{ "id": 2919635, "name": "ESTELLE COHN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. THE NORTHERN TRUST COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee", "name_abbreviation": "Cohn v. Northern Trust Co.", "decision_date": "1993-07-29", "docket_number": "No. 1-91-3643", "first_page": "222", "last_page": "228", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "250 Ill. App. 3d 222" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "434 N.E.2d 511", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "105 Ill. App. 3d 576", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 5470741 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/105/0576-01" ] }, { "cite": "459 N.E.2d 940", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1982, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "99 Ill. 2d 353", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3163756 ], "year": 1982, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/99/0353-01" ] }, { "cite": "574 N.E.2d 238", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "pin_cites": [ { "page": "240" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "214 Ill. App. 3d 1102", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 5297059 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1105" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/214/1102-01" ] }, { "cite": "502 N.E.2d 315", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1991, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "150 Ill. App. 3d 1052", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3503334 ], "year": 1991, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/150/1052-01" ] }, { "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 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/70/0051-01" ] }, { "cite": "468 N.E.2d 422", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "127 Ill. App. 3d 31", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3564115 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/127/0031-01" ] }, { "cite": "480 N.E.2d 167", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "134 Ill. App. 3d 166", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3636516 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/134/0166-01" ] }, { "cite": "492 N.E.2d 536", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "142 Ill. App. 3d 872", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3452319 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/142/0872-01" ] }, { "cite": "416 N.E.2d 328", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "92 Ill. App. 3d 813", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 5535640 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/92/0813-01" ] }, { "cite": "229 N.E.2d 504", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "37 Ill. 2d 494", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 2866138 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/37/0494-01" ] }, { "cite": "349 N.E.2d 399", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "64 Ill. 2d 40", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 5429218 ], "weight": 2, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "57-58" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/64/0040-01" ] }, { "cite": "583 N.E.2d 73", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "221 Ill. App. 3d 919", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 5797623 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/221/0919-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 723, "char_count": 14649, "ocr_confidence": 0.768, "pagerank": { "raw": 9.230375045387158e-08, "percentile": 0.5104648958298341 }, "sha256": "8ef06d125ac9603efe04df801943fee6e2f29b6241bc6b9f3a689e77edb28694", "simhash": "1:fb3aae4ff6d1b6c1", "word_count": 2466 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T16:41:36.340475+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "ESTELLE COHN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. THE NORTHERN TRUST COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "JUSTICE HOFFMAN\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nOn December 14, 1983, the plaintiff, Estelle Cohn, was injured as she was exiting the premises of the defendant, the Northern Trust Company, through a revolving door. The plaintiff filed the instant action and charged, in her third-amended complaint, that the defendant was negligent in maintaining its revolving door and that her injuries were aggravated when the defendant\u2019s employees moved her after her initial fall. The matter was tried before a jury, but, at the close of the plaintiff\u2019s case, the trial court directed a verdict in favor of the defendant. The plaintiff has appealed, and, for the reasons which follow, we affirm.