Milagros Alonzo v. State of Illinois

ORDER

MCGLYNN, J. THIS MATTER is before the Court on a Complaint filed by Milagros Alonzo against the University of Illinois Medical Center, a State-owned hospital and medical facility. Claimant seeks compensation for bed bug bites that she suffered after sleeping on a couch in a waiting room at the hospital. She seeks $45,000.00 for pain, suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement and loss of enjoyment of life.

Claimant testified that she was at the hospital on October 24, 2012, with her sister to visit the sister’s husband who was in the Intensive Care Unit due to a stroke. Sometime after midnight, ICU nurses showed Claimant and her sister to a waiting room to get some rest. The room had two vinyl couches. ICU nurses gave the women clean sheets and pillows to use on the couches. Claimant and her sister put the sheets on the couches and proceeded to go to sleep.

Claimant woke early the next morning with multiple welts that the parties have stipulated were bed bug bites. She had the bites on her face, neck, an arm and a leg. The bites caused extreme itchiness and swelling; one eye was swollen shut. Photographs corroborated Claimant’s description of her physical condition. Claimant did not have any bites before she came to the hospital. She did not actually see any bugs in the waiting room.

That day, Claimant went with her sister to the emergency room where Claimant was diagnosed with bug bites and prescribed a drug to relieve itchiness. When she got home, she threw out the clothes she was wearing and washed her body with flea shampoo. Worried that bed bugs may have gotten on her bed, she threw out her mattress and bedding. Claimant returned to the emergency room the next day because of continued itchiness and discomfort, and was prescribed a different drug. None of the prescribed medications seemed to ease Claimant’s reaction to the bites. Claimant was still bothered by the bites a couple of weeks later, at which point she visited her physician.

Claimant testified that she was extremely traumatized by the experience. The physical symptoms from the bites took almost two months to resolve. She felt very self-conscious of her appearance during this time. On occasion, she still feels like things are crawling on her.

Claimant’s sister, Maria Gonzalez, testified to substantially the same sequence of events.

Ms. Gonzalez did not see any bugs and did not suffer any ill effects from her night spent in the waiting room.

[*178] Janice Thornton testified that she was the Facilities Manager for the Medical Center in October 2012. Her duties included supervising the housekeeping staff. Ms. Thornton admitted that bed bugs could pose a danger to patients, visitors and staff. She recognized that the risk of bed bugs increased in an area, like the waiting room, in which people come and go from the outside. Ms. Thornton had never heard of a problem with bed bugs in the waiting room.

According to Ms. Thornton, the waiting room, including the furniture, was cleaned daily with disinfectant. The Medical Center did not train or instruct the housekeeping staff to inspect the premises for bed bugs. Ms. Thornton had been shown pictures of and knew what a bed bug looked like, but she was never instructed to look for and had never looked for bugs. The Center had a contract for pest control services with a licensed pest control company. Pursuant to the contract, the company provided regular inspections and treatment for all types of pests. The company maintained a technician on campus for the University of Illinois Chicago. A technician from the company generally would arrive at the Center within 20 minutes after a report of an existing pest issue to deal with the problem.

Aurelia Manzanarez testified that she worked as a housekeeper at the Medical Center since 2001. She worked daily from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. She was responsible for cleaning the area of the Center that included the waiting room in which Claimant and her sister spent the night. Ms. Manzanarez cleaned and disinfected the room, including the furniture, on a daily basis. She was not instructed to and did not look for bed bugs as part of her duties. She was aware that bed bugs could be brought into the Medical Center by visitors. She could not recall if she had seen the pest control company inspecting the waiting room area in the past five years.

Claimant argues that, although management knew there was a risk of bed bugs and knