{ "id": 4285845, "name": "RICHARD P. VANCURA, Plaintiff-Appellee and Cross-Defendant and Cross-Appellant, v. PETER KATRIS et al., Defendants-Appellants and Cross-Plaintiffs and Cross-Appellees", "name_abbreviation": "Vancura v. Katris", "decision_date": "2008-12-26", "docket_number": "No. 1-06-2750", "first_page": "350", "last_page": "397", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "391 Ill. App. 3d 350" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "684 N.E.2d 1344", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1997, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1350-51", "parenthetical": "finding that admission of expert testimony, attorney's remarks, and judge's instruction about statute may well have confused the jury about the basis for liability and deprived the defendant of a fair trial" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "292 Ill. App. 3d 242", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 1725095 ], "year": 1997, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "252-53", "parenthetical": "finding that admission of expert testimony, attorney's remarks, and judge's instruction about statute may well have confused the jury about the basis for liability and deprived the defendant of a fair trial" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/292/0242-01" ] }, { "cite": "756 N.E.2d 866", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 2001, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "876", "parenthetical": "an expert witness is not competent to give testimony amounting to statutory interpretation" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "324 Ill. App. 3d 1047", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 256321 ], "year": 2001, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1058", "parenthetical": "an expert witness is not competent to give testimony amounting to statutory interpretation" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/324/1047-01" ] }, { "cite": "794 N.E.2d 875", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 2003, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "883" }, { "page": "883", "parenthetical": "unclear whether expert's deposition transcript was used at trial as a matter of convenience or necessity" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "342 Ill. App. 3d 530", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3474552 ], "weight": 2, "year": 2003, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "540" }, { "page": "540" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/342/0530-01" ] }, { "cite": "642 N.E.2d 475", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1994, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "485" }, { "page": "485", "parenthetical": "complaining officer was not an expert witness" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "267 Ill. App. 3d 160", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 333109 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1994, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "172" }, { "page": "172" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/267/0160-01" ] }, { "cite": "25 N.E.2d 188", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1940, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "189", "parenthetical": "if questions involved in a case are of sufficient importance to justify this court's resolution, they are worthy of the careful consideration of counsel presenting them" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "304 Ill. App. 187", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App.", "case_ids": [ 3307515 ], "year": 1940, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "189", "parenthetical": "if questions involved in a case are of sufficient importance to justify this court's resolution, they are worthy of the careful consideration of counsel presenting them" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app/304/0187-01" ] }, { "cite": "851 N.E.2d 866", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "870", "parenthetical": "failure to comply with the rules regarding appellate briefs results in waiver" }, { "page": "870" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "366 Ill. App. 3d 559", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 4265407 ], "weight": 2, "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "562", "parenthetical": "failure to comply with the rules regarding appellate briefs results in waiver" }, { "page": "563" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/366/0559-01" ] }, { "cite": "413 N.E.2d 47", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1980, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "51" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "90 Ill. App. 3d 368", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3160096 ], "year": 1980, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "371" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/90/0368-01" ] }, { "cite": "536 N.E.2d 419", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1988, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "437" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "180 Ill. App. 3d 184", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 2613977 ], "year": 1988, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "212" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/180/0184-01" ] }, { "cite": "292 Or. 84", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Or.", "case_ids": [ 2171554 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "attorney disciplinary proceedings in which counsel was suspended for 60 days because he forged client signature on general power of attorney and persuaded his secretary to notarize it, converted client's Fontiac to his own use, and disregarded client's instruction regarding automobile" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/or/292/0084-01" ] }, { "cite": "603 A.2d 321", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "A.2d", "case_ids": [ 7937930 ], "year": 1992, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "attorney disciplinary proceedings in which counsel was suspended for one year because on three different occasions he signed the names of clients to answers to interrogatories and directed his employee to notarize the forged signatures" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/a2d/603/0321-01" ] }, { "cite": "4 Ariz. App. 273", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ariz. App.", "case_ids": [ 1240736 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1966, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "275" }, { "page": "275" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ariz-app/4/0273-01" ] }, { "cite": "11 Ariz. App. 121", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ariz. App.", "case_ids": [ 1206309 ], "weight": 15, "year": 1969, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "122" }, { "page": "815" }, { "page": "122, 126" }, { "page": "815, 819" }, { "page": "122, 126" }, { "page": "122" }, { "page": "122" }, { "page": "815" }, { "page": "125" }, { "page": "818" }, { "page": "126" }, { "page": "819" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ariz-app/11/0121-01" ] }, { "cite": "230 A.2d 498", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "A.2d", "weight": 5, "year": 1967, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "501" }, { "page": "501" }, { "page": "501" }, { "page": "501" }, { "page": "501" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "49 N.J. 389", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.J.", "case_ids": [ 1923280 ], "weight": 5, "year": 1967, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "395" }, { "page": "395" }, { "page": "395" }, { "page": "395" }, { "page": "395" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nj/49/0389-01" ] }, { "cite": "841 N.E.2d 928", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 2005, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "217 Ill. 2d 481", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3875367 ], "year": 2005, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/217/0481-01" ] }, { "cite": "686 N.E.2d 571", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1997, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "relying on foreign case law only after confirming that neither Illinois act nor Model Property and Casualty Post-Assessment Guaranty Association Act defined a dispositive statutory term" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "177 Ill. 2d 414", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 317125 ], "year": 1997, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "relying on foreign case law only after confirming that neither Illinois act nor Model Property and Casualty Post-Assessment Guaranty Association Act defined a dispositive statutory term" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/177/0414-01" ] }, { "cite": "879 N.E.2d 386", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 2007, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "relying on Model Business Corporation Act's historical background and comments sections to define a crucial statutory term" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "377 Ill. App. 3d 233", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 4274408 ], "year": 2007, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "relying on Model Business Corporation Act's historical background and comments sections to define a crucial statutory term" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/377/0233-01" ] }, { "cite": "862 N.E.2d 985", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 2007, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "992", "parenthetical": "relying on Restatement (Second) of Agency to define a key statutory term" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "224 Ill. 2d 154", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3607118 ], "year": 2007, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "164", "parenthetical": "relying on Restatement (Second) of Agency to define a key statutory term" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/224/0154-01" ] }, { "cite": "Cal. Civ. Code \u00a71185", "category": "laws:leg_statute", "reporter": "Cal. Code", "year": 2005, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "606 N.E.2d 1", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 3, "year": 1991, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "4" }, { "page": "4" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "237 Ill. App. 3d 1049", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 5161517 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1991, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1054-55" }, { "page": "1054-55" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/237/1049-01" ] }, { "cite": "500 N.E.2d 612", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1986, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "616" }, { "page": "616" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "149 Ill. App. 3d 23", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3460944 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1986, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "28" }, { "page": "28" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/149/0023-01" ] }, { "cite": "885 N.E.2d 1053", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 2008, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1059", "parenthetical": "the two most important tasks of an appellate court panel are to determine whether it has jurisdiction and whether any issues have been waived" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "228 Ill. 2d 95", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 5706478 ], "year": 2008, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "106", "parenthetical": "the two most important tasks of an appellate court panel are to determine whether it has jurisdiction and whether any issues have been waived" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/228/0095-01" ] }, { "cite": "852 N.E.2d 451", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 2006, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "366 Ill. App. 3d 804", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 4264076 ], "year": 2006, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/366/0804-01" ] }, { "cite": "826 N.E.2d 1030", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 2005, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1036" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "356 Ill. App. 3d 642", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3749503 ], "year": 2005, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "648" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/356/0642-01" ] }, { "cite": "705 N.E.2d 898", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1999, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "185 Ill. 2d 299", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 122000 ], "year": 1999, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/185/0299-01" ] }, { "cite": "711 N.E.2d 773", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1999, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "305 Ill. App. 3d 45", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 1208079 ], "year": 1999, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/305/0045-01" ] }, { "cite": "659 N.E.2d 1322", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1995, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "168 Ill. 2d 312", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 307252 ], "year": 1995, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/168/0312-01" ] }, { "cite": "891 N.E.2d 954", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 2008, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "963", "parenthetical": "in a common law negligence action, \"a defendant hospital is judged against what a reasonably careful hospital would do under the same circumstances\"" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "383 Ill. App. 3d 874", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 4277941 ], "year": 2008, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "885", "parenthetical": "in a common law negligence action, \"a defendant hospital is judged against what a reasonably careful hospital would do under the same circumstances\"" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/383/0874-01" ] }, { "cite": "736 N.E.2d 171", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 2000, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "177" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "316 Ill. App. 3d 433", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 1096602 ], "year": 2000, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "441" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/316/0433-01" ] }, { "cite": "498 A.2d 316", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "A.2d", "year": 1985, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "distinguishing between employer's vicarious liability under the doctrine of respondeat superior for employee negligence and employer's direct liability for its own negligent hiring, training, and supervision" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "126 N.H. 836", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.H.", "case_ids": [ 4408231 ], "year": 1985, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "distinguishing between employer's vicarious liability under the doctrine of respondeat superior for employee negligence and employer's direct liability for its own negligent hiring, training, and supervision" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nh/126/0836-01" ] }, { "cite": "225 N.E.2d 384", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1967, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "80 Ill. App. 2d 49", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 2d", "case_ids": [ 2562531 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1967, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "58" }, { "page": "58" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-2d/80/0049-01" ] }, { "cite": "253 N.E.2d 663", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1969, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "667", "parenthetical": "the \"manifest\" weight of evidence means the \" 'clearly evident, plain and indisputable' \" weight of the evidence" }, { "page": "667", "parenthetical": "\"manifest\" weight of the evidence means the \" 'clearly evident, plain and indisputable' \" weight of the evidence" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "115 Ill. App. 2d 416", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 2d", "case_ids": [ 1588378 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1969, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "425", "parenthetical": "the \"manifest\" weight of evidence means the \" 'clearly evident, plain and indisputable' \" weight of the evidence" }, { "page": "425" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-2d/115/0416-01" ] }, { "cite": "281 N.E.2d 323", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1972, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "use of the manifest error standard when reviewing a bench trial is so firmly established as to require no citation to authority" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "51 Ill. 2d 143", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 5390255 ], "year": 1972, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "use of the manifest error standard when reviewing a bench trial is so firmly established as to require no citation to authority" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/51/0143-01" ] }, { "cite": "847 N.E.2d 565", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 7, "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "560", "parenthetical": "on appeal from a bench trial, findings of fact will not be disturbed unless manifestly erroneous" }, { "page": "560" }, { "page": "560" }, { "page": "560" }, { "page": "560" }, { "page": "561" }, { "page": "561" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "364 Ill. App. 3d 806", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 4262351 ], "weight": 7, "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "812", "parenthetical": "on appeal from a bench trial, findings of fact will not be disturbed unless manifestly erroneous" }, { "page": "812" }, { "page": "812" }, { "page": "812" }, { "page": "812" }, { "page": "813" }, { "page": "813" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/364/0806-01" ] }, { "cite": "356 Ill. App. 3d 46", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3750396 ], "year": 2005, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "54" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/356/0046-01" ] }, { "cite": "147 Ill. 2d 40", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3278337 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1992, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "48", "parenthetical": "holding that a reviewing court may, \"in furtherance of its responsibility to [provide] a just result, override considerations of waiver\"" }, { "page": "48" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/147/0040-01" ] }, { "cite": "152 Ill. 2d 432", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 5602939 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1992, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "455" }, { "page": "455", "parenthetical": "holding that cause-in-fact, inter alia, must be shown to establish proximate cause" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/152/0432-01" ] }, { "cite": "281 Ill. App. 3d 733", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 150222 ], "year": 1996, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "738" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/281/0733-01" ] }, { "cite": "364 