\nBefore we address the underlying issues presented by this case, we feel compelled to address the proper standard to be applied in ruling on motions for directed verdicts in cases tried before a jury.\nIn their briefs on appeal, both parties refer to the manifest weight of the evidence standard in discussing the propriety of the actions of the trial court in granting the defendant\u2019s motion for a directed verdict. Both parties cite to the decision in Thomas v. University of Chicago Lying-In Hospital (1991), 221 Ill. App. 3d 919, 583 N.E.2d 73, in support of their manifest weight arguments. In cases tried without a jury, the trial judge as the trier of fact applies a manifest weight standard to a motion for a directed finding at the close of a plaintiff\u2019s. case. (City of Evanston v. Ridgeview House, Inc. (1976), 64 Ill. 2d 40, 349 N.E.2d 399.) However, this case was tried before a jury and, as such, the manifest weight standard has nothing whatever to do with the trial court\u2019s ruling on the defendant\u2019s motion for a directed verdict.\nDirected verdicts in jury cases are governed by the Pedrick standard: that is, directed verdicts ought be granted only in cases in which all the evidence, when viewed in its aspect most favorable to the opponent, so overwhelmingly favors the movant that no contrary verdict based on that evidence could ever stand. (Pedrick v. Peoria & Eastern R.R. Co. (1967), 37 Ill. 2d 494, 229 N.E.2d 504.) To the extent that Thomas implies that a manifest weight test is to be applied in judging the propriety of a directed verdict in a jury case, we decline to follow it. (See City of Evanston, 64 Ill. 2d at 57-58.) Having articulated the standard, we will now address the propriety of the trial court\u2019s order applying the Pedrick rule.\nIn her third-amended complaint, the plaintiff charged that the defendant was negligent in: (1) maintaining the revolving door so as to permit the door to move in a fast and unusual manner; (2) moving the plaintiff after she fell; (3) allowing the plaintiff to rise to her feet after she fell; and (4) lifting the plaintiff out of a chair and placing her in a wheelchair after her fall. The plaintiff alleged that her first charge proximately caused her injury and the remaining three charges aggravated the injury.\nFour witnesses testified as to the condition and maintenance of the door itself: the plaintiff; Earl Cornelius, one of the defendant\u2019s security guards; Gustav Prengen, employed in the defendant\u2019s maintenance department; and Salvatore Maggoire, the building manager.\nThe plaintiff testified that on December 14, 1983, she was exiting the defendant\u2019s bank through a revolving door. As she was about to exit the revolving door, someone entered another compartment of the door; the door whirled, hitting her in the back and throwing her to the floor. She described the movement of the door as \u201cfast.\u201d She also testified that she had used the revolving doors many times before and they moved slowly.\nCornelius testified that he was working as a security guard on the date of the plaintiff\u2019s fall. After being notified by another guard that a woman had fallen in the vestibule of the bank, he went to the location where the plaintiff was lying on the floor just outside of the revolving door. When he reentered the bank, he walked through the revolving door and it seemed to be operating properly, but he never checked the timing of the door. Cornelius testified that he made a report of the incident, but because he did not detect any malfunction in the revolving door, he did not direct a copy of the report to the maintenance department.\nPrengen testified that on the date of the plaintiff\u2019s injury, he was employed by the defendant as a maintenance carpenter. He testified that no one from the maintenance department asked him to inspect the door after the plaintiff\u2019s fall and he did not do so. Prengen stated that the revolving door in issue was supposed to move at the rate of one revolution every five seconds and the doors were inspected quarterly. It was his responsibility to check the door speed at the quarterly inspections. When he checked the door in February 1984, the quarterly inspection after the plaintiff\u2019s fall, it did not need adjustment.\nMaggoire, the defendant\u2019s building manager at the time of the plaintiff\u2019s fall, testified that no one in the maintenance department was notified of the plaintiff\u2019s fall and no inspection of the door was performed until the regular quarterly inspection in February 1984.\nTo prevail on her theory that the defendant\u2019s negligent maintenance of its revolving door proximately caused her injuries, the plaintiff was required to come forward with some evidence tending to prove that a specified condition under the defendant\u2019s control caused her to fall. (See Kimbrough v. Jewel Cos. (1981), 92 Ill. App. 3d 813, 416 N.E.2d 328.) In this case, the condition was alleged to be the speed at which the revolving door rotated. The only testimony in the record relating to the proper speed of rotation was that of Prengen, who testified that the door was supposed to rotate once every five seconds. The plaintiff was unable to estimate the speed of the door at the time of her fall. She could only describe it as fast compared to its slow rotation when she used it on prior occasions. The plaintiff did not testify that the door moved faster than normal when she pushed it; it was her testimony that it moved fast after another person entered the door.\nThe plaintiff\u2019s subjective verbal characterization that the rotation was fast, without more, is so lacking in precision of meaning that it fails to give the jury any evidence from which it could conclude that at the time of the plaintiff\u2019s fall the door was out of adjustment. (See Lucker v. Arlington Park Race Track Corp. (1986), 142 Ill. App. 3d 872, 492 N.E.2d 536.) Liability cannot be predicated upon guess, speculation, or conjecture as to the cause of an injury. Proximate cause can only be established upon probative evidence tending to establish that the defendant\u2019s acts caused the injury complained of, and, if a plaintiff fails to come forward with such evidence, a prima facie case has not been made and a directed verdict is proper. (Vance v. Lucky Stores, Inc. (1985), 134 Ill. App. 3d 166, 480 N.E.2d 167.) Under the facts of this case, it is no more probable that the plaintiff\u2019s injury was caused by a maladjustment of the defendant\u2019s door than by the rotation of the door by the person who entered it as the plaintiff was exiting. To suggest otherwise would be to engage in pure speculation. Liability cannot be established where the cause of an injury rests upon conjecture or surmise. Consolino v. Thompson (1984), 127 Ill. App. 3d 31, 468 N.E.2d 422.\nThe plaintiff\u2019s three other theories of liability all relate to an aggravation of her initial injury by reason of the manner in which the defendant\u2019s employees handled her after she fell. The plaintiff testified that after her fall, she tried to get up but was unable. The next thing she remembered was being put in a wheelchair. She did not remember being moved from the spot where she fell prior to being placed in the wheelchair. The only medical testimony in this case came from Dr. Nasim Rana, the plaintiff\u2019s treating physician, whose evidence deposition was read to the jury. After testifying that forcing the plaintiff to walk after her fall could aggravate her injury, Dr. Rana conceded that he could not say with a reasonable degree of medical certainty what aggravation, if any, occurred after the plaintiff fell. No witness testified that the defendant\u2019s employees in fact caused the plaintiff to place weight upon her injured leg and the plaintiff was unable to remember any such event. In sum, there is no evidence in this record to support the notion that the plaintiff\u2019s injuries were aggravated after her initial fall, much less aggravated by the defendant\u2019s employees.\nLastly, the plaintiff argues that a directed verdict was inappropriate in light of the defendant\u2019s failure to produce the original incident report written by Cornelius pursuant to the plaintiff\u2019s Supreme Court Rule 237 notice to produce. (134 Ill. 2d R. 237.) The plaintiff contends that the original report would have revealed whether the defendant\u2019s maintenance department had been notified of the plaintiff\u2019s accident, whether the subject door was inspected, and whether the door was found to be defective.\nThe record reflects that the plaintiff made two pretrial requests for the subject report. The first came on July 6, 1988, as part of a notice for the taking of Maggoire\u2019s discovery deposition; and the second, on January 12, 1989, as part of the notice for the taking of the deposition of Lillian Jacobs, another of the defendant\u2019s employees. In response to these requests, the plaintiff received two copies of the report. The first copy that was tendered had redacted from it certain writing in the upper left-hand comer of the document. The second copy contained writing in the upper left-hand comer indicating its distribution path.\nOn August 29, 1991, the plaintiff served a Rule 237 notice upon the defendant\u2019s counsel commanding the production of copies of all written reports of inspections of the revolving door where the plaintiff fell and the statements of all witnesses. At the time of trial, the plaintiff raised an objection to the defendant\u2019s failure to produce the original of Cornelius\u2019 report. The defendant contended that it no longer possessed the original, stating that it had been sent to its insurance broker. The plaintiff then issued a subpoena for the broker\u2019s file and specifically requested the production of the original of the incident report prepared by Cornelius. When the broker failed to produce the original, the defendant conceded that the broker did not have the original. The copy produced at trial had an original stamp on it dated one day after the plaintiff\u2019s accident. When Cornelius was shown the copy of the incident report with writing in the upper left-hand corner, he identified the writing as his own. Cornelius denied routing the report to the maintenance department because he did not detect anything wrong with the door.