John Puoci v. State of Illinois

OPINION

STORINO, J.

This Claim is before the Court upon a recommendation from the Commissioner following an evidentiary hearing.

Claimant, John Puoci, brings this negligence claim seeking damages for injuries sustained after striking a large pothole on the roadway. Claimant argues that Respondent was negligent because it failed to timely secure or repair the damaged roadway.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

This Claim was filed by Claimant John Puoci for damages that occurred on the afternoon of June 21, 2009, when his motorcycle struck a large pothole and as a result he was thrown through the windshield of his motorcycle onto the roadway of Irving Park Road.

Claimant subsequently filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Transportation (“IDOT”). Christine Ridge, head of the Claims Office for region I, denied the claim. In the letter, Ms. Ridge denied IDOT’s liability based on the lack of notice. She stated that IDOT had determined that it was not aware of any potholes on that road prior to Claimant’s accident. Claimant then filed the instant complaint, and a Commissioner held a hearing on February 2, 2016. Testimony was heard from Claimant; Christine Ridge (“Ridge”); James Stumpner (“Stumpner”), Bureau Chief of Maintenance from IDOT District I; and Joseph Novack, a storekeeper with IDOT for 25 years.

Mr. Puoci, 53 at the time of the hearing, testified that he has been riding motorcycles since he was 8 years old. Over the past 45 years, he has owned and worked on between 35 and 40 motorcycles. On the day of the incident, Claimant was riding his motorcycle on the way to pay his respects to his father at his grave on Father’s Day. While traveling eastbound in the right lane on Irving Park Road just past Seymour Street, Claimant maneuvered his motorcycle into the left lane as he approached Mannheim Road. As he crossed over to the left lane, he went over what he described as some narrow patches. The patches suddenly widened into what he called “a rut,” in which his front tire became stuck. Claimant was propelled over his motorcycle handlebars and through his windshield and landed on his head about 5 feet in front of his motorcycle. Claimant continued rolling down the road for about another 10 feet. Two nurses, travelling westbound on Irving Park Road, pulled over their car and walked through the grassy [*143] median between the eastbound and westbound lanes to aid Claimant. They attended to his bleeding head and called an ambulance.

Claimant was taken to Lutheran General Hospital, where he was admitted as an inpatient in the trauma unit until his discharge five days later on June 26, 2009. At Lutheran General Hospital, he was diagnosed with a concussion, two to three percent body-surface-area abrasions to the left arm and head, three left-side rib fractures, a 1.5 cm left brow laceration, a right upper extremity nondisplaced distal wrist fracture, and a carpal bone closed facture of his right pinkie.

Testimony was also offered of Dr. Sanja Nikolich, the doctor that initially saw Claimant at Lutheran General Hospital. Dr. Nikolich is a trauma and critical care surgeon in the trauma service at Lutheran General Hospital and is board certified in surgery and has additional qualifications in critical care. She has been a trauma surgeon at Lutheran General Hospital since 2008, is the director for the third year medical student clerkship, and is on faculty at Rosalind Franklin University Medical School where she teaches surgery.

She testified that based on a reasonable degree of medical and surgical certainty, Claimant’s injuries were the result of his motorcycle collision. Further, she opined that the injuries he sustained produced pain; she explained that she’s been told that rib fractures are some of the most painful injuries a patient can have because every time a breath is taken, the patient feels pain. Dr. Nikolich also testified that she has no doubt that the head injuries would have produced acute pain.

After discharge from Lutheran General Hospital, Claimant went to Elk Grove Manor for 17 days of rehabilitation. After that, he received six weeks of outpatient physical therapy for his hand and right ankle, which did not result in much benefit. He went to Illinois Bone and Joint institute to get his right pinkie set, but it was still a little displaced. Further, Claimant’s ankle was still swollen seven years after the accident and he still could not bend his right wrist. Claimant incurred between $30,000 and $40,000 in medical bills due to the accident.

Claimant’s brother in-law took pictures of the pothole that caused Claimant’s injuries soon after the incident occurred. It was several feet long, a little more than 8 inches deep, and about 15 inches wide where Claimant’s wheel sunk into it.

Stumpner, who has a BS in engineering, started working with IDOT in 1985 and has been Bureau Chief since 2002. He explained how IDOT typically received and dealt with a notice of a pothole or other road defects. He stated that although crews were only required to make formal documented inspections of a road-section once a year, they still inspected and patched potholes year-round. Much of their patrolling occurred in the winter since more potholes occurred then because of the freeze-thaw cycle, as opposed summer, when fewer potholes occurred.

IDOT also discovered potholes and other road defects through citizen and police complaints to IDOT’s communications center. He explained that the center would receive a call about a pothole and then dispatch the information to the appropriate yard. The yard would then send someone to inspect the pothole as quickly as possible. There was no set timeframe within which potholes had to be inspected; but in winter, since many potholes were reported, potholes [*144] would be inspected within a day or two. In the summer, it was less than a day or two because there were fewer reports. If severe potholes were discovered upon inspection, they were to be patched as soon as possible.