Ill. App. 3d 797", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 4262364 ], "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "803", "parenthetical": "recognizing that \"[a] 11 evidence must be relevant to be admissible\"" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/364/0797-01" ] }, { "cite": "359 Ill. App. 3d 684", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 5596836 ], "year": 2005, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "700", "parenthetical": "generally noting that a person is not liable for harm to another that results from the person's failure to defend the other against a third party's criminal attack" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/359/0684-01" ] }, { "cite": "299 Ill. App. 3d 964", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 221528 ], "year": 1998, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "981" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/299/0964-01" ] }, { "cite": "258 Ill. App. 3d 1029", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 2882100 ], "year": 1994, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1051" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/258/1029-01" ] }, { "cite": "315 Ill. App. 623", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App.", "case_ids": [ 5646550 ], "year": 1942, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "642" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app/315/0623-01" ] }, { "cite": "223 Ill. 2d 342", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3604612 ], "weight": 2, "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "350-51" }, { "page": "350-51" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/223/0342-01" ] }, { "cite": "243 Ill. App. 3d 811", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 5111059 ], "year": 1993, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "815-16", "parenthetical": "\"an owner or occupier of land is not an absolute insurer of the safety of an invitee\"" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/243/0811-01" ] }, { "cite": "201 Ill. 2d 1", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 1477033 ], "year": 2002, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "17", "parenthetical": "holding that, \"[i]n determining whether a duty exists, a court should consider the following factors: (1) the reasonable foreseeability of injury, (2) the reasonable likelihood of injury, (3) the magnitude of the burden that guarding against injury places on the defendant, and (4" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/201/0001-01" ] }, { "cite": "163 A. 336", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "A.", "year": 1932, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "336", "parenthetical": "holding that the employer had a duty to ensure her instructions not to smoke were obeyed because, inter alia, she had knowledge the employee was not obeying her instructions" } ], "opinion_index": 1 }, { "cite": "107 Pa. Super. 332", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Pa. Super.", "case_ids": [ 704693 ], "year": 1932, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "335", "parenthetical": "holding that the employer had a duty to ensure her instructions not to smoke were obeyed because, inter alia, she had knowledge the employee was not obeying her instructions" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/pa-super/107/0332-01" ] }, { "cite": "253 F. Supp. 2d 1209", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F. Supp. 2d", "case_ids": [ 9140655 ], "year": 2003, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1245" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/f-supp-2d/253/1209-01" ] }, { "cite": "111 P.3d 445", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "P.3d", "case_ids": [ 8953422 ], "year": 2005, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "448", "parenthetical": "\"Thus, where a plaintiff asserts a claim for negligent supervision, the question of whether the employer owes a duty of care to the injured third party boils down to issues of knowledge and causation ***\"" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/p3d/111/0445-01" ] }, { "cite": "153 Ill. 2d 26", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 4738245 ], "year": 1992, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "32" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/153/0026-01" ] }, { "cite": "201 Ill. 2d 300", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 1477020 ], "year": 2002, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "308" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/201/0300-01" ] }, { "cite": "187 Ill. App. 3d 304", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 2663777 ], "year": 1989, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "308", "parenthetical": "holding that an expert is not competent to testify as to statutory interpretation" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/187/0304-01" ] }, { "cite": "127 F. Supp. 2d 986", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F. Supp. 2d", "case_ids": [ 11076637 ], "year": 2001, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "989", "parenthetical": "construing Illinois law" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/f-supp-2d/127/0986-01" ] }, { "cite": "442 F. Supp. 2d 543", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F. Supp. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3695320 ], "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "555", "parenthetical": "construing various Will County regulations" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/f-supp-2d/442/0543-01" ] }, { "cite": "362 Ill. App. 3d 1211", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 4260973 ], "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1216-17" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/362/1211-01" ] }, { "cite": "179 Ill. 2d 121", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 801361 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1997, "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/179/0121-01" ] }, { "cite": "854 F.2d 106", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.2d", "case_ids": [ 10525717 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1988, "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/f2d/854/0106-01" ] }, { "cite": "181 Ill. App. 3d 884", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 8499398 ], "year": 1989, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "897", "parenthetical": "holding that the trial court's damages award was against the manifest weight of the evidence because it was based upon inadmissible evidence" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/181/0884-01" ] }, { "cite": "230 A.2d 498", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "A.2d", "weight": 6, "year": 1967, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "500" }, { "page": "500" }, { "page": "500" }, { "page": "499-501" }, { "page": "499-501" } ], "opinion_index": 1 }, { "cite": "49 N.J. 389", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.J.", "case_ids": [ 1923280 ], "weight": 6, "year": 1967, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "394" }, { "page": "394" }, { "page": "394" }, { "page": "393-95" }, { "page": "393-95" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/nj/49/0389-01" ] }, { "cite": "224 Ill. 2d 154", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3607118 ], "year": 2007, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "164-71" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/224/0154-01" ] }, { "cite": "316 Ill. App. 3d 433", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 1096602 ], "weight": 2, "year": 2000, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "441" }, { "page": "441" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/316/0433-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 3027, "char_count": 126538, "ocr_confidence": 0.769, "pagerank": { "raw": 6.987722797326599e-08, "percentile": 0.4225522414627262 }, "sha256": "cccc99b8a1a3502c5bcf279fdae867fd5f36e241d7e7856e2e9dcd9967a6ad0f", "simhash": "1:3722359aa78f948a", "word_count": 20552 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:50:16.782503+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "RICHARD P. VANCURA, Plaintiff-Appellee and Cross-Defendant and Cross-Appellant, v. PETER KATRIS et al., Defendants-Appellants and Cross-Plaintiffs and Cross-Appellees." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "JUSTICE McBRIDE\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nAfter a bench trial, the circuit court found defendant Kinko\u2019s, Inc. (Kinko\u2019s), liable for damages resulting from its employee\u2019s notarization of a forged signature on a mortgage assignment. Kinko\u2019s seeks reversal, contending the court misconstrued section 7 \u2014 102 of the Illinois Notary Public Act (5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 102 (West 1996)) (Act) regarding employer liability and further erred by imposing liability under the common law for negligent training and supervision. This is a case of first impression regarding an employer\u2019s liability under the Act for a notary\u2019s \u201cofficial misconduct.\u201d 5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 102 (West 1996). Defendant Peter Katris, who stood to profit from the real estate transaction involving the forged mortgage assignment, has filed a brief in support of the statutory and common law judgments against Kinko\u2019s. Plaintiff Richard P Vancura, whose signature was forged, cross-appeals, seeking the full amount of his court reporter and expert witness fees.\nThe following relevant facts were established through discovery and a bench trial. Portions of the Act put these facts into context. 5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 102 et seq. (West 1996).\n\u201c6 \u2014 102. Notarial Acts. ***\n(c) In witnessing or attesting a signature, the notary public must determine, either from personal knowledge or from satisfactory evidence, that the signature is that of the person appearing before the notary and named therein.\n(d) A notary public has satisfactory evidence that a person is the person whose true signature is on a document if that person:\n(1) is personally known to the notary;\n(2) is identified on the oath or affirmation of a credible witness personally known to the notary; or\n(3) is identified on the basis of identification documents.\u201d (Emphasis added.) 5 ILCS 312/6 \u2014 102(c), (d) (West 1996).\n\u201c7 \u2014 101. Liability of Notary and Surety. A notary public and the surety on the notary\u2019s bond are liable to the persons involved for all damages caused by the notary\u2019s official misconduct.\n7 \u2014 102. Liability of Employer of notary. The employer of a notary public is also liable to the persons involved for all damages caused by the notary\u2019s official misconduct, if:\n(a) the notary public was acting within the scope of the notary\u2019s employment at the time the notary engaged in the official misconduct; and\n(b) the employer consented to the notary public\u2019s official misconduct.\n7 \u2014 103. Cause of Damages. It is not essential to a recovery of damages that a notary\u2019s official misconduct be the only cause of the damages.\n7 \u2014 104. Official Misconduct Defined. The term \u2018official misconduct\u2019 generally means the wrongful exercise of a power or the wrongful performance of a duty and is fully defined in Section 33 \u2014 3 of the Criminal Code of 1961. The term \u2018wrongful\u2019 as used in the definition of official misconduct means unauthorized, unlawful, abusive, negligent, reckless, or injurious.\u201d 5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 101 through 7 \u2014 104 (West 1996).\nSections of the Illinois Notary Public Handbook (Handbook) are also pertinent. The Handbook is a 36-page publication of the Secretary of State which includes general information, sample forms, frequently asked questions and their answers, and the entire Act. On the handbook\u2019s opening page, the Secretary of State describes five basic rules of proper notarization, including: \u201c1) Keep your notary seal in a safe place; 2) Do not notarize a signature unless the signer is present at the time of notarization; [and] 3) Do not lend your stamp to anyone, including your employer.\u201d The document continues:\n\u201cGENERAL INFORMATION\n* * *\nThe purpose of notarization is to prevent fraud and forgery. The notary acts as an official and unbiased witness to the identity of the person who comes before the notary for specific purposes. This places a great deal of responsibility upon the notary.\nIf a document requires the administration of an oath, the person must personally appear before the notary, be administered the appropriate oath, and sign the document in the notary\u2019s presence. [(Emphasis added.)]\nIf the document requires an acknowledgment, the person must appear before the notary and acknowledge the document. [(Emphasis added.)]\n* * *\nIdentification \u2014 A notary public must positively identify the person requesting notarization. *** ([See] Sec. 6 \u2014 102 [of the Illinois Notary Act].) [(Emphasis in original.)]\n* * *\nQUESTIONS ABOUT PERFORMING NOTARIZATIONS\n* * *\nHow does a notary identify a signer?\nA notary has satisfactory evidence if the person (1) is personally known to the notary; (2) is identified by a credible witness personally known to the notary; or (3) is identified on the basis of identification documents. Proper identification should include a photograph and a signature on a reliable identification card, such as a driver\u2019s license.\nMust the person sign the document in my presence?\nIf the document requires an oath *** then an oath or affirmation must be administered to the person, and the person must sign the document in your presence. If the document requires an acknowledgment, it is sufficient for the person to appear before you and acknowledge execution of the document. Never notarize an unsigned document. You may not take an acknowledgment because someone else assures you that the signature is genuine. You may not take an acknowledgment even when you recognize the signer\u2019s signature unless that person appears before you.\n* * *\nNOTARIZATION PROCEDURES/RULES\n* * *\nWhat are the most common errors or omissions made by notaries?\n(1) Failing to properly identify a person; (2) failing to administer an oath or affirmation (if required); and (3) failing to affix the notary seal.\nMISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS\nCan my employer keep my seal and certificate if I leave the company?\nNo. The seal and certificate are considered the property of the notary public. Also, if you lose possession of your seal, it is recommended that you resign your commission.\u201d\nPlaintiff Vancura, an experienced real estate investor, agreed to help an acquaintance, defendant Glenn S. Brown, finance the purchase and rehabilitation of a single-family home as an investment. In November 1994, Vancura loaned $100,000 to a land trust Brown established with defendant Old Kent Bank so that Brown could purchase the real property commonly known as 321 North Prospect, Wheaton, Du Page County, Illinois, for $78,000, and hire a contractor to upgrade the residence. In return, the trust executed and tendered a $110,000 installment note which was secured by a first mortgage on the Wheaton property and Brown tendered his personal guarantee that the terms of the installment note would be performed. Brown intended to sell the rehabilitated property at a profit and satisfy the note within six months.\nWhen the Wheaton property was ready for resale, Brown consulted with a real estate agent and listed the house for $160,000. However, no one offered to buy at that price and Brown lacked the funds to otherwise repay his debt to Vancura when the note matured in May 1995. Vancura began telephoning Brown about once a month regarding the overdue debt. Both Brown and Vancura sought advice from a fellow real estate investor and their mutual acquaintance, defendant Randall Boatwright. Boatwright toured the property with the borrower and made suggestions about how to improve its sale potential. Afterward, Boatwright went out of town to find additional investors for his new video transmission company, Multi Path Communications, and when he returned, his business partner told him that Vancura was willing to trade the Brown installment note at discount for a greater share of Multi Path Communications. Boatwright told Brown about the potential trade with Vancura and said that although Brown\u2019s repayment obligation had risen to $117,333, Boatwright was willing to discount the note to $90,000. Around the same time, Vancura stopped making monthly debt collection calls to Brown, although he would later testify that he did not call Brown after December 1995 only because he was angry about the unpaid debt. Intrigued by Boat-wright\u2019s offer to discount the debt, Brown asked another business acquaintance, defendant Peter Katris, to fund the $90,000 payoff, in exchange for $90,000 and 50% of the profits whenever the Wheaton property sold. Katris accepted Brown\u2019s investment proposal.\nBrown next arranged for his attorney, Karl E. Park, to conduct a real estate closing to reflect that Boatwright was buying out Vancura\u2019s interests. Attorney Park asked that the original installment note and original mortgage be available at the closing scheduled for December 20, 1995, but only so the documents could be marked \u201cpaid in full\u201d and \u201ccancelled\u201d as a courtesy to the parties. He did not consider these documents or the notations to be essential to the transaction. Rather, other documents would sufficiently reflect what transpired, including an assignment of mortgage signed by Vancura, a loan discount agreement signed by Boatwright and Brown which indicated Boatwright was accepting less than the note\u2019s face value, and a release deed signed by Boatwright which indicated he was relinquishing his mortgagee\u2019s rights to the Wheaton real property. Accordingly, attorney Park drafted these three documents. When Park testified at the bench trial about a decade later, he could not recall how the unexecuted assignment of mortgage made its way into Boatwright\u2019s hands.\nBoatwright testified by way of an evidence deposition that his business partner in the Multi Path Communications deal took the assignment of mortgage to Vancura\u2019s home to get the document signed. When Boatwright and his partner met the next morning (December 20, 1995), they realized some of the papers going to the closing would have to be notarized, so they drove to a Kinko\u2019s store in a shopping center in Oak Lawn, Illinois. Boatwright\u2019s business partner never testified in these proceedings. In part because only two of the three people involved in the transaction at issue testified, and in part because of the testimony that was given, it is unclear what occurred in the store that day. Even so, it is undisputed that Vancura was not there, that Vancura never personally appeared before the notary on duty, that Vancura never signed the document assigning his interest in the $100,000 note, and that when Boatwright and his partner left the Kinko\u2019s store, they had two documents which appeared to have been notarized by Kinko\u2019s employee Gustavo Albear.\nAlbear was named as a defendant in these proceedings, but settled with Vancura for $30,000 prior to trial and then testified about the authenticity of the notarizations. With regard to Boatwright\u2019s signature on the release deed, Albear testified that his supporting signature as a notary and the use of his notary seal were legitimate. But as to Vancura\u2019s purported signature on the assignment of mortgage, only the notary stamp was legitimate. Albear testified that the signature in the notary section was not his own, it was not his handwriting, and he would never sign a document with his full name \u201cGustavo David Albear.