\nThe plaintiff argues that the defendant\u2019s failure to produce the original incident report limited her scope of examination. She contends that she repeatedly requested the original report. However, the record fails to reflect any specific demand for the original report until the mid-trial subpoena issued to the defendant\u2019s insurance broker. The record further reflects that the plaintiff possessed the unredacted copy of the report for two years and four months prior to trial yet the production of the original never became an issue until the trial actually commenced. The plaintiff\u2019s Rule 237 notice, although generally describing a group of documents which would include the Cornelius incident report, did not specifically call for the production of the original of this report.\nSupreme Court Rule 237(b) provides that upon a party\u2019s failure to comply with a notice to produce documents at trial, \u201cthe court may enter any order that is just, including any order provided for in Rule 219(c) that may be appropriate.\u201d (134 Ill. 2d R. 237(b).) To be sure, the giving of an adverse inference instruction is an approved remedy for a party\u2019s failure to produce documents (Buehler v. Whalen (1977), 70 Ill. 2d 51, 374 N.E.2d 460); but, as with discovery sanctions, the remedy for noncompliance with a Rule 237 notice is a matter committed to the sound discretion of the trial court (Yassin v. Certified Grocers of Illinois, Inc. (1986), 150 Ill. App. 3d 1052, 502 N.E.2d 315). \u201cRule 237 notices are not discovery tools and should not be used as a substitute for the discovery rules.\u201d Lannert v. Ramirez (1991), 214 Ill. App. 3d 1102, 1105, 574 N.E.2d 238, 240.\nThe plaintiff was aware of the redaction of information from the first copy of the incident report tendered to her for more than two years prior to trial. She received what was represented to be an unredacted copy in May 1989 upon taking the discovery deposition of Jacobs, yet in the two years and four months that elapsed prior to trial, the record fails to disclose any efforts on the plaintiff\u2019s part to compel production of the original document. If the document in its original form was so vital to the plaintiff\u2019s case, logic would have it that some effort would have been made to compel its production prior to trial. A trial court\u2019s refusal to employ any sanction in the face of a violation of a Rule 237 notice is not a per se abuse of discretion. Among the factors to be considered in determining whether a sanction is appropriate is the diligence of the party claiming the viofation in attempting to secure the document prior to trial. (See Ashford v. Ziemann (1984), 99 Ill. 2d 353, 459 N.E.2d 940; Campen v. Executive House Hotel, Inc. (1982), 105 Ill. App. 3d 576, 434 N.E.2d 511.) The plaintiff\u2019s failure in this regard, coupled with Cornelius\u2019 testimony that he did not direct the report to the maintenance department and the fact that the copy of the report that was produced at trial bore the defendant\u2019s original stamp dated one day after the plaintiff\u2019s fall, leads us to conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in failing to sanction the defendant for being unable to produce the original of the document.\nFor these reasons, we affirm the order of the trial court directing a verdict in favor of the defendant.\nAffirmed.\nJOHNSON and CAHILL, JJ., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "JUSTICE HOFFMAN" } ], "attorneys": [ "Dan Karlin, Ltd., and Fischel & Kahn, Ltd., both of Chicago (Dan Karlin & Angela M. Kalamaras, of counsel), for appellant.", "Johnson & Bell, Ltd., of Chicago (Scott W. Hoyne and Greg D. Conforti, of counsel), for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "ESTELLE COHN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. THE NORTHERN TRUST COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.\nFirst District (4th Division)\nNo. 1 \u2014 91\u20143643\nOpinion filed July 29, 1993.\nDan Karlin, Ltd., and Fischel & Kahn, Ltd., both of Chicago (Dan Karlin & Angela M. Kalamaras, of counsel), for appellant.\nJohnson & Bell, Ltd., of Chicago (Scott W. Hoyne and Greg D. Conforti, of counsel), for appellee." }, "file_name": "0222-01", "first_page_order": 240, "last_page_order": 246 }