With respect to the pothole in question, the IDOT communications center log reveals that on Saturday, June 13, 2009, at 11:13 PM, the IDOT communications center received a citizen’s complaint about a pothole that involved all lanes at the location in question. And according to the internal documents of Northside Yard (the yard responsible for servicing the area in question), the communication center notified someone named Greg at the Northside Yard about the pothole on Monday, June 15, 2009, at 6:30 A.M. However, the IDOT communications center log notes that notice regarding the pothole in question was provided to someone named Greg at Northside Yard on June 14, 2009, at 6:37 A.M.

Regardless, the communications center log indicates that on June 18, 2009, Northside Yard verified the pothole to the communications center and notified the communications center that it had not repaired the pothole yet. Stumpner explained this meant that someone from Northside Yard inspected the location between June 14, 2009, and June 18, 2009, and determined that the pothole was not a hazard that warranted immediate repair. Unfortunately, there is no written record of when such inspection actually occurred, who conducted the inspection, or what it revealed. The pothole was eventually repaired on July 1, 2009, nine days after Claimant’s accident.

In the face of this documentation, both Stumpner and Ridge agreed that IDOT had actual notice of the pothole in question and that the letter Ridge sent to Claimant denying liability on the basis of notice was an error. However, they both still maintained that IDOT acted reasonably in not repairing the pothole within the 7-9 days it had been on actual notice of it before Claimant’s accident.

Ridge stated that she determined that IDOT acted reasonably in not repairing the pothole prior to Claimant’s June 21, 2009 accident because the pothole was reported as a non-hazard. It was summer; only five business days had transpired between the complaint and Claimant’s accident; and between June 14, 2009 and June 21, 2009, there were no other calls to the communications center or other complaints or claims filed against IDOT for this location, on which 35,100 vehicles traveled daily.

Ridge speculated that the pothole was “reported as a non-hazard” on Saturday night because the communications center did not fill out an incident report and did not notify the Northside Yard until the next business day, June 15, 2009. She explained that when a complaint is called in after normal business hours, the communications center asks if the issue is a hazard. If it is a hazard, an incident report is filled out and the yard is notified immediately, even on weekends. Non-hazards, however, are reported on a non-hazard sheet on the next business day. Thus, because the communications center did not contact Northside Yard that weekend, Ridge speculated that the complaining citizen must have indicated that the pothole was a non-hazard. However, when shown pictures of the pothole taken soon after the accident, Ridge characterized the pothole as “borderline nonhazardous/hazardous.”

[*145] When Stumpner was shown Claimant’s pictures of the pothole at issue, he categorized it as severe and stated that it should have been repaired within one or two days of being inspected. However, he offered the caveat that he did not know what the workload was and if there were more pressing repairs that needed to be made during that time. He also noted that IDOT has less staff in the summer.

The only evidence of the condition of the pothole is the pictures taken by Claimant soon after the accident because IDOT failed to properly record and memorialize the condition of the pothole in its records. Further, IDOT has no record regarding who conducted the inspection at the location in question between June 14, 2009, and June 18, 2009, whether it was actually conducted, and if any inspection report containing a description of the pavement defect at the time of inspection was made.

ANALYSIS

To prove negligence, a claimant must establish the following: the existence of a duty that respondent owed him; the respondent breached that duty; and that the breach proximately caused the claimant’s damages. Estate of Johnson by Johnson v. Condell Memorial Hosp., 119 Ill. 2d 496 (Ill. 1988). Generally, one owes a duty of ordinary care to guard against injuries to others that may result as a reasonably probable and foreseeable consequence of negligent conduct. Karas v. Strevell, 369 Ill. App. 3d 884, 889 (2nd Dist. 2006).

With respect to its roads, the State’s duty of reasonable care includes maintaining its roads and preventing the existence of defective and dangerous conditions on its highways. Trotter v. State (1993), 45 Ill. Ct. Cl. 164, 168. However, the State of Illinois is not an insurer of the conditions of its roadways. Id. Thus, as part of establishing that Respondent breached its duty of ordinary care, Claimant must prove that the potholes constituted a dangerous condition of which the State had either actual or constructive notice. See Dunbar v. State (1992), 45 Ill. Ct. Cl. 175.

Based on Stumpner’s testimony, the potholes that Claimant went over were severe and should have been immediately repaired according to IDOT’s own protocol. Respondent fails to offer any testimony on the condition of the pothole because it is unaware of the person who made the inspection or when it was made. Accordingly, we find that it is constituted a dangerous condition. Further, based on IDOT’s own records, we find that IDOT had actual notice of the pothole prior to Claimant’s accident on June 21, 2009. Whether on the morning of June 14, 2009, or June 15, 2009, Northside Yard received actual notice about a pothole at all lanes at the location in question.

It is clear that Claimant has proven his case beyond a preponderance of the evidence. Claimant has established that Respondent breached its duty to maintain the roadway in a reasonably safe condition after having actual notice of its hazardous condition for at least six days prior to Claimant’s accident. Based on the particular circumstances of this case, the hazardous conditions required immediate repair and attention at the time Respondent received actual notice of the road conditions. Respondent failed to make the necessary and proper repairs [*146] in a timely manner and Respondent failed to place any warning signs or traffic cones to warn motorists of the known road conditions.

As a result of Respondent’s negligence, this Court awards $100,000.00 to Claimant.

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Claimant be awarded $100,000.00.