\u201d He denied personally knowing Boatwright or Boatwright\u2019s business partner.\nAlbear also testified, however, that he required only one form of identification to perform a notarization and would not require that it include the person\u2019s photograph. According to Albear, the single identification document need only contain a signature. When asked whether he would notarize a signature that \u201cmatched\u201d the signature on a Social Security card (a photoless card), Albear answered \u201cYes,\u201d and then the following exchange occurred:\n\u201cQ. How would you know I am actually [that person]?\nA. Well, that is not my job. My job is to verify your signature based on what I have in front of me.\nQ. Is it to verify *** that the signature *** on two documents match? Or is it to verify the identity of the person who signed in front of you?\nA. Well, my job was to receive identification and verify based on the signature [on the document] and the signature on the identification that it was the person they said they were.\nRemember, I always ask people to please affirm or swear that they were who they said. That is how I was trained to do it.\nQ. Okay. Now \u2014 so in other words, just to be clear, if somebody had *** some sort of [an] official looking ID with [a] signature *** like a [S]ociaI [S]ecurity card. And they could sign the signature that matched the ID, you would notarize the document?\nA. We [were] told to receive identification, period. Verify it and ask to swear or affirm. When all those things were in line, *** we signed and put the [notary] stamps on them [and passed the person to the cashier].\u201d\nAlbear further testified that he became a notary in 1995 at Kin-ko\u2019s request and attended a training class led by a Kinko\u2019s employee. The training consisted of lectures conducted over two or three days at a nearby Kinko\u2019s location (not the Oak Lawn store where Albear regularly worked) and the class was \u201cmore marketing than anything else.\u201d The Kinko\u2019s employee trained Albear to keep a spiral-bound notarization log and his notary seal in a safe place, but did not specify where they should be kept. The Oak Lawn store at the \u201cvery fast-moving intersection\u201d of 95th Street and Cicero Avenue, was very busy, was open around-the-clock, had 5 to 12 employees on every shift, and could \u201ceasily\u201d have as many as 300 customers on a typical day. Also, the store was \u201c[v]ery open\u201d and customers could \u201ceasily walk behind the counter,\u201d but the manager\u2019s office was \u201ca little different,\u201d so Al-bear decided to keep his notary seal and spiral-bound logbook in the manager\u2019s desk drawer. Neither the office nor the desk was consistently locked, but if either or both were locked, Albear would have to ask the manager or assistant manager to open them. Other employees and possibly even customers could access the office when it was unlocked. Sometimes there might be a supervisor or other employee sitting in the manager\u2019s office who could have observed or safeguarded the contents of the desk drawer, \u201cbut you don\u2019t stay in an office in the back when you have to service customers in the front.\u201d When Albear transferred from the Kinko\u2019s store in Oak Lawn to a Kinko\u2019s store in Peoria, Illinois, he gave his notary seal and logbook to the Oak Lawn manager, who accepted them. The logbook could not be located for this litigation.\nDaniel A. Behnke testified that he spent about 15 years managing stores for Kinko\u2019s and was the manager of the Oak Lawn store when the notarization at issue occurred. Behnke left Kinko\u2019s employ about 10 years later and was currently working for the office supply retail chain Office Max. When Kinko\u2019s initiated notary services in mid-1994, three of Behnke\u2019s employees agreed to undergo the in-house training. He was not interested in becoming a notary himself at the time because the management position required him to be \u201cputting out fires most of the day\u201d and because he was not willing to take on the personal liability of a notary public. During a managers\u2019 meeting, Kin-ko\u2019s gave Benhke an \u201coverview of the notary program\u201d but no \u201cspecific training about the notarization process\u201d nor any \u201cspecific training about how to manage a notary employee.\u201d He subsequently managed notary employees like any other employees, by which he meant that his role as a manager was to \u201coversee the entire operations of the store,\u201d \u201c[a]ddress issues that had to be addressed,\u201d and \u201ccounsel team members that needed to be counseled or trained or supported.\u201d He never reviewed and was never asked to approve any notarizations that were performed at his store.\nOn cross-examination, Behnke said he knew the notaries stored their seals and logbooks in his office and that he consented to this practice. He considered his office to be \u201cfairly secure\u201d because it was \u201cremoved from the actual production floor, through one or two hallways\u201d and was \u201ckept locked most of the time,\u201d although it was never locked when a manager or assistant manager was on duty, which would be 8 to 12 hours of a typical 24-hour day. Any employee who wanted to go into the manager\u2019s office could, but a customer would have to get past a staff that was \u201ctrained not to let people back there,\u201d and understood they were to \u201cmeet and greet every person coming to the store and actually] keep an eye on what\u2019s going on.\u201d The store performed about one notarization per month and Behnke did not consider notary services to be \u201cany great revenue generator.\u201d Kinko\u2019s never audited the notaries\u2019 logbooks and Behnke had no recollection of what happened to Albear\u2019s log when he transferred to Peoria. Behnke denied accepting possession of Albear\u2019s notary seal when Al-bear quit working for him in Oak Lawn. Behnke regularly completed employee evaluations, which were based on his own observations, quality checks, and \u201ccustomer feedback, mystery shops, things like that.\u201d Behnke never watched Albear perform a notarization and admitted that he therefore had \u201cno idea whether he complied with what was required of him in the training.\u201d\nMichael L. Glosen, an attorney, notary public, and expert on notary practice and notary law, testified at the trial based in part on the deposition testimony of Albear and the Kinko\u2019s employee who created and conducted Albear\u2019s notary training and an oral summary of Al-bear\u2019s trial testimony. He was a professor emeritus of Chicago\u2019s John Marshall Law School, had retired from actively practicing law, and was a former arbitrator on commercial cases for the American Arbitration Association and the circuit courts of Cook and Will Counties (Chicago and one of its collar counties). Professor Glosen taught at the law school for 27 years and also had at least 20 years\u2019 experience teaching at the Illinois Judicial Conference. He had read and written extensively in the field of notary law and practice, including coauthoring the only textbook on notary law, writing numerous law reviews on the subject, and organizing a symposium on notary law. He received notary training at the Notary Law Institute in 1990 (18 years before the trial). He had been or was currently a member of the Notary Law Institute, the American Society of Notaries, and the National Notary Association, and each of these notary education organizations had recognized him as an expert in the field of notary law and practice. In its spring 2001 publication, the Notary Law Institute referred to Glosen as \u201c \u2018highly esteemed nationally for his expertise and contributions to the subject [of notary law and practice].\u2019 \u201d In its October 2001 publication, the American Society of Notaries said he was \u201c \u2018known nationally as an authority on notary issues and an expert in the field of notary law.\u2019 \u201d In its May 1998 publication, the National Notary Association said, \u201c \u2018This respected law professor has become the nation\u2019s leading legal scholar on notarization, having written or inspired numerous penetrating articles on the role of the notary public in modern American life and organized a just[-]published notary symposium of over twenty articles that will stand as a landmark of scholarship for future students of notarizations.\u2019 \u201d Glosen was on the National Notary Association\u2019s drafting committee for the Notary Public\u2019s Code of Professional Responsibility and a similar committee for the Model Notary Act of 2002.\nBased primarily on the Illinois Notary Act, the Illinois Secretary of State\u2019s Notary Public Handbook, and Closen\u2019s familiarity with the Model Notary Act and sound notary practices, Glosen testified that Kinko\u2019s training and supervision of Albear concerning the identification of document signers was insufficient. Furthermore, the person who gave Albear his notary training was unqualified and unfamiliar with sound notary practices. More specifically, when Albear was trained in December of 1995, there were only two prevailing views in the United States regarding the proper way to identify a document signer. One view, used by Illinois and the National Notary Association (the source of the 1984 and 2002 Model Acts), was to require two or more identification documents, one of which would need to include at least a signature, photograph, and physical description. The other view was to require one identification document, which included a signature and photograph, such as a United States passport, but preferably a physical description also, such as a driver\u2019s license or official State ID card. According to Glosen, the Illinois legislature signaled its adoption of the first, more stringent approach by referring to identification documents in the plural, rather than an identification document in the singular. However, Albear and his instructor both stated in their depositions that they emphasized the need for one identification document with a signature on it, and Albear, in fact, \u201ctime and again referred to his focus on just a signature on a document of identification.\u201d Albear\u2019s statements led Professor Glosen to conclude that even if Albear had been handed an identification document with a photograph or physical description on it, he would have disregarded those details, because he was focused on a signature. Al-bear\u2019s approach would allow document fraud to occur, such as if someone wanted to present a library card or other \u201ctrifling document\u201d with a phony signature and then execute the same signature on a document to be notarized. A document containing only a signature would be \u201cthe weakest, absolute weakest form of identification that could be used by a notary.\u201d However, a document bearing a signature, photograph, and physical description would enable the notary to compare the signatures, as well as the person\u2019s physical presence to the documented date of birth (age), height, weight, color of eyes, etc. When the notarization at issue was executed in December of 1995, notary statutes across the country \u201cdid not spell out anything beyond simply the identification of document signers,\u201d but people familiar with sound notary practices adhered to one of the two prevailing views on how to adequately identify a signer. Professor Glosen stated with a reasonable degree of certainty that Illinois law in 1995 followed the more stringent approach. Moreover, Albear violated the Illinois standard of care regarding the identification of document signers because Albear would not have asked for identification cards that bore a photograph, physical description, and signature. Moreover, Al-bear\u2019s stated practice of relying on one nonphoto form of identification bearing just a signature violated both of the prevailing views regarding satisfactory evidence of identity.\nProfessor Glosen also held the opinion that Kinko\u2019s training regarding the security and preservation of Albear\u2019s notary seal was insufficient, demonstrated by the fact that Albear left his seal at the Oak Lawn Kinko\u2019s store when he moved to Peoria. While the Illinois statute does not speak to maintenance, preservation, and destruction of a notary\u2019s seal, the Model Notary Act and the Illinois Secretary of State\u2019s handbook do indicate the seal is the personal property of the notary public and should be defaced or destroyed so it cannot be misused subsequently.\nAlbear\u2019s deposition and trial testimony and the trainer\u2019s deposition testimony also led Professor Glosen to conclude Kinko\u2019s training and supervision regarding the notarization logbook it instructed Al-bear to keep was insufficient, as shown by Albear\u2019s practice of keeping his log in a spiral-bound or three-ring binder, which would permit a page to be removed without detection, and by his failure to obtain essential details such as the person\u2019s name and address for any subsequent followup, and a signature sample for comparison. All in all, Albear\u2019s log was \u201cquite incomplete\u201d and it \u201cbordered on being silly to call [it] a notary journal or logbook.\u201d The Illinois statute did not require a notary public to keep a log.\nProfessor Glosen further testified that the trainer\u2019s lack of familiarity with sound notary practices became obvious to him as he read the trainer\u2019s deposition and that he was not surprised to find out the trainer was not a notary himself.\nOn cross-examination by Bunko\u2019s attorney, Professor Glosen testified the Illinois statute does not affirmatively state every responsibility of a notary and every responsibility of a notary\u2019s employer. As examples, the statute did not mandate any particular training and only required a notary to read and be familiar with the statute, and it did not spell out what a notary should do with his or her seal when not sealing documents. Furthermore, the Model Notary Act of 2002, currently in effect, was about five times the length of the Model Notary Act of 1984, which was in effect in 1995, but the 2002 Model Notary Act still did not address every aspect of a notary public\u2019s job. There was no single document in existence that addressed every possibility. Professor Glosen also acknowledged Kinko\u2019s was not statutorily required to have a supervisor on duty whom Albear could consult if he had \u201ca problem doing a notarization,\u201d but Glosen pointed out that Al-bear stated at his deposition that he never felt the need to consult the store manager about a notarization, even though, in Closen\u2019s opinion, Albear \u201chad a number of problems *** that he didn\u2019t realize [he had].\u201d\nA1 Yamnitz, who joined Kinko\u2019s training staff in early 1995 shortly before conducting Albear\u2019s notary class on June 29, 1995, testified that his background included three or four semesters at a community college and approximately 15 years in the training departments of restaurant chains such as Lucky Steer Restaurants and retailers such as apparel chain T.J. Maxx. Yamnitz was not a notary in early 1995 when he put together Kinko\u2019s notary public training by reading a printed copy of the Illinois Secretary of State\u2019s Notary Public Handbook and viewing three videotapes from the National Notary Association. After reviewing these materials, Yamnitz compiled a 15- or 16-page \u201cnotary basics\u201d workbook for his classroom presentations. Each student got his or her own copy of the workbook and could jot notes in the book for later reference. Yamnitz would lead the group through a lecture and discussion, show a videotape, \u201cdo a debrief,\u201d and then repeat the process for the next topic. The class topics included keeping a notarizations journal, securing the notary seal, and verifying the identity of a document signer. Yamnitz taught his students to ask for a state identification card, driver\u2019s license, or other card that had a photo, the person\u2019s height and weight, and the person\u2019s signature for comparison with the signature on the document.\nOn cross-examination, Yamnitz acknowledged he taught his students to rely on one form of identification, but if they were \u201csuspicious\u201d about the one they could ask for a second one. Kinko\u2019s did not specifically employ anyone to supervise its notary employees and did not train its store managers on how to manage or supervise notarial acts. Kinko\u2019s did not provide any notary information to the store managers unless they also happened to become notaries themselves. Kinko\u2019s did not have a policy about storing or securing notary logbooks or notary seals and Yamnitz took no steps to implement any practices within the stores. Yamnitz also acknowledged the videotapes he viewed and played for Albear\u2019s class were not specific to Illinois and contained \u201cbroad[J national\u201d information. He relied on his own reading of the Illinois Notary Public Handbook and did not consult with an attorney or have a notary review the workbook he authored for Kinko\u2019s employees. After compiling the workbook, Yamnitz \u201csent a copy of the finished program off to Kinko\u2019s corporate office, and never heard anything back from them at all.\u201d He asked Kinko\u2019s regional operations manager Bill Benson for permission to attend a notary training program in order to \u201csee if there was something else that [Yamnitz] was missing,\u201d but the training cost $300 or $400 and Benson denied the request. Yamnitz was not familiar with the Model Notary Act and had never heard of it. He did not check to see whether his students \u201cfilled in the blanks\u201d in their workbooks, did not collect or grade their answers, did not test their knowledge, and had no idea whether Albear subsequently adhered to his training.\nBoatwright also testified about the notarizations, but he contradicted Albear\u2019s testimony by saying that his business partner was a regular customer of the Oak Lawn Kinko\u2019s (Albear denied knowing Boatwright or Boatwright\u2019s partner). Boatwright also testified that when they entered the store that day, his partner went over to \u201cma[k]e arrangements\u201d with \u201ca gentleman behind the counter\u201d while Boat-wright took various documents to a self-serve photocopy machine. (Boatwright\u2019s partner did not testify in these proceedings.) When Boatwright was finished making copies for the closing, he joined his partner at the counter and produced his driver\u2019s license and other ID, \u201cfor [his] part of the notar[ization],\u201d and they left the store. Later that same day, Boatwent went to Park\u2019s law office for the closing.\nPark testified that he conducted about 40 or 50 real estate closings per month, that all of the documents presented at this closing appeared to be in order, and that he had no reason to suspect anything inappropriate was occurring. He and Brown discussed the fact that no one brought the original note and mortgage to the closing, but \u201call the parties knew each other [through an investment club]\u201d and Brown \u201cwas not on the best speaking terms with Mr. Vancura [due to the overdue debt], [so it was] decided that [they] didn\u2019t want to make the phone call to Vancura.\u201d The closing concluded with Boatwright receiving Katris\u2019 $90,000 payoff in the form of a $45,000 check made payable to Boatwright and a $45,000 check made payable to Multi Path. When Boatwright left Park\u2019s office, he cashed the first check and then delivered the cash and the second check to his partner for use in the Multi Path deal.