an adverse witness as the person responsible for maintaining files in the CTA claims department. Over defendants\u2019 objection, the trial court allowed into evidence the record of the telephone complaint made by plaintiff. Burton identified the \u201cReport of Telephone Complaint\u201d made on Monday, October 1, 1979, by a person who stated she was Irene Tinsey. The report set forth the September 28 incident including the caller\u2019s description of the bus driver, injuries, and the attempt to get help from the bus driver. During closing argument, plaintiff\u2019s counsel emphasized Burton\u2019s testimony, arguing that it showed plaintiff reported the accident to the CTA. During defense counsel\u2019s closing argument, he made reference only to the fact that Mabel Taylor had not reported the accident to the bus driver.\nAt various times during trial, outside the presence of the jury, the trial court expressed anger at the CTA\u2019s failure to produce the report summarizing the telephone complaint. After the jury returned a verdict for defendants, the court, sua sponte, ordered a hearing to be held on the question of discovery sanctions. At that hearing, the trial court felt a sanction was appropriate because the CTA had information confirming plaintiff\u2019s testimony, and concealed it for AVz years. The court stated that a monetary fine would not impact the CTA, \u201ca multi-million dollar operation,\u201d and thus the sanction would.be setting aside the jury verdict and ordering a new trial.\nDefendants\u2019 post-trial motion to vacate the order granting a new trial included a request for an evidentiary hearing. At the hearing, in addition to Siena and Maurovich whose testimony is mentioned above, Eugene Jania testified that he had received a telephone complaint from a woman who stated she was Irene Tinsey, that he had written a summary of the conversation, and that a claims file was opened on October 4, 1979. The trial court subsequently denied defendants\u2019 motion to vacate the order granting a new trial, and denied plaintiff\u2019s motion for a new trial on the merits.\nDefendants contend that the trial court\u2019s anger towards CTA caused it to abuse its discretion in ordering a new trial as a discovery . sanction, and that plaintiff was not prejudiced in any way by defendants\u2019 failure to produce the requested information.\nSupreme Court Rule 219 (87 Ill. 2d R. 219) vests the trial court with extensive powers in authorizing the court to enter \u201csuch orders as are just\u201d when a party fails to comply with discovery procedures. In the present case, defendants clearly failed to provide plaintiff with requested information which it had in its possession, and sanctions were appropriate. However, the trial court\u2019s discretionary power must be exercised with great care, with a view toward achieving the goals of providing the parties with complet\u00e9 discovery and a full trial on the merits. (Tennicott v. Chicago Transit Authority (1982), 103 Ill. App. 3d 607, 431 N.E.2d 1077.) The trial court\u2019s discretion to impose sanctions will not be disturbed on appeal unless abuse is apparent. Anderson v. City of Chicago (1975), 29 Ill. App. 3d 971, 331 N.E.2d 243.\nIn the present case, we find that the sanction of ordering a new trial was an abuse of the trial court\u2019s discretion. Defendants provided plaintiff with the report of the telephone complaint prior to trial. Plaintiff\u2019s counsel expressed no surprise at the belated receipt of the report, and made no request for a continuance or \u2019to take any depositions. Indeed, counsel made no mention of the report until the trial was nearly concluded. Moreover, although the report appears to have been inadmissible, it was introduced into evidence by plaintiff. Mabel Taylor testified in full at trial and at the request of plaintiff no mention of Barbara Smith was permitted in the presence of the jury. Thus, discovery was completed, and a full and fair trial on the merits was received by plaintiff.\nPlaintiff relies on the holding of Buehlers v. Whalen (1977), 70 Ill. 2d 51, 67, 374 N.E.2d 460, quoting the court\u2019s statement at page 67 that \u201cdiscovery procedures are meaningless unless a violation entails a penalty proportionate to the gravity of the violation.\u201d The sanction here is far out of proportion to defendants\u2019 violations, particularly because plaintiff failed to show any prejudice resulting from the violation. Our examination of the record belies plaintiff\u2019s assertion that defendants argued to the jury that it had no notice of the accident. And indeed, in view of the evidence adduced at trial, such an argument on the part of defendants would have been absurd. Plaintiff also states that she was prejudiced because she was unable to take Jama\u2019s deposition. While we note that plaintiff, if she desired, had ample opportunity to take Jania\u2019s deposition prior to trial, the simple fact is that the taking of the deposition of the person who received plaintiff\u2019s telephoned complaint was immaterial to the issue raised at trial and could have had no bearing on the jury\u2019s verdict. Accordingly, we conclude that the sanction imposed was not proper.\nFor the reasons stated, the order of the circ\u00fait court of Cook County granting plaintiff a new trial is reversed.\nJudgment reversed.\nWHITE and McGILLICUDDY, JJ., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "JUSTICE McNAMARA" } ], "attorneys": [ "Edward J. Egan and Richard L. Jones, both of Chicago, for appellants.", "Harvey L. Walner & Associates, Ltd., of Chicago (Lawrence Schlam, of counsel), for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "IRENE TINSEY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY et al., Defendants-Appellants.\nFirst District (3rd Division)\nNo. 85\u2014647\nOpinion filed January 22, 1986.\nEdward J. Egan and Richard L. Jones, both of Chicago, for appellants.\nHarvey L. Walner & Associates, Ltd., of Chicago (Lawrence Schlam, of counsel), for appellee." }, "file_name": "0546-01", "first_page_order": 568, "last_page_order": 571 }