\nWithin two months of the closing on December 20, 1995, Brown sold the Wheaton real estate to third parties for approximately $125,000. The proceeds were enough for Brown to pay his contractors and suppliers, pay Katris $103,000, which was a net profit of $13,000 for Katris, and take a net profit for himself of $3,500.\nIn February 1996, Vancura asked for Brown\u2019s help with a project due to his considerable outstanding debt. Brown, however, responded that the debt had been resolved. Vancura investigated the paper trail and filed common law claims against Brown, Old Kent Bank as trustee, Boatwright, and Katris, and a statutory claim against notary Albear for \u201cofficial misconduct.\u201d Vancura subsequently amended the statutory claim against the notary to include Kinko\u2019s and further amended common law negligence allegations against Kinko\u2019s. Brown and Katris joined together to sue Boatwright for fraud and Albear and Kinko\u2019s for common law negligence.\nAs indicated above, Albear settled with Vancura prior to trial. After seven days of trial proceedings conducted between September 2005 and January 2006, the court determined the defendants were jointly and severally liable to Vancura for damages. Brown was found in breach of his personal guarantee of the note and therefore liable for its $110,000 face value and statutory prejudgment interest; Boat-wright defaulted early in the proceedings and was found liable to Van-cura for the $110,000 note and statutory prejudgment interest; Katris was found liable to Vancura for his unjust $13,000 net profit on the property\u2019s resale. In addition, the court found Kinko\u2019s liable to both Vancura and Brown for the $110,000 note and statutory prejudgment interest, and liable to Katris for the $13,000 profit. The judge imposed liability against Kinko\u2019s in favor of Vancura, Brown, and Katris on the basis of section 7 \u2014 102 of the Act (5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 102 (West 1996)) and also on the basis of the common law theory of negligent supervision and training.\nOn appeal, Kinko\u2019s challenges both the common law and statutory judgments. Kinko\u2019s concedes Albear must have either notarized Van-cura\u2019s signature on the mortgage assignment despite the fact that Vancura did not personally appear before the notary public, or Albear negligently or intentionally permitted Boatwright\u2019s business partner to apply Albear\u2019s notary seal to Vancura\u2019s signature on the mortgage assignment. Under either scenario, Albear engaged in official misconduct. Thus, the material facts regarding Albear\u2019s conduct are undisputed. Even so, Kinko\u2019s argues, the trial judge misconstrued the facts regarding Kinko\u2019s common law and statutory liability and further erred by misinterpreting the statute at issue.\nAlthough Kinko\u2019s focuses its arguments on the statutory judgment, we begin our analysis with the common law judgment, then resolve the question regarding an employer\u2019s statutory liability for its notary\u2019s \u201cofficial misconduct\u201d (5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 102 (West 1996)), and conclude with Vancura\u2019s cross-appeal regarding litigation expenses he would like to shift to the defendants.\nThe trial judge\u2019s findings of fact regarding Kinko\u2019s alleged negligence are subject to reversal only if they are manifestly erroneous. City of Chicago v. Old Colony Partners, L.P., 364 Ill. App. 3d 806, 812, 847 N.E.2d 565, 560 (2006) (on appeal from a bench trial, findings of fact will not be disturbed unless manifestly erroneous); Schatz v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc., 51 Ill. 2d 143, 281 N.E.2d 323 (1972) (use of the manifest error standard when reviewing a bench trial is so firmly established as to require no citation to authority). Manifest error occurs when all reasonable persons would find the opposite conclusion is clearly apparent. City of Chicago, 364 Ill. App. 3d at 812, 847 N.E.2d at 560; Black\u2019s Law Dictionary 563 (7th ed. 1999) (manifest error is one that is plain and indisputable). See also Board of Education, School District No. 90 v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 115 Ill. App. 2d 416, 425, 253 N.E.2d 663, 667 (1969) (the \u201cmanifest\u201d weight of evidence means the \u201c \u2018clearly evident, plain and indisputable\u2019 \u201d weight of the evidence), quoting Whitman v. Prescott, 80 Ill. App. 2d 49, 58, 225 N.E.2d 384 (1967).\nA claim for negligent training or supervision concerns the employer\u2019s own negligence rather than the negligence of its employee, meaning that the employer\u2019s liability is direct, not vicarious. 30 C.J.S. Employer \u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 254 (2007); Cutter v. Town of Farming-ton, 126 N.H. 836, 498 A.2d 316 (1985) (distinguishing between employer\u2019s vicarious liability under the doctrine of respondeat superior for employee negligence and employer\u2019s direct liability for its own negligent hiring, training, and supervision). In order to hold an employer liable for injuries resulting to third persons from negligent training or supervision of an employee, it must be established \u201cthat the employer knew or should have known its employee behaved in a dangerous or otherwise incompetent manner, and that the employer, having this knowledge, failed to supervise the employee adequately, or take other action to prevent the harm.\u201d 30 C.J.S. Employer \u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 255 (2007); Kresin v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 316 Ill. App. 3d 433, 441, 736 N.E.2d 171, 177 (2000) (affirming judgment against employer for negligent training and instruction where there was inherent danger in operating a motor vehicle near pedestrians, pedestrian entrance was adjacent to automotive service bay area, and employer told mechanics to be careful and use common sense when backing out vehicles but did not give instructions about specific safety precautions to use to avoid colliding with other vehicles or pedestrians). Negligence is generally defined in Illinois as \u201cthe failure to do something which a reasonably careful person would do, or the doing of something which a reasonably careful person would not do, under [the] circumstances.\u201d Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Civil, No. 10.01 (3d ed. 1994). See generally Longnecker v. Loyola University Medical Center, 383 Ill. App. 3d 874, 885, 891 N.E.2d 954, 963 (2008) (in a common law negligence action, \u201ca defendant hospital is judged against what a reasonably careful hospital would do under the same circumstances\u201d). \u201cWhile it is not necessary that the employer should have contemplated or been able to anticipate the particular consequences, the injury must have been a reasonably foreseeable consequence of [the] employer\u2019s negligent failure to train and supervise, and there must be a [causal] relationship between this alleged deficiency and the harm suffered.\u201d 30 C.J.S. Employer \u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 255-56 (2007).\nVancura, Brown, and Katris alleged that Kinko\u2019s had a duty to the public in general and any person accepting documents notarized by Kinko\u2019s to train, supervise, and control its notary-employees to assure they were authenticating only signatures executed by properly identified persons, however, Kinko\u2019s failed to train and supervise Albear to require a photo identification card before he notarized documents. It was further alleged that Kinko\u2019s training and supervision was so lacking that Albear negligently, carelessly, or intentionally permitted his notary seal to be affixed to the assignment of mortgage even though the purported signator had not personally appeared before Albear. In addition, as a direct and proximate result of Kinko\u2019s negligent training and supervision, Vancura\u2019s note and mortgage no longer appeared enforceable and Vancura had been unable to collect the monies he was contractually entitled to, resulting in damages in the amount of $110,000, as well as interest, court costs and attorney fees. Kinko\u2019s negligence also harmed Brown and Katris, when in reliance on an improperly notarized document, they became partners on the real property and were sued.\nThe trial judge relied on Professor Closen\u2019s expert opinion as to the common law standard of care for notaries and their employers, and stated in the judgment order:\n\u201c[In the professor\u2019s] expert opinion, the standard of care in this area is reasonableness. ***\nIt was Professor Closen\u2019s opinion that Kinko\u2019s was negligent in its training and supervision of Gustavo Albear. Professor Glosen testified that he based his opinion on the fact that Kinko\u2019s asked Albear to become a notary for Kinko\u2019s. Kinko\u2019s provided notary training for Albear and other company notaries. Kinko\u2019s used an instructor who had no experience as a notary and was not familiar with Illinois notary requirements, to train its notaries. *** The notary program instructor was chosen simply because he was an instructor for Kinko\u2019s copy department, not because he had any knowledge or experience about notary practice and law. The instructor *** was not a notary at the time he trained Albear and had never been a notary. In Closen\u2019s opinion, the notary instructor did not properly train Albear and others about the procedures for identifying document signers, did not teach them that information regarding notarizations was to be kept in a [bound] journal, did not teach them about steps to take to secure the notary seals and journal, and did not instruct Kinko\u2019s notaries on the need to preserve the notary seal and logbook.\u201d\nAs a result:\n\u201cIt was Professor Closen\u2019s opinion that Gustavo Albear was not acquainted with sound notarial practice. Albear did not require photo identification from a document signer. He did not properly secure his notary seal and he did not properly keep [the] notary journal [Kinko\u2019s instructed him to keep]. Also, Glosen testified that when Albear left the employ of Kinko\u2019s, he left his seal and journal behind with no assurance that the seal would not be misused or that his logbook would not be lost or destroyed.\u201d\nFurther:\n\u201cThe Court finds that while there is no statutory mandate requiring supervision and training of its notaries, the common law requires that Kinko\u2019s, as a provider of notary services to the public, must adhere to a standard of reasonableness regarding its notary employees. This standard would require that the notaries employed by Kinko\u2019s understand notary requirements and that they are supervised in a manner to ensure that they are performing their duties in accordance with the law, so as to prevent harm to the public. The Court finds that the evidence supports a finding that Kinko\u2019s failed to meet the necessary standard of care, and is therefore liable for negligent training and supervision of its notary employees.\u201d\nWith regard to Albear\u2019s training, Kinko\u2019s now contends \u201cthe training provided by Kinko\u2019s to its notary-employees imbued its employees with their duties under Illinois law,\u201d but the judge erroneously expected Albear to be trained to a higher standard. Kinko\u2019s sets out the relevant requirements of the Act, including that \u201cthe notary public must determine, *** from satisfactory evidence, that the signature is that of the person appearing before the notary and named therein,\u201d and that the \u201cnotary public has satisfactory evidence that a person is the person whose true signature is on a document if that person *** is identified on the basis of identification documents.\u201d 5 ILCS 312/6\u2014 102(c), (d)(3) (West 1996). Kinko\u2019s also emphasizes that despite Professor Closen\u2019s testimony regarding the inadequacy of Albear\u2019s logbook, there was no obligation under the Illinois statute to maintain a logbook. Kinko\u2019s relies on authority indicating violation of a statute may be a basis for a tort claim. See, e.g., Calloway v. Kinkelaar, 168 Ill. 2d 312, 659 N.E.2d 1322 (1995); Bier v. Leanna Lakeside Property Ass\u2019n, 305 Ill. App. 3d 45, 711 N.E.2d 773 (1999). Kinko\u2019s concludes that since its notary training was consistent with the statute, the judge erred in finding negligence occurred. With regard to the negligent supervision finding, Kinko\u2019s cites case law regarding an entirely different type of tort, negligent hiring and retention of an unfit employee (see Van Horne v. Muller, 185 Ill. 2d 299, 705 N.E.2d 898 (1999); Browne v. SCR Medical Transportation Services, Inc., 356 Ill. App. 3d 642, 648, 826 N.E.2d 1030, 1036 (2005)), and argues no evidence was offered indicating Albear was negligently hired and retained. The cited case law has no bearing on the judge\u2019s finding of negligence and does not warrant further discussion. More importantly, the failure to cite relevant authority is a violation of the supreme court rule concerning an appellant\u2019s brief and waives consideration of the argument. Fortech, L.L.C. v. R.W. Dunteman Co., 366 Ill. App. 3d 804, 852 N.E.2d 451 (2006); 155 Ill. 2d R 341(e)(7). See also People v. Smith, 228 Ill. 2d 95, 106, 885 N.E.2d 1053, 1059 (2008) (the two most important tasks of an appellate court panel are to determine whether it has jurisdiction and whether any issues have been waived). We find, therefore, that Kinko\u2019s has waived review of the imposition of liability under the common law, and we affirm that portion of the order on appeal. Kinko\u2019s is liable to Vancura, Brown, and Katris pursuant to their common law claims.\nWaiver aside, the negligence judgment is consistent with the manifest weight of the evidence. We emphasize that Professor Glosen was accepted as an expert and that his opinion regarding the standard of care and Kinko\u2019s failings was not impeached. The witness testimony and documents established that Kinko\u2019s asked Albear to become a notary, gave him in-house training, and offered his notarial services to the public, but did not adequately train and supervise. Even when we disregard the testimony indicating Albear\u2019s logbook was deficient, we still conclude Kinko\u2019s was negligent, due to its failure to train and supervise Albear in the identification of customers and the security of his notary seal. We accept Kinko\u2019s contention that it was under no statutory obligation to train its notary employees. Nevertheless, it chose to train Albear and it showed no concern for whether its instruction did actually \u201cimbue[ ] its employees with their duties under Illinois law.\u201d Furthermore, Kinko\u2019s made no attempt to supervise Al-bear\u2019s notary practices and it helped him store his notary seal improperly. In order to reverse the judge\u2019s ruling that Kinko\u2019s negligently trained and supervised Albear, we would have to conclude that all reasonable persons would find the opposite conclusions are clearly apparent, which we do not. City of Chicago, 364 Ill. App. 3d at 812, 847 N.E.2d at 560; Black\u2019s Law Dictionary 563 (7th ed. 1999) (manifest error is one that is plain and indisputable); see also Board of Education, School District No. 90, 115 Ill. App. 2d at 425, 253 N.E.2d at 667 (\u201cmanifest\u201d weight of the evidence means the \u201c \u2018clearly evident, plain and indisputable\u2019 \u201d weight of the evidence), quoting Whitman, 80 Ill. App. 2d at 58.\nMore specifically, the evidence showed a Kinko\u2019s employee developed Kinko\u2019s training program, even though he was not a notary himself and had not received any training about the proper performance of notarial tasks. The inexperienced trainer developed a course format and authored a \u201cnotary basics\u201d workbook for his students without any oversight or feedback from a notary or an attorney versed in notary law. The trainer relied on nothing more than his own reading of the Secretary of State\u2019s handbook and viewing of three instructional videotapes from the National Notary Association.\nThe trainer expressed doubt about his self-instruction, told Kin-ko\u2019s he was \u201cmissing\u201d material details about notary practices, and asked if he could attend a notary course, but Kinko\u2019s refused to pay the $300 or $400 fee for professional notary training, disregarded his concern, and sent store employees such as Albear to his classroom.\nEven if the in-house trainer was well-versed in Illinois\u2019 notary practices, he did not effectively teach those practices to Albear. Kin-ko\u2019s could not support its argument about the effectiveness of its training program by citing objective indicators such as student grades or test results, and it could show only the attendance records for Al-bear\u2019s training session. The trainer made no effort to confirm his students accurately completed the \u201cnotary basics\u201d workbook which he authored and testified could be used as a reference book while on the job. He made no effort to confirm his students were comprehending the lectures and the instructional videotapes, which he could have done by collecting, reviewing, and grading the completed workbooks and administering quizzes and/or a final test of his students\u2019 comprehension. If the trainer had taken these steps, he could have remedied any material miscomprehension or disqualified a student such as Albear from working as a notary in Kinko\u2019s name. Because the trainer did not take these steps, Kinko\u2019s has nothing to document that Albear was effectively trained to follow the Illinois standards.\nWhile the trainer testified he properly instructed Albear to adhere to Illinois\u2019s standards and Kinko\u2019s is arguing there is no dispute it \u201ctrained its notary-employees to follow the [statute] and the [guidelines set out in the Secretary of State\u2019s handbook],\u201d the manifest weight of the evidence and Albear\u2019s account indicated otherwise. When Albear and the trainer gave conflicting testimony, it was the judge\u2019s duty to determine which person gave the more credible account of the in-house training program. In re Marriage of Kaplan, 149 Ill. App. 3d 23, 28, 500 N.E.2d 612, 616 (1986). \u201cIt is a well-established rule that the credibility of witnesses should be left to the trier of fact because it alone is in the position to see the witnesses, observe their demeanor, and assess the relative credibility of witnesses where there is conflicting testimony on issues of fact.\u201d In re Marriage of Kaplan, 149 Ill. App. 3d at 28, 500 N.E.2d at 616. \u201c[T]he trial [judge] has a unique opportunity, which cannot be reproduced from the cold inanimate record, to observe and judge the witness\u2019 demeanor and credibility.\u201d In re Marriage of Zirngibl, 237 Ill. App. 3d 1049, 1054-55, 606 N.E.2d 1, 4 (1991). A reviewing court will not overturn a trial court\u2019s determinations of credibility unless they appear contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence (In re Marriage of Zirngibl, 237 Ill. App. 3d 1049, 606 N.E.2d 1 (1991)), which is not the case here.\nAlbear characterized the training program as \u201cmore marketing than anything else.\u201d Despite the trainer\u2019s testimony, the inadequacy of the program is shown by the fact that Albear left the classroom with the misapprehension that he was properly performing his notary public role if he asked customers to first \u201caffirm or swear that they were who they said,\u201d even though there is no provision in the statute for a person to identify themselves by taking an oath. Albear\u2019s comprehension of the statute is contrary to its plain meaning. The statute anticipates that a customer may hire a notary to witness an oath-taking (as opposed to notarizing a signature), but the statute does not permit the notary to use an oath in lieu of adequate identification credentials which establish that a person seeking a notarization is indeed the person he or she claims to be. Despite the trainer\u2019s testimony, the inadequacy of the training was also demonstrated by Albear\u2019s testimony that he was trained to rely on a pictureless form of customer identification. The statute indicates the notary public \u201chas satisfactory evidence\u201d of the customer\u2019s identity when the customer is \u201cidentified on the basis of identification documents.\u201d 5 ILCS 312/6\u2014 102(d)(3) (West 1996). In this day and age, an adequate identification document under the circumstances is one that includes at least a photograph and signature. The 1984 and 2002 versions of the Model Notary Act spell out this minimum standard. The 1984 version described adequate identification as a current document \u201cissued by a federal or state government with the individual\u2019s photograph, signature, and physical description\u201d when presented along with a current document issued by \u201can institution, business entity, or federal or state government with at least the individual\u2019s signature.\u201d Model Notary Act of 1984 \u00a71 \u2014 105(11) (September 1, 1984) (the 1984 document expressly required multiple forms of identification). The 2002 version, which the notary expert indicated was a more detailed description of sound notary practices, explained:\n\u201c[This subsection] describes the duty of care which the notarial officer must exercise in identifying the person who makes the acknowledgment, verification, or other underlying act. California law, for example, provides an exclusive list of identification documents on which the notarial officer may rely. These are documents containing pictorial identification and signature, such as local drivers\u2019 licenses, and U.S. passports and military identification papers, issued by authorities known to exercise care in identification of persons requesting such documentation.\u201d Model Notary Act of 2002, \u00a72 \u2014 f, app. 2, Commissioners\u2019 Comment, at 104.\nSee also Cal. Civ. Code \u00a71185 (Deering 2005) (indicating satisfactory evidence of identity may be found in a local driver\u2019s license or United States passport, or in some instances in a foreign government\u2019s passport, foreign driver\u2019s license or other state identification card, military identification card, or inmate identification card). The model acts and their official comments are not expressly incorporated into the Illinois statute, but it is a common and sound practice in this jurisdiction to consult this type of persuasive authority to define statutory terms. See Bagent v. Blessing Care Corp., 224 Ill. 2d 154, 164, 862 N.E.2d 985, 992 (2007) (relying on Restatement (Second) of Agency to define a key statutory term); Lohr v. Havens, 377 Ill. App. 3d 233, 879 N.E.2d 386 (2007) (relying on Model Business Corporation Act\u2019s historical background and comments sections to define a crucial statutory term); Haseman v. White, 177 Ill. 2d 414, 686 N.E.2d 571 (1997) (relying on foreign case law only after confirming that neither Illinois act nor Model Property and Casualty Post-Assessment Guaranty Association Act defined a dispositive statutory term). We consider the 2002 version of the model statute particularly pertinent here because it was drafted by a committee of 29 individuals well-versed in the realities of a notary\u2019s job, including secretaries of state, recorders of deeds, and attorneys general, or members of their staff; representatives of land title companies, a surety corporation, and law professors, including the one who testified in this matter. Model Notary Act Drafting Commission, Model Notary Act of 2002, http:// www.nationalnotary.org (last visited December 15, 2008). Thus, if we had any reason to doubt the notary expert\u2019s uncontradicted testimony that a pictureless identification card was a \u201ctrifling\u201d form of identification, which we do not, the model acts would dispel that concern. We also note that written training materials that were reviewed or prepared by someone with notary law expertise, such as the drafters of the model acts, could have instilled this minimum standard in Kinko\u2019s employees.\nThe inadequacy of the training is also shown by the fact that Al-bear learned his role was not to confirm the identity of the person appearing before him, as the statute requires, but to confirm that the signature on the identification document that was offered \u201cmatched\u201d the signature on the document that was to be notarized. After reading Albear\u2019s deposition transcript, the notary expert pointed out that if Albear had been handed a driver\u2019s license with a photograph and physical description, Albear would have disregarded those details because he was focused exclusively on matching the signatures on the license and the document to be notarized.\nThus, the record gives multiple indications that Albear learned to routinely notarize documents without adequately identifying the purported signer, in that it shows Albear would depend on persons to swear they were who they said they were, Albear would accept a pic-tureless identification document, and Albear used the identification document merely as a signature exemplar instead of to confirm the person\u2019s identity. Kinko\u2019s knew or should have known that Albear\u2019s failure to positively identify persons requesting notarizations through pictorial identification and signature documents such as local drivers\u2019 licenses would, sooner or later, permit fraud or forgery to occur. When the purpose of notarization is to prevent fraud and forgery, adequate identification involves more than accepting a customer\u2019s personal statement and signature exemplar.\nFurthermore, the trial evidence established that Albear left Kin-ko\u2019s training class believing he did not need to retain control of his personal notary seal and could leave it unattended on the store premises. Albear testified that he routinely left the seal in the store manager\u2019s desk drawer, even when Albear was not at the store himself, even though the desk drawer was inconsistently locked, and even though the manager\u2019s office was usually unattended because the 24-hour store was very busy and staff could not \u201cstay in an office in the back when [they were needed] to service customers in the front.\u201d The Oak Lawn store manager was aware of and approved of this improper storage practice which would permit other employees or even customers to gain access to Albear\u2019s personal notary stamp.\nThe store manager\u2019s misjudgment may have occurred because Kinko\u2019s did not instruct Albear\u2019s supervisors about sound notarial practices or how to supervise an employee to ensure he or she was adhering to the basic rules of proper notarization. Kinko\u2019s made no attempt to supervise Albear\u2019s on-the-job conduct, either on a routine basis or through random auditing of the logbook it instructed him to maintain or spot checking of his actual practices (manager Behnke testified \u201cmystery shops\u201d were used to evaluate employee performance of other tasks). Given Kinko\u2019s failure to communicate any standards to its supervisory staff, it was foreseeable that the store manager and assistant manager failed to supervise Albear\u2019s conduct, allowed him to improperly leave his notary seal where it was accessible to other people, and improperly accepted possession of his personal notary seal when he quit working at the Oak Lawn store. The judge found Kin-ko\u2019s supervision was lacking because \u201cKinko\u2019s managers were not trained in the responsibilities of notaries,\u201d and the record provides no basis for rejecting this finding. We agree that a reasonably careful employer would have ensured that supervisory personnel at the Oak Lawn store understood Albear\u2019s responsibilities such that they never took possession of his seal at the 24-hour store, that they provided a secure storage place that only Albear could access, and that they refused possession of the seal on a permanent basis when Albear transferred to a Peoria store. Kinko\u2019s exercised no supervision and could not be considered \u201creasonably careful.\u201d\nThus, the manifest weight of the evidence indicates Kinko\u2019s had no regard for whether Albear understood his responsibilities and adhered to them. This is negligence. Kinko\u2019s permitted Albear to notarize documents on its behalf simply because he had shown up for an in-house class and was willing to get his notary credentials. The evidence shows Kinko\u2019s was wilfully, consistently ignorant of whether its employee understood what he was supposed to do and did it. A reasonably careful employer would have confirmed the training class it voluntarily created conveyed what Albear needed to know, before he began validating legal documents such as the assignment of mortgage at issue which enabled defendant Boatwright and his business partner to improperly gain control of plaintiff Vancura\u2019s mortgage interests. A reasonably careful employer would have confirmed its notary employee worked within the common law standards. By failing to effectively teach Albear about sound notarial practices and supervise his work, Kinko\u2019s effectively put a notary seal into the hands of anyone at the Oak Lawn store who wanted to use it. We do not believe the impropriety at issue would have occurred on December 20, 1995, if Kinko\u2019s had provided either adequate training in June 1995 or adequate supervision between June and December 1995. The evidence shows the improper notarization at issue occurred either because Al-bear himself affixed his notary seal to the forged assignment of mortgage assignment without adequately identifying the person appearing before him or he carelessly or consciously allowed someone else to affix the seal. Albear\u2019s unsound but continuous practice of accepting an oath and pictureless identification document, and to focus exclusively on the signatures, as he was trained, would have permitted someone to impersonate Vancura without much effort. Albear\u2019s mishandling of his notary seal, as he was trained and with the ongoing knowledge and approval of his store manager, made the seal accessible to unscrupulous customers or coworkers who had less regard for notary standards than Albear and were willing to misuse the seal for profit or as a favor to a regular customer of the store. Furthermore, Albear may have been willing, in a work environment where his employer treated notarizations so casually, to intentionally allow Boat-wright or Boatwright\u2019s business partner to misuse the notary seal. Kinko\u2019s negligent training and supervision permitted whatever occurred at its Oak Lawn store on December 20, 1995, when defendant Boatwright and his business partner arrived without plaintiff Vancura and departed the store with what appeared to be a valid notarization of Vancura\u2019s forged signature on the assignment of mortgage.\nTherefore, if Kinko\u2019s had not waived review of the common law judgments by presenting an inadequate brief, we would nonetheless conclude the manifest weight of the evidence supports the judge\u2019s findings of fact and conclusion that Kinko\u2019s training and supervision were negligent.\nOur second main consideration on appeal is whether the statutory judgments were properly entered. Kinko\u2019s contends that the evidence fell short of satisfying subparagraphs (a) and (b) of the statute regarding employer liability for a notary\u2019s misconduct (5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 102 (West 1996)) and that the judge further erred in interpreting the statutory language. Again, employer liability arises under subparagraph (a) of section 7 \u2014 102 of the notary statute only when the notary was \u201cacting within the scope of the notary\u2019s employment at the time [he] engaged in official misconduct\u201d (5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 102(a) (West 1996)) and subparagraph (b) of the employer liability requires the employer to have \u201cconsented to the notary public\u2019s official misconduct\u201d (5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 102(b) (West 1996)). Because we conclude the issue of consent is dispositive of the statutory judgments, we proceed directly to that issue without discussion of whether Albear was acting within the scope of his employment when Vancura\u2019s forged signature was notarized.\nArguments regarding the trial evidence and statutory interpretation implicate two legal principles. The first principle, stated above, is that findings of fact and determinations of credibility will not be disturbed unless they are contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence, which occurs only where all reasonable persons would find the opposite conclusions clearly apparent. City of Chicago, 364 Ill. App. 3d at 812, 847 N.E.2d at 560; In re Marriage of Zirngibl, 237 Ill. App. 3d at 1054-55, 606 N.E.2d at 4. The second relevant principle is that the interpretation of the statutory language is reviewed under the nondeferential de novo standard. City of Chicago, 364 Ill. App. 3d at 812, 847 N.E.2d at 560; People v. A Parcel of Property Commonly Known as 1945 North 31st Street, Decatur, Macon County, Illinois, 217 Ill. 2d 481, 841 N.E.2d 928 (2005). Our role is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the legislature in adopting the statute. City of Chicago, 364 Ill. App. 3d at 813, 847 N.E.2d at 561. Legislative intent is put into effect when we construe the statute as a whole, giving each word, clause or sentence its reasonable and ordinary meaning. City of Chicago, 364 Ill. App. 3d at 813, 847 N.E.2d at 561.\nKinko\u2019s argues \u201cconsent\u201d in this context means it must have asked or encouraged Albear to act improperly or it must have tolerated a previous pattern of intentional or negligent misconduct by Al-bear or other notary employees and failed to correct this behavior through training or supervision. Kinko\u2019s bases this argument in part on Commercial Union Insurance Co. of New York v. Burt Thomas-Aitken Construction Co., 49 N.J. 389, 395, 230 A.2d 498, 501 (1967), a New Jersey case in which the court refused to impose vicarious liability for a notarized forged signature on an indemnity agreement, because the employee was a bank cashier who also notarized documents as a courtesy to the bank\u2019s customers but not as a function of his employment. The New Jersey court could \u201csee no good reason to hold [liable] a private employer who was in no sense a party in interest in the transaction.\u201d Commercial Union, 49 N.J. at 395, 230 A.2d at 501. Kinko\u2019s relies on the court\u2019s additional remark: \u201cWe add that the private employer of a notary public might be liable for the notary\u2019s breach of duty if the employer participated in that breach, as for example if the employer should ask or encourage the notary to act without appropriate inquiry.\u201d Commercial Union, 49 N.J. at 395, 230 A.2d at 501. Kinko\u2019s contends there is no evidence it participated in the improper notarization at issue by asking or encouraging Albear to affix his notary seal without appropriate inquiry into the identity of the person who presented Vancura\u2019s assignment of mortgage for notarization. Kinko\u2019s also bases its lack-of-consent argument on comments in the National Notary Association\u2019s Model Notary Act of 2002. As we indicated above in conjunction with Albear\u2019s reliance on a pic-tureless identification document, consideration of persuasive authority to define a statutory term is a sound approach often used in this jurisdiction.\nIn the comment section regarding employer \u201cconsent,\u201d the panel of state notary officials and legal experts distinguished between \u201cactive consent\u201d to official misconduct, such as when the employer directs, encourages, expects, or tolerates the notary\u2019s misconduct, or \u201cimplied consent,\u201d such as when the employer knows of at least one previous similar transaction but fails to address it. More specifically, the comment to section 12 \u2014 1 of the Model Notary Act of 2002 states in pertinent part:\n\u201cActive consent includes directing, approving or tolerating the notary\u2019s behavior. For these purposes, \u2018tolerating\u2019 is the functional equivalent of tacit approval. It connotes an awareness of the behavior without taking any steps to correct or prevent it from recurring. Additionally, encouraging or expecting an employee-notary to perform improper notarial acts will constitute active \u2018consent.\u2019 The facts of each particular case will have to be reviewed to ascertain when the employer encouraged the notary to perform an improper notarization. The same is true for those cases in which the injured party will try to demonstrate how the employer \u2018expected\u2019 the behavior.\nAs to implied \u2018consent,\u2019 the [Model Notary Act of 2002] simply provides that any past action or inaction by the employer concerning a particular improper notarization will carry forward to a later improper notarization. The theory is that an employee may reasonably rely on the employer\u2019s past action (or inaction, as the case may be) as a guide to a present act. If objection were not raised earlier, there is no reason to believe it would be raised now. Thus, under the implied \u2018consent\u2019 rule, an employer may be liable for a notarization despite being totally unaware it was performed by the employee-notary. The employer\u2019s failure to properly address a prior improper notarization can provide the basis for liability resulting from a future improper notarization.\nThe implied \u2018consent\u2019 rule can be applied to an improper notarization by any of an employer\u2019s notaries. It is not limited to only the future improper notarizations of the notary who performed a prior improper notarization. The theory justifying the broad application of the [employer liability] rule is that employees are charged with knowledge of company policies and normally are aware of the acts of similar coworkers. It would be inappropriate to allow an employer to escape responsibility because a different employee-notary relying on past company practice performed the improper act. [This model act] effectively imposes an affirmative obligation on employers to promulgate and implement adequate internal controls to ensure that employee-notarizations perform properly.\u201d Model Notary Act of 2002, \u00a712 \u2014 1, Liability of Notary, Surety, and Employer, Comment, at 68-69.\nThus, \u201cactive consent\u201d requires an awareness of the wrongful transaction at issue. Kinko\u2019s, however, was not affirmatively involved in the notarization of Vancura\u2019s forged signature. There is no testimony or written evidence indicating Kinko\u2019s directed, approved, tolerated, encouraged, or expected Albear to act as he did on December 20, 1995, when Boatwright and Boatwright\u2019s business partner sought notarization of Vancura\u2019s signature even though Vancura was not present. Model Notary Act of 2002, \u00a712 \u2014 1, Liability of Notary, Surety, and Employer, Comment, at 68-69. The transaction depicted in Transamerica Insurance Co. v. Valley National Bank of Arizona, 11 Ariz. App. 121, 462 P.2d 814 (1969), appears to be what the model act\u2019s drafters were contemplating by \u201cactive consent.\u201d The notary in that case was a Mesa, Arizona, bank manager\u2019s secretary who had obtained her notary credentials and surety bond at the urging and expense of the financial institution. Transamerica, 11 Ariz. App. at 122, 462 P.2d at 815. Testimony established that over the course of about a decade, her superiors asked her numerous times to notarize signatures without seeing the person sign the document in question, provided the document involved a bank transaction and the signator was a customer with a signature card on file at the branch office. Transamerica, 11 Ariz. App. at 122, 126, 462 P.2d at 815, 819. The secretary also furnished her notary services to bank customers on nonbank business, but there was conflicting testimony as to whether her superiors instructed her to rely on a customer\u2019s signature card under those circumstances. Transamerica, 11 Ariz. App. at 122, 126, 462 E2d at 815, 819. One of the bank\u2019s customers brought in a warranty deed purporting to transfer ownership of some farmland (nonbank business) which he said had been signed by another customer of the bank, and he asked the secretary to notarize the signature. Transamerica, 11 Ariz. App. at 122, 462 E2d at 815; State of Arizona v. Singh, 4 Ariz. App. 273, 275, 419 E2d 403, 405 (1966). She did so after comparing the signature kept on file with the signature on the warranty deed, and he used the document to sell the land and collect $84,800 from an escrow agent. Transamerica, 11 Ariz. App. at 122, 462 P.2d at 815; Singh, 4 Ariz. App. at 275, 419 E2d at 405. The signatures on the warranty deed and other documents in escrow were actually tracings, and after the scheme unraveled, criminal charges for forgery were brought against the perpetrator, as well as a civil suit against the bank to regain the escrow money. Transamerica, 11 Ariz. App. 121, 462 P/2d 814; Singh, 4 Ariz. App. 273, 419 E2d 403. In the civil proceedings, the trial court entered summary judgment for the bank, but was reversed on appeal, due in part to the conflicting testimony as to whether the bank expected its employee to notarize documents in a nonbank transaction. Transamerica, 11 Ariz. App. at 125, 462 P.2d at 818. The appellate court cited the New Jersey case Kinko\u2019s has brought to our attention, Commercial Union, as support for its determination the Arizona bank could be held liable if it had asked or encouraged its employee\u2019s misconduct. Transamerica, 11 Ariz. App. at 126, 462 P.2d at 819, citing Commercial Union, 49 N.J. at 395, 230 A.2d at 501. See also Lisi v. Resmini, 603 A.2d 321 (R.I. 1992) (attorney disciplinary proceedings in which counsel was suspended for one year because on three different occasions he signed the names of clients to answers to interrogatories and directed his employee to notarize the forged signatures); In re Complaint as to the Conduct of Smith, 292 Or. 84, 636 P.2d 923 (1981) (attorney disciplinary proceedings in which counsel was suspended for 60 days because he forged client signature on general power of attorney and persuaded his secretary to notarize it, converted client\u2019s Fontiac to his own use, and disregarded client\u2019s instruction regarding automobile). Kinko\u2019s involvement in the notarization of Vancura\u2019s forged signature is not analogous to the Arizona bank\u2019s purported involvement in the notarization of its customer\u2019s forged signature. Kinko\u2019s did not affirmatively instruct or urge Albear to act as he did on December 20, 1995. Moreover, the facts do not fit within the scenario suggested by Commercial Union, which indicated employer liability should be imposed where the employer was a \u201cparty in interest in the transaction,\u201d or \u201cparticipated in [the] breach\u201d by \u201cask[ing] or encouraging] the notary to act without appropriate inquiry.\u201d Commercial Union, 49 N.J. at 395, 230 A.2d at 501. Kinko\u2019s was not a party in interest, did not participate in the transaction, and did not ask or encourage Albear to act as he did that day. Therefore, Kinko\u2019s did not actively consent to Albear\u2019s official misconduct.\nKinko\u2019s argues the trial judge misapplied the model act\u2019s \u201cimplied consent\u201d provision in this instance because there was no demonstrated pattern prior to December 1995 of improper notarizations which Kin-ko\u2019s failed to correct. The comment to the model act indicates there must be at least one known prior improper notarization before it can be said the notary\u2019s employer gave implied consent to the improper notarization before the court. Unless there has been \u201cpast action or inaction by the employer concerning a particular improper notarization\u201d (Model Notary Act of 2002, \u00a712 \u2014 1, Liability of Notary, Surety, and Employer, Comment, at 68-69), the employer has not revealed its attitude toward misconduct and cannot impliedly consent to additional misconduct and the imposition of liability for the harm that results. The record does not indicate Kinko\u2019s knew of at least one prior improper notarization before Vancura\u2019s forged signature on the assignment of mortgage was notarized at the Oak Lawn store on December 20, 1995. We conclude, therefore, that the trial judge\u2019s finding of implied consent cannot stand.\nFor these reasons, we find the evidence does not support the trial judge\u2019s finding that Kinko\u2019s consented to Albear\u2019s misconduct and should therefore be held liable under the Act. 5 ILCS 312/7 \u2014 102 (West 1996). Accordingly, we vacate the statutory judgments entered against Kinko\u2019s in favor of Vancura for $110,000, in favor of Brown for $110,000 and in favor of Katris for $13,000, which were based on the unsupported finding that Kinko\u2019s violated the Notary Public Act.\nOur final consideration is Vancura\u2019s cross-appeal regarding his unreimbursed costs for pretrial depositions of his handwriting expert and notary practices expert, and the hourly fees charged by his notary practices expert. In his appellate brief, Vancura also challenges the court\u2019s refusal to award the attorney fees he incurred in his successful action, even though the American judicial system does not ordinarily shift fees to the losing party (McCormick v. McCormick, 180 Ill. App. 3d 184, 212, 536 N.E.2d 419, 437 (1988)), out of concern that shifting the expenses of litigation acts as a deterrent to the defense or prosecution of an uncertain claim. Sorenson v. Fio Rito, 90 Ill. App. 3d 368, 371, 413 N.E.2d 47, 51 (1980). After filing his appellate brief, however, Vancura asked this court for leave to withdraw section 11(A) of his brief, which concerned his entitlement to attorney fees. We granted the motion and have disregarded section 11(A) of his brief. Vancura\u2019s presentation of the remaining issues, however, is unclear and incomplete, and we are unable to resolve the issues on the merits. For instance, he states he incurred $17,016.31 in costs in the \u201cpreparation and trial of this case\u201d and was awarded costs of $5,592.25, which \u201cdid not fully compensate him.\u201d It is unclear from his statements whether the larger amount includes all of the costs he thought were reasonably incurred in this action, or just the costs related to his expert witnesses. He does not specify whether he is seeking the difference between those two figures, $11,421.06, or some other amount after the judge struck certain charges as unreasonable. We could possibly answer this question if Vancura had cited and discussed the specific page or pages of the record on appeal substantiating that he asked the court for all the costs associated with deposing and presenting his expert witnesses. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 341(h)(7) requires an appellant to provide \u201ccitation of the authorities and the pages of the record relied upon,\u201d as well as reasoned argument. 210 Ill. 2d R. 341(h)(7) (formerly Rule 341(e)(7)). Moreover, the rule states, \u201cPoints not argued are waived and shall not be raised in [a] reply brief, in oral argument, or on petition for rehearing.\u201d 210 Ill. 2d R. 341(h)(7). See also Kindernay v. Hillsboro Area Hospital, 366 Ill. App. 3d 559, 562, 851 N.E.2d 866, 870 (2006) (failure to comply with the rules regarding appellate briefs results in waiver). We are under no obligation to search the 21-volume record on appeal in the hopes of finding Vancura\u2019s request and the trial judge\u2019s reasons for denying it. In re Estate of Schilling, 304 Ill. App. 187, 189, 25 N.E.2d 188, 189 (1940) (if questions involved in a case are of sufficient importance to justify this court\u2019s resolution, they are worthy of the careful consideration of counsel presenting them). For all we know, the circuit court denied Vancura\u2019s request because it was unclear and incomplete. In addition, Vancura states that in this case of first impression, the court \u201crelied heavily\u201d on the notary expert\u2019s testimony, but Vancura does not cite the pages of the record that substantiate this characterization. Our own reading of the transcript of the fee hearing discloses the court concluded to the contrary, by indicating that Vancura\u2019s handwriting expert was necessary, but his notary practices expert was not. Further, Vancura cites Miller v. Pollution Control Board, 267 Ill. App. 3d 160, 172, 642 N.E.2d 475, 485 (1994), and DiCosola v. Bowman, 342 Ill. App. 3d 530, 540, 794 N.E.2d 875, 883 (2003), yet he fails to discuss and demonstrate that these cases involved costs which were similar to his own and properly awarded. In fact, the awards in both cases were vacated, so on their face the opinions are not in Vancura\u2019s favor. Miller, 267 Ill. App. 3d at 172, 642 N.E.2d at 485 (complaining officer was not an expert witness); DiCosola, 342 Ill. App. 3d at 540, 794 N.E.2d at 883 (unclear whether expert\u2019s deposition transcript was used at trial as a matter of convenience or necessity). We deem the issues waived and affirm the ruling as to costs. Kindernay, 366 Ill. App. 3d at 563, 851 N.E.2d 866 at 870.\nIn summary, in the primary appeal we have affirmed the common law judgments and vacated the statutory judgments and determined the cross-appeal regarding costs was waived.\nAffirmed in part and vacated in part.\nPETITION FOR REHEARING\nIn a petition for rehearing, Kinko\u2019s argues its statutory and common law duties are identical and that because the statute does not require an employer to train its notary-employees, the court has reached inconsistent conclusions by vacating the statutory judgment while affirming the common law judgment for negligent training and supervision. Although we affirmed the common law judgment due to waiver, we nevertheless reviewed the necessary authority, analyzed the record in light of those principles, and concluded that the manifest weight of the evidence supported the common law judgment. We note that Kinko\u2019s argument for rehearing is unsupported by any authority indicating that a statute which does not speak to notary training was intended by the Illinois legislature to preempt the common law theory of negligent training and supervision. We are not persuaded that the statute at issue limits common law actions and dictated wholesale reversal of the money judgments entered against Kinko\u2019s. Kinko\u2019s could have reasonably foreseen that negligently training Albear to mistreat his notary seal and settle for an oath and signature exemplar when notarizing documents would proximately cause injury to persons such as the plaintiffs in this action. Accordingly, the petition for rehearing is denied.\nJ. GORDON, J., concurs.\nKinko\u2019s has become a subsidiary corporation of FedEx Corporation and been renamed FedEx Office.\nBoatwright\u2019s business partner, Robert E. Brown, bears the same last name as defendant Glenn S. Brown, but is of no relation and was not named a party in these proceedings. To avoid confusion, we refer to Robert E. Brown as Boatwright\u2019s business partner rather than by name. Although the testimony indicates he was pivotal in forging Vancura\u2019s signature and obtaining the improper notarization, the business partner did not testify in these proceedings and the record on appeal does not explain his absence.\nThe Illinois statute in effect during the notarization at issue is set out above. The 1984 Model Notary Act stated, \u201c \u2018Satisfactory evidence of identity\u2019 means identification of an individual based on: (i) at least 2 current documents, one issued by a federal or state government with the individual\u2019s photograph, signature, and physical description, and the other by an institution, business entity, or federal or state government with at least the individual\u2019s signature; or (ii) the oath or affirmation of a credible person who is personally known to the notary and who personally knows the individual.\u201d Model Notary Act of 1984, \u00a71 \u2014 105(11) (September 1, 1984) (Definitions).\nThe record shows that after Professor Glosen was deposed, Kinko\u2019s motioned in 2003 to bar him from testifying at trial regarding his opinion of the proper interpretation of the Act, and that Kinko\u2019s renewed this argument when the trial commenced in 2005. Because statutory interpretation is a question of law, expert witness testimony is considered irrelevant to the issue. LID Associates v. Dolan, 324 Ill. App. 3d 1047, 1058, 756 N.E.2d 866, 876 (2001) (an expert witness is not competent to give testimony amounting to statutory interpretation). The court denied the motions and assured the litigants that it was aware of its duty to interpret the statute and that, in a bench trial, the court could disregard irrelevant testimony. Cf. Clemons v. Mechanical Devices Co., 292 Ill. App. 3d 242, 252-53, 684 N.E.2d 1344, 1350-51 (1997) (finding that admission of expert testimony, attorney\u2019s remarks, and judge\u2019s instruction about statute may well have confused the jury about the basis for liability and deprived the defendant of a fair trial). Kinko\u2019s has not seen the need to present this argument on appeal.\nSee 5 ILCS 312/6 \u2014 101(b), (c) (West 1996) (definitions of \u201cacknowledgment\u201d and \u201cverification upon oath or affirmation\u201d), which contain the statute\u2019s only references to oaths or affirmations. The examples in the Illinois Notary Public Handbook indicate that in some instances a notary public will be asked to administer an oath such as \u201c \u2018Do You Swear (Or Affirm) That The Statements In This Document Are True,\u2019 \u201d and on rare occasions to administer an verbal oath or affirmation to a public official taking office, such as \u201c T do solemnly swear (affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of_to the best of my ability.\u2019 \u201d These are the only examples of oaths or affirmations appearing in the handbook.\nWe do not need to resolve whether the common law and the Illinois legislature required notaries such as Albear to insist on multiple forms of identification as Professor Glosen testified (see above regarding the \u201ctwo prevailing views\u201d and the 1984 Model Act\u2019s express reference to \u201cat least two current documents\u201d). Albear testified he operated below both the common law and statutory standards when he stated his practice was to rely on a picture-less form of identification and to focus on matching the signatures rather than confirming the person\u2019s identity. The question of whether he was further violating the common law and the statute by accepting one rather than at least two ID cards is not essential to the disposition of this case. Accordingly, we express no opinion as to whether Illinois adopted the more stringent approach as Professor Glosen testified.", "type": "majority", "author": "JUSTICE McBRIDE" }, { "text": "PRESIDING JUSTICE O\u2019MALLEY,\ndissenting:\nI concur with the majority\u2019s holding insofar as it reverses the trial court\u2019s finding that Kinko\u2019s was liable under the statutory count of plaintiffs complaint (violation of Illinois Notary Public Act (the Act)) because it allegedly \u201cconsented\u201d to misconduct on the part of its employee, but I would reverse for a different reason than the one the majority found. After much criticism of Kinko\u2019s, the majority concede that the trial court was incorrect to find that Kinko\u2019s consented to Al-bear\u2019s misconduct. Their stated reason is essentially that Kinko\u2019s could not have consented because it did not know what was going on, this apparently to bolster their theory that Kinko\u2019s negligently supervised its employee. In my view, the real reason Kinko\u2019s cannot be seen to have consented to misconduct is simple. Defendant, without any obligation to do so, voluntarily trained its notary to do the correct thing pursuant to applicable law and even trained the notary to do several things which were over and above what was required under the Act. It is apparent where an employer goes to the time, trouble, and expense of training an employee, it is seeking to avoid the kind of incident that took place here, not consent to it. It defies logic and common sense to conclude, as the trial court did, that by undertaking to train its employee, Kinko\u2019s \u201cconsented\u201d to his misconduct; the judgment on count I is therefore properly vacated. I respectfully dissent, however, from the majority opinion with respect to count II \u2014 that Kin-ko\u2019s negligently trained and supervised the notary.\nThe duty to train and the duty to supervise are separate common law causes of action \u2014 separate from the statutory count and separate from each other. Kinko\u2019s, as stated above, voluntarily undertook to train, not supervise, its notary and therefore took on a duty to do so in a nonnegligent manner (see Restatement (Second) of Torts \u00a7324A (1965)), which it did. However, the two common law counts are related to the statutory count in that the common law standard of care is reasonableness, and the statute fixes what a reasonable notary would do under the circumstances. See Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Civil, No. 60.00, Introduction, at 233 (2006) (hereinafter IPI Civil (2006) No. 60.00). Consequently, any duty to train is limited to instruction pursuant to the duties that are set out under the Illinois Notary Public Act and/or the two duties that were undertaken. Further, there is no common law duty to supervise unless an employer has notice that there are problems with a particular employee. 30 C.J.S. Employer \u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 254 (2007). It is undisputed that Kinko\u2019s had no such knowledge; it further did not undertake to supervise, so did not acquire a duty to supervise through an undertaking as it did with regard to training.\nMoreover, in my view, the entire ruling \u2014 not just the first count\u2014 should be reversed because the major factors the trial court considered in reaching its conclusion that Kinko\u2019s was negligent in training and supervision were inadmissible evidence, not even arguably proximately related to the injury. The ruling is therefore against the manifest weight of the evidence. See Rybak v. Provenzale, 181 Ill. App. 3d 884, 897 (1989) (holding that the trial court\u2019s damages award was against the manifest weight of the evidence because it was based upon inadmissible evidence). Finally, Kinko\u2019s cannot be liable where Albear was not acting within the scope of his employment at the time of this occurrence. Scope of employment is related not only to consent and the statutory count, but to training since it is obvious that an employer could not have a duty to train an employee other than in the performance of his duties as an employee, or to supervise that employee in situations where he was not functioning within the scope of employment. See Williams v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 854 F.2d 106 (5th Cir. 1988); 30 C.J.S. Employer \u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 256 (2007) (\u201cEmployers do not have a duty to supervise their employees when they are not working ***\u201d).\nFACTS\nThe facts are that Kinko\u2019s employed Gustavo Albear and subsequently requested that he become a notary. Although nothing in the Illinois Notary Public Act required it to do so, Kinko\u2019s voluntarily trained Albear in his notarial tasks (emphatically demonstrating that no good deed goes unpunished). This training was done by another Kinko\u2019s employee, Al Yamnitz, not himself a notary at that time, who studied the Act and Illinois notary handbook (a total of 39 pages) and put together a program. Yamnitz distributed copies of the Illinois Notary Public Act, the Illinois notary handbook, and showed videos. After the session, he \u201cdebriefed\u201d the employees, but gave no formal tests.\nAlbear took the course in July 1995 and proceeded to function as a notary without incident until December of 1995, when this occurrence took place. It seems that two business partners, R Brown and Boat-wright, appeared at Kinko\u2019s with two documents, both containing the signature of plaintiff, Vancura. One of them claimed to have obtained the signature from Vancura the night before but Vancura denied that. Boatwright made some necessary copies for the transaction then moved to the counter where Brown and the notary were standing. Boatwright produced a driver\u2019s license and another identification to complete \u201chis\u201d part of the transaction. Although Albear admitted at trial that he signed and stamped the first document, what happened next is anybody\u2019s guess. Albear acknowledged that the seal on the second document \u201clooked like\u201d his, but denied that the signature on the document was his and this testimony is unrefuted. Vancura, who was undisputedly not present, later sued for damages. Yamnitz testified that he trained Albear to get a photo identification, but the notary testified that he matched signatures to identify signers. It is not clear whether he did this in lieu of, or in addition to, getting a photo identification.\nPrior to trial, the defense filed a motion to bar the testimony of plaintiff\u2019s expert, Michael Glosen, substantially predicated upon the fact that much of it was inadmissible and he was attempting to define the term \u201csatisfactory evidence\u201d which appears in the Act. I disagree that Closen\u2019s testimony was, as the majority state, \u201clargely\u201d based on the Illinois Notary Public Act or the handbook for Illinois notaries, as well as the Model Act. Virtually everything he had to say about the Illinois Notary Public Act was not any elucidation of it but, rather, criticisms of its supposed inadequacies. On the other hand, he had high praise for the Model Act and criticized Albear for not meeting its much expanded standards (highly detailed logbook, etc.). In any event, the court allowed Glosen to testify, noting that he was aware of his duty to sort out and consider only relevant evidence and would disregard evidence that was inadmissible.\nANALYSIS\nDuty\nWith regard to any duty to train and/or supervise in this case, the majority opinion fails to appreciate the inextricable link between the statutory cause of action in the case at bar and the common law causes of action to train and supervise. I agree with the majority that under the common law, the duty, and thus the standard of care, is one of reasonableness. What is reasonable, in turn, is the conduct specified in the Illinois Notary Public Act. Noyola v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago, 179 Ill. 2d 121 (1997). In other words, the duty under the common law count is the same as the duty under the statutory count because it is the statute that fixes the duty and defines what a reasonable person would do under the circumstances. See Noyola, 179 Ill. 2d 121; see also Price v. Hickory Point Bank & Trust, 362 Ill. App. 3d 1211, 1216-17 (2006); Workman v. Dinkins, 442 F. Supp. 2d 543, 555 (N.D. Ill. 2006) (construing various Will County regulations); Threlkeld v. White Castle Systems, Inc., 127 F. Supp. 2d 986, 989 (N.D. Ill. 2001) (construing Illinois law). Although these cases are somewhat different factually, in my view, the principle quoted above is applicable.\nPursuant to the above, the duties which arise under the Illinois Notary Public Act, and thus those under the common law, are simple and straightforward and are much different from those promulgated by the model act. A signature is to be notarized as follows:\n\u201c(c) In witnessing or attesting a signature, the notary public must determine, either from personal knowledge or from satisfactory evidence, that the signature is that of the person appearing before the notary and named therein.\n(d) A notary public has satisfactory evidence that a person is the person whose true signature is on a document if that person:\n(1) is personally known to the notary;\n(2) is identified upon the oath or affirmation of a credible witness personally known to the notary; or\n(3) is identified on the basis of identification documents.\u201d 5 ILCS 312/6 \u2014 102(c), (d) (West 1996).\nIn terms of a duty Kinko\u2019s may have assumed when it trained Al-bear, the above makes it clear that the Act simply requires \u201csatisfactory evidence\u201d of a person\u2019s identity, not any specific document such as a picture identification or any specific number of documents. Further, the Act even allows identification through personal knowledge or an oath of a person known to the notary. Neither the Act nor the explanatory handbook gives instruction on how to dispose of the notary seal, and it was only required that it be kept in a safe place. There is no requirement that a logbook be maintained at all. Kinko\u2019s trained Albear pursuant to the Illinois Notary Public Act and the handbook and undertook two additional duties in its training of A1-bear: one to keep a logbook, the other to get a photo identification.\nThe majority opinion contains an extensive discussion about the Model Notary Public Act (hereinafter Model Act), claiming that it is appropriate to look to the Model Act, in this case, to define terms (here, what does \u201csatisfactory evidence\u201d of identification mean under the statute). The Model Act mandates that more than one identification be provided, one of them with a photo, and Professor Glosen expressed his view that more than one form of identification is necessary. On the other hand, that is not what the Illinois Notary Public Act or the Illinois handbook advises. The majority discussion leaves the impression that, among other duties, the Model Act requires that two or more pieces of identification are necessary and, impliedly, that Kinko\u2019s\u2019 trainer was negligent in training Albear to get one photo identification and nothing more unless the latter was suspicious.\nHowever, the Model Act is not the law; it is little more than a series of suggestions that some people would like the law to be. The majority comment that it has never been \u201cformally incorporated into Illinois law.\u201d This appears to me to be something of an overstatement. In fact, the legislature has \u201cformally\u201d rejected the Model Act on at least two occasions, with good reason, in my view. For example, the Model Act calls not only for a logbook to be kept but 12 to 13 items of information including a thumb print or retinal scan. This seems to me to be an exaggerated and overreaching requirement. In any event, neither the trial court nor the majority can look to the Model Act to define the duties of a notary. These come only from the Illinois Notary Public Act and Kinko\u2019s\u2019 own undertaking.\nSurprisingly, in spite of this rather lengthy dissertation on the Model Act, the majority in a footnote ultimately decline to answer the question of what \u201csatisfactory evidence\u201d is in Illinois. I would offer the following answer to that question. Professor Closen\u2019s view is that two documents are required because the word \u201cdocuments\u201d is used in the plural. However, Closen\u2019s position is wrong, pursuant to the plain language of the statute, and therefore Yamnitz\u2019s training to get one photo identification was in compliance with the Illinois Notary Public Act. First, I note, as do the majority, that Professor Glosen is an expert, not a court, and it is not his prerogative to interpret a statute. Department of Corrections v. Illinois Civil Service Comm\u2019n, 187 Ill. App. 3d 304, 308 (1989) (holding that an expert is not competent to testify as to statutory interpretation). Second, while the appellate majority certainly may interpret a statute, I contend that they would be wrong if they adopted Professor Closen\u2019s view. A far more plausible interpretation of this phrase, \u201con the basis of identification documents\u201d is simply that identification can be ascertained from a variety of different documents that various individuals may present, such as a driver\u2019s license, state identification, immigration documents, passport, etc. I also note that the statute must be read as a whole (In re Detention of Lieberman, 201 Ill. 2d 300, 308 (2002)) and the term (identification from) \u201csatisfactory evidence,\u201d when read in conjunction with \u201cdocuments,\u201d bolsters my conclusion that in Illinois, one or more pieces of evidence may be used to sustain an identification, but there is no requirement that two pieces of identification be proffered. Had the legislature wished to mandate two pieces of identification, it could easily have done so. See, e.g., 5 ILCS 20/7 (West 2006) (providing that proclamation of the adoption of a constitutional amendment shall be made by publication in \u201cat least\u201d two newspapers). Kinko\u2019s\u2019 trainer therefore correctly trained his charge to get one piece of identification with a photo such as a driver\u2019s license.\nTraining and Supervision\nKinko\u2019s undertook to train, not supervise, its notary and, in my opinion, did so correctly pursuant to applicable law. As previously noted, what a reasonable notary would do is set out in the Illinois Notary Public Act. Albear was trained to get satisfactory evidence (a photo identification), and did keep a logbook with the name, address and information as to what identification, document or documents were presented. Because Kinko\u2019s\u2019 duty is limited to the extent of its undertaking (see Frye v. Medicare-Glaser Corp., 153 Ill. 2d 26, 32 (1992)), where Albear did this, he fulfilled any duty Kinko\u2019s undertook in training him with regard to the logbook. Contrary to what the majority appear to believe, there is no duty to keep a bound logbook with voluminous information, audit logbooks, or do anything else with logbooks other than what it undertook to do. The notary also testified at trial that he was trained to have the signer present, although he clearly did not on the day in question; Kinko\u2019s therefore trained him correctly and the incident was caused, not by incorrect training, but by his misapprehension of the instruction or collusion in the fraud.\nHowever, one thing which might be considered to be incorrect training is that Albear stated at trial that he was trained to match signatures to ensure proper identification. It is not clear whether he did this instead of getting a photo identification or in addition to it. The fact that Albear did not seem to \u201cget\u201d the training to obtain a photo identification, or at least implied he did not understand this, is not fundamentally linked to Kinko\u2019s\u2019 training, unless one takes the position, as the majority appear to do, that the mere fact that an employee is trained by a company automatically gives rise to a duty to continuously supervise that employee to insure comprehension and prevent any mistakes. No authority is offered for this proposition.\nFurther, with regard to supervision, Kinko\u2019s had no duty to supervise under the common law, nor did it undertake to do so. 30 C.J.S. Employer \u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 254 (2007). It is well established that in order to maintain a cause of action for negligent supervision against an employer it must be demonstrated that\n\u201cthe employer knew or should have known its employee behaved in a dangerous or otherwise incompetent manner, and that the employer, having this knowledge, failed to supervise the employee adequately, or take other action to prevent the harm.\u201d (Emphasis added.) 30 C.J.S. Employer \u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 255 (2007).\nIt is clear from the above that the duty to supervise is only triggered under the common law where the employer had notice of incompetence or misconduct. See 30 C.J.S. Employer \u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 254 (2007); see also Keller v. Koca, 111 P.3d 445, 448 (Colo. 2005) (\u201cThus, where a plaintiff asserts a claim for negligent supervision, the question of whether the employer owes a duty of care to the injured third party boils down to issues of knowledge and causation ***\u201d). It is undisputed that Kinko\u2019s had no such information. No duty arose, and consequently, Kinko\u2019s cannot be liable under a negligent supervision theory. Further, Kinko\u2019s did not undertake to supervise Albear. In fact, the majority opinion castigates Kinko\u2019s for what it terms turning a \u201cblind eye\u201d to Albear\u2019s activities. Consequently, unlike training, no duty to supervise arises because of an undertaking. See 30 C.J.S. Employer\u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 255 (2007) (\u201cThe tort of negligent supervision is separate from those of negligent hiring and retention\u201d); Lowe v. Surpas Resource Corp., 253 F. Supp. 2d 1209, 1245 (2003); but cf. Allen v. Posternock, 107 Pa. Super. 332, 335, 163 A. 336, 336 (1932) (holding that the employer had a duty to ensure her instructions not to smoke were obeyed because, inter alia, she had knowledge the employee was not obeying her instructions).\nEven if a duty to supervise did somehow exist, the scope of that duty the majority seek to impose is much too broad. As a practical matter, to prevent any mistake or criminal behavior or \u201charm to the public\u201d (as the trial court said), Kinko\u2019s would need supervisors for the supervisors and so on and so on. I believe this would put an unsupportable burden on defendant and violate one of the tenets for imposition of a duty. Sollami v. Eaton, 201 Ill. 2d 1, 17 (2002) (holding that, \u201c[i]n determining whether a duty exists, a court should consider the following factors: (1) the reasonable foreseeability of injury, (2) the reasonable likelihood of injury, (3) the magnitude of the burden that guarding against injury places on the defendant, and (4) the consequences of placing that burden on the defendant\u201d (emphasis added)). Could the Secretary of State be sued for negligent supervision if an individual, having been provided with and tested on the Rules of the Road, either did not understand or comply with them and had an accident? That scope would be much too broad and impossible for the Secretary to abide by. Further, no amount of supervision would prevent criminal behavior on Albear\u2019s part, if that is what occurred.\nIn short, there is no duty that an employer supervise an employee absent notice of problems, and even if a duty to supervise could be considered to have arisen from mere training, it is not nearly as broad as the majority opinion suggests. We do not even know what happened in the few moments that the documents were notarized. Adopting the majority view would make Kinko\u2019s the absolute insurer for every mishap on its premises involving an employee. In my view, this is much more than the law contemplates. See Hartung v. Maple Investment & Development Corp., 243 Ill. App. 3d 811, 815-16 (1993) (\u201can owner or occupier of land is not an absolute insurer of the safety of an invitee\u201d). Moreover, as a matter of public policy, an affirmance would discourage employers from offering training.\nManifest Weight\nThe majority\u2019s entire case for negligent training hangs on their acceptance of the trial judge\u2019s conclusion that Kinko\u2019s did not properly train Albear to get a photo identification and that this ruling is not against the manifest weight of the evidence. According to the opinion, this implies that the trial judge must have believed that the trainer was lying when he said he trained Albear to do this and Albear was telling the truth when he testified at trial that he was trained to match signatures. The majority further hold that we must accept this as correct because the trial court is in a better position to judge credibility. Best v. Best, 223 Ill. 2d 342, 350-51 (2006). I acknowledge that this is generally the law, but in this case, I disagree. Historically, the court has noted that even in a bench trial an error can be made as to the findings of fact and it is the duty of the appellate court to weigh the evidence. Talmage v. Union Central Life Insurance Co., 315 Ill. App. 623, 642 (1942). More recently, this court has observed in the context of the manifest weight of the evidence standard, \u201c[rjeview in the appellate court is not perfunctory, however, and the fact that we give deference to the trial court\u2019s conclusions of fact does not preclude overturning the trial court\u2019s decision when the evidence so requires.\u201d Midwest Software, Ltd. v. Willie Washer Manufacturing Co., 258 Ill. App. 3d 1029, 1051 (1994). I submit that in the case at bar, where the trial judge got at least four out of five things wrong and based her decision on much irrelevant evidence (as will be discussed below), we are not required to agree that she was right in her assessment of this single credibility issue.\nA ruling is against the manifest weight of the evidence when the opposite conclusion is clearly apparent. Wojcik v. City of Chicago, 299 Ill. App. 3d 964, 981 (1998). A more functional test to evaluate whether a decision is against the manifest weight of the evidence is provided by Justice Quinn in Kresin v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 316 Ill. App. 3d 433, 441 (2000). Kresin instructs that the inquiry on appeal is not whether other conclusions are possible. Rather, the inquiry is whether the result reached is reasonable. Kresin, 316 Ill. App. 3d at 441. In my view, a review of the evidence shows that the court\u2019s conclusion is not reasonable. First, common sense dictates that Albear, who either made a big mistake or was colluding with the perpetrators of this fraud, appears to have every reason to lie about how he was trained in order to deflect blame onto Kinko\u2019s. The trainer, Yamnitz, on the other hand, had no apparent reason to lie. Secondly, Albear was undisputably given the Illinois notary handbook and was lectured on its contents during training. The handbook is as clear as a bell about the need for a photo identification and to have the signer present. Next, he was \u201cdebriefed\u201d on these lectures, which I take to be a check on his knowledge. Finally, Albear acknowledged at trial that he was trained to have the signer present. For these reasons, the evidence does not support the trial court\u2019s conclusion that Albear was the more credible witness. Therefore, the reasonable conclusion is that Kinko\u2019s in fact did train Albear correctly and the trainer, not Albear, was telling the truth. In my opinion, the trial court\u2019s conclusion on the credibility issue is against the manifest weight of the evidence.\nFurther, wholly contrary to the evidence, the court seemed to assume that Albear did not get a photo identification on the day in question because Kinko\u2019s didn\u2019t train him to do it, resulting in this fraud. However, the record shows that, as to the one document Albear acknowledged that he notarized, Albear actually did get a picture identification that day as well as some other identification. Even if he did not ask for it and it was voluntarily produced, where he had a picture identification it does not matter whether he asked for it or not \u2014 the purpose of his training was fulfilled, so as to this first document there is no proximate relationship between his professed misunderstanding of his training and the fraud on plaintiff. The court appears to have completely forgotten or discounted this testimony in its ruling, although it was puzzlingly willing to accept Albear\u2019s testimony over that of the trainer about the photo identification.\nWhat happened with the second document \u2014 where Albear claims the seal \u201clooks like\u201d his but the signature was definitely not his \u2014 is not just \u201cunclear,\u201d as the majority state, it is unknown. While it is not unreasonable to infer that, if he asked Boatwright for a picture identification then he would have also asked Brown several seconds later, we do not really know what happened with the second document and can only resort to impermissible speculation, i.e., that Albear\u2019s conduct was a proximate cause of the injury. Mere speculation, however, is insufficient to establish proximate cause as to this particular thing or, for that matter, to the entire cause of action. Castro v. Brown\u2019s Chicken & Pasta, Inc., 314 Ill. A pp. 3d 542, 553 (2000) (\u201cThe element of proximate cause must be established to a reasonable certainty, and no finding can be based upon mere speculation\u201d).\nTo indulge briefly in such speculation, we might query whether Albear was given false identification showing the bearer to be Vancura \u2014 we do not have enough facts to know if, under that circumstance, a reasonable person should have accepted that person as Vancura\u2014 similar physical features, age, etc. Another \u201cnonnegligent\u201d scenario is that Albear momentarily left his seal on the counter and turned to answer a customer question or a phone call and one of the partners surreptitiously stamped the second document, later signing Albear\u2019s name. The latter would not rise to the level of negligence, in my view, since a reasonable person might well have done the same. IPI Civil (2006) No. 10.01. Of course, if Albear was colluding with Brown and Boatwright to defraud Vancura, all the pictures and identification in the world would not have prevented the fraud. Where Albear got a signature on the day in question, the only real evidence of Kinko\u2019s negligence the majority have, then, is that although Albear was properly trained to have the signer present, he did not do it. It is hard to view this as a negligent, and not deliberate, act. How can you negligently not notice that the signer is not present? He either is, or isn\u2019t. If it was criminal conduct on Albear\u2019s part, I do not believe Kinko\u2019s is hable. See Doe v. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, 359 Ill. App. 3d 684, 700 (2005) (generally noting that a person is not liable for harm to another that results from the person\u2019s failure to defend the other against a third party\u2019s criminal attack).\nAs previously stated, I believe that the trial judge was wrong on virtually everything. In addition to credibility, her decision on consent was also wrong, as evidenced by the majority\u2019s vacatur of that ruling. Further, with regard to the portion of her order finding Kinko\u2019s liable for negligent training and supervision, the trial court accepted Professor Closen\u2019s testimony regarding nearly every issue and shaped her ruling accordingly, although much of his testimony was inadmissible. See In re Kenneth D., 364 Ill. App. 3d 797, 803 (2006) (recognizing that \u201c[a] 11 evidence must be relevant to be admissible\u201d). The judge early on stated that she was well aware of her duty to consider only relevant testimony and would do so. However, even a cursory examination of her ruling makes it clear that she considered substantial evidence which was inadmissible because most of the alleged negligent acts upon which her ruling was based were not proximately related to this event.\nAn act or omission is not regarded to be a cause in fact of an event if the event would have occurred without it. Stojkovick v. Monadnock Building, 281 Ill. App. 3d 733, 738 (1996). Put another way, the act or omission is said to be a cause in fact of the event if it was a material element and a substantial factor in bringing the event about. See Lee v. Chicago Transit Authority, 152 Ill. 2d 432, 455 (1992). It is not enough for plaintiff to show that Kinko\u2019s might be somehow generally negligent \u2014 the negligence alleged must actually have caused the injury complained of. See Lee, 152 Ill. 2d at 455 (holding that cause-in-fact, inter alia, must be shown to establish proximate cause). For example, if there were a large greasy spot at Kinko\u2019s\u2019 entrance or doorway and employees and managers ignored it for a week, one might consider that to be a generally negligent condition, but unless someone fell or was injured by the condition, it would not be actionable.\nThe trial court\u2019s ruling is premised upon approximately five things, four of which potentially could be considered negligent but which are not proximately related to this injury. Relying on Closen\u2019s irrelevant testimony, the trial court held that Albear, because of Kinko\u2019s\u2019 training program, was negligent in his choice of a logbook, its entries, and where he kept his logbook and seal. These factors featured prominently in her ruling. The majority note (391 Ill. App. 3d at 367) that the trial court stated:\n\u201c \u2018[The notary instructor] did not teach them that information regarding notarizations was to be kept in a [bound] journal, did not teach them about steps to take to secure the notary seals and journal, and did not instruct Kinko\u2019s notaries on the need to preserve the notary seal and logbook.\u2019 \u201d\nAnd:\n\u201c \u2018*** Albear did not require photo identification from a document signer. He did not properly secure his notary seal and he did not properly keep [the] notary journal [Kinko\u2019s instructed him to keep]. Also, Glosen testified that when Albear left the employ of Kinko\u2019s, he left his seal and journal behind with no assurance that the seal would not be misused or that his logbook would not be lost or destroyed.\u2019 \u201d\nAlbear\u2019s book had spiral bindings and pages that could be ripped out without detection, supposedly had \u201cinsufficient\u201d information (according to Professor Glosen), and was not kept in a continuously locked place, which the majority implies is synonymous with \u201csafe.\u201d In addition, it was left at Kinko\u2019s when Albear left and was lost at the time of trial 13 years later.\nWhere there is no evidence that the fraud on Vancura was caused by a missing entry page, lack of information, or a book or seal that was lost or stolen from an open drawer and somehow used to cause this event, nothing about the logbook Albear kept has anything to do with this occurrence. See Castro, 314 Ill. App. 3d at 553. The event would have happened if the logbook were carved on stone tablets, kept in a vault with armed guards, and contained every bit of information, womb to tomb, about the signer. Consequently, these factors are irrelevant in determining Kinko\u2019s\u2019 liability for negligent training. Where Albear routinely kept his seal is also irrelevant because the seal obviously had to be out and available for this event to have occurred at all and what he did with it otherwise does not matter. To the extent the trial judge considered these things in her ruling, it is incorrect. The majority opinion incorporates these factors and further finds that Kinko\u2019s was negligent in that it failed to \u201caudit\u201d Albear\u2019s logbook. I have no idea where a duty to audit logbooks would come from and no authority is offered to say one exists. No such thing is mentioned in the Illinois Notary Public Act, the handbook, or even in the Model Act. Since it is the Illinois Notary Public Act which defines what is reasonable for a notary to do and auditing is not included, I believe it is incorrect to maintain that Kinko\u2019s is liable for breach of a nonexistent duty. Further, Kinko\u2019s\u2019 duty pursuant to the undertaking is limited to the extent of that undertaking, and Albear did keep a logbook with the three items of information Kinko\u2019s taught him to keep. The majority opinion impermissibly expands the required duty when it includes \u201cauditing\u201d logbooks or keeping bound logbooks.\nThe majority also hold that Kinko\u2019s\u2019 training was negligent because Kinko\u2019s \u201caccepted\u201d the seal and logbook when Albear departed. Again, even if this conduct could be considered generally negligent, it had nothing to do with bringing about this injury. Albear could have left his seal at a movie theater when he departed, but absent evidence it was used by a third party to defraud Vancura on the day in question, it is totally irrelevant to the ultimate outcome. Where this court relied on substantial evidence that it should have recognized as irrelevant or inadmissible and the majority incorporated it in their opinion, I think both are incorrect.\nThe trial court and the majority further claim that Kinko\u2019s was negligent in its training by having a non-notary create and teach the notary program. First I would point out that the Illinois Notary Public Act and handbook are simple and straightforward and a person of normal intelligence should easily be able to understand them absent any training. However, Kinko\u2019s did undertake to train its notary and a reading of the Act, videos, and \u201cdebriefings,\u201d which I take to be a review of the material, is, in my view, more than sufficient training. I question what additional things a notary would have brought to the table. Further, there is no authority that stands for the proposition that use of anything other than a notary-teacher is a deviation from the standard of care or violation of a duty under the common law theory, even where there is an undertaking. Notably, none is offered by the lower court or the majority. If a lawyer or someone with an MBA taught the course, would that be negligent in and of itself?\nMore importantly, the trainer did offer the correct training (get a photo identification, have the signer present, keep a logbook, etc.). The fact that he was not a notary is not therefore proximately related to plaintiffs injury. Aside from getting a photo identification, as previously discussed, the majority have not pointed out what was inadequate about the training except the general conclusion that the trainer was \u201cnot familiar with sound notarial practices.\u201d The only thing the trainer was admittedly unfamiliar with was the Model Act, but that is completely irrelevant. He was familiar with the Illinois Notary Public Act and handbook, and that is the only law which applies, to both the statutory and the common law counts.\nIn short, the substance of the trial court\u2019s ruling is against the manifest weight of the evidence in that it consisted mainly of conclusions predicated on inadmissible evidence. In addition, with regard to the all-important issue of credibility, it is a perfectly reasonable principle that the trial court should be correct about witness credibility because he or she is present. See Best, 223 Ill. 2d at 350-51. In this case, however, where the decision is wrong on everything else, this theory is little more than a legal fiction. In my view, affirmance of the trial court here leaves an entity that had virtually nothing to do with the injury potentially liable for the whole verdict, and the real perpetrators of the fraud possibly off the hook. This result is unjust, in my view.\nWaiver\nThe majority find that Kinko\u2019s has waived any argument regarding negligent supervision because essentially they find the cases defendant cites essentially to be not on point (going to hiring and retention) and unpersuasive. Where the party has offered authority, but the court is ultimately unpersuaded by the cases for whatever reason, in my view, waiver is much too harsh a result. See Welch v. Johnson, 147 Ill. 2d 40, 48 (1992) (holding that a reviewing court may, \u201cin furtherance of its responsibility to [provide] a just result, override considerations of waiver\u201d). I think waiver is more appropriately applied where a party has offered no authority whatever, or ones which are not even tangentially related to the issues. Finally, even if it were correct to find waiver, it is a limitation on the parties, not on this court. See Welch, 147 Ill. 2d at 48.\nScope of Employment\nKinko\u2019s argued on appeal that it could not be liable through Al-bear because he was not acting within the scope of his employment at the time. The Restatement of Agency (Second), in effect at the time, states:\n\u201c(1) Conduct of a servant is within the scope of employment if, but only if:\n(a) it is of the kind he is employed to perform;\n(b) it occurs substantially within the authorized time and space limits;\n(c) it is actuated, at least in part, by a purpose to serve the master ***[.]\n(2) Conduct of a servant is not within the scope of employment if it is different in kind from that authorized, far beyond the authorized time or space limits, or too little actuated by a purpose to serve the master.\u201d Restatement (Second) of Agency \u00a7228, at 504 (1958).\nThe majority apply the Restatement (Third) of 2001 for some reason, although the Restatement (Second) was the guideline in 1995 when this event occurred and the Illinois Supreme Court quoted extensively from the Restatement (Second) recently in a somewhat similar case. See generally Bagent, 224 Ill. 2d at 164-71. While training and supervision are separate causes of action, it is clear that Kinko\u2019s could have no duty to train or supervise an employee in anything but his role as an employee. See Williams v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 854 F.2d 106 (5th Cir. 1988); 30 C.J.S. Employer \u2014 Employee \u00a7205, at 257 (2007) (\u201cEmployers do not have a duty to supervise their employees when they are not working ***\u201d).\nI was initially inclined to think the majority were correct to find Albear within the scope because he was attending to notarial duties when the incident occurred. However, a close reading of Commercial Union Insurance Co. of New York v. Burt Thomas-Aitken Construction Co., 49 N.J. 389, 230 A.2d 498 (1967), persuaded me otherwise. Commercial Union is very similar factually to the case at bar. While it is a New Jersey Supreme Court case, in our case of first impression it is appropriate to look to other jurisdictions for guidance. Owens v. Department of Human Rights, 356 Ill. App. 3d 46, 54 (2005). Notably, while this case is somewhat different in that Kinko\u2019s solicited Albear to become a notary and trained him, these facts make the holding in Commercial Union no less applicable.\nIn Commercial Union, a bank employee (a notary) acknowledged a signature that was later claimed to be a forgery and the injured party sued the Bank. The court held that the bank was not liable for two reasons: first, the court noted that a notary public is a public official empowered by the state, not the bank, and as such exercises a power the bank does not possess; the notary is thus not performing the Bank\u2019s work. Commercial Union, 49 N.J. at 394, 230 A.2d at 500. The second reason is that there was no evidence that anyone was relying on the bank and/or its reputation in choosing this particular notary. Commercial Union, 49 N.J. at 394, 230 A.2d at 500.\nIn the case at bar, training or no training, Albear only became a notary through the power of the state, not Kinko\u2019s. Further, Kinko\u2019s could not perform the notary function and the fact that the service may have benefitted Kinko\u2019s by conveniencing its customers is insufficient reason to hold Kinko\u2019s liable. See Commercial Union, 49 N.J. at 394, 230 A.2d at 500. Finally, there is no evidence whatsoever that the partners specifically relied upon Kinko\u2019s\u2019 reputation and sought out only a Kinko\u2019s notary. Common experience makes it likely that they simply wanted any notary.\nSignificant to our case, the Commercial Union court stated:\n\u201cThus the notary public exercises a power he receives from government rather than from someone who happens to be his private employer. The bank could not itself take an official acknowledgment or empower an employee to do so.\n* * *\nWe are not persuaded that justice would be served by imposing liability in these circumstances. Surely neither party anticipated that prospect, and hence to deny liability cannot surprise or disappoint anyone. No doubt a private employer, here a bank, may gather goodwill through the presence of a notary public and may have that advantage in mind when it encourages its employee to seek the office, but it is also true the public convenience is furthered when the services of a notary public are thus made available. We see no good reason to hold a private employer who was in no sense a party in interest in the transaction when the claimant did not look to the employer and sought nothing more than an acknowledgment before some notary public.\u201d (Emphasis omitted.) Commercial Union, 49 N.J. at 393-95, 230 A.2d at 499-501.\nIn the case at bar, Albear was performing his own work \u2014 that of a notary \u2014 a task Kinko\u2019s could not do. He was thus not doing Kinko\u2019s\u2019 work, giving rise to a respondeat superior situation. Commercial Union, 49 N.J. at 393-95, 230 A.2d at 499-501. There is also no evidence that any of these parties specifically relied upon a notary from Kinko\u2019s, as opposed to any other notary, so Kinko\u2019s should not be liable.\nFurther, in balancing the equities, as the Commercial Union court did, plaintiff has already received full compensation from the businessmen who actually perpetrated this fraud and a windfall of $30,000 from Albear. He should not be allowed an even larger windfall by holding Kinko\u2019s liable. In terms of joint and several liability, it would be unjust to force Kinko\u2019s to pay the entire sum where it had nothing to do with the fraud.\nIn summary, in my view Kinko\u2019s undertook to train Albear and did so in a nonnegligent manner. He was trained to follow the proper procedures but either failed to comprehend or deliberately did not do the right thing for his own purposes, and it is possible he colluded with the partners who actually defrauded plaintiff. Moreover, on the subject of training, the trial judge got virtually everything in the ruling wrong, so I decline to embrace the notion that she was correct in ruling the Kinko\u2019s trainer was lying when he said he trained Albear properly. Further, where the trial court and the majority consider clearly inadmissible evidence \u2014 evidence that is unrelated proximately to the injury \u2014 the trial court\u2019s ruling is against the manifest weight of the evidence and the majority\u2019s opinion is, in my view, incorrect.\nAccordingly, I respectfully dissent.", "type": "dissent", "author": "PRESIDING JUSTICE O\u2019MALLEY," } ], "attorneys": [ "Ruth A. Bahe-Jachna and Paul A. Del Aguila, both of Greenberg Traurig, LLP, and Elliot H. Scherker, of Greenberg Traurig, P.A., both of Chicago, for appellant Kinko\u2019s.", "Mitchell H. Miller, of Chicago, for appellant Peter Katris.", "Martin F. Hauselman and Elizabeth Monkus, both of Hauselman, Rappin & Olswang Ltd., of Chicago, for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "RICHARD P. VANCURA, Plaintiff-Appellee and Cross-Defendant and Cross-Appellant, v. PETER KATRIS et al., Defendants-Appellants and Cross-Plaintiffs and Cross-Appellees.\nFirst District (6th Division)\nNo. 1\u201406\u20142750\nOpinion filed December 26, 2008.\nRehearing denied May 13, 2009.\nModified opinion filed May 15, 2009.\nO\u2019MALLEY, P.J., dissenting.\nRuth A. Bahe-Jachna and Paul A. Del Aguila, both of Greenberg Traurig, LLP, and Elliot H. Scherker, of Greenberg Traurig, P.A., both of Chicago, for appellant Kinko\u2019s.\nMitchell H. Miller, of Chicago, for appellant Peter Katris.\nMartin F. Hauselman and Elizabeth Monkus, both of Hauselman, Rappin & Olswang Ltd., of Chicago, for appellee." }, "file_name": "0350-01", "first_page_order": 364, "last_page_order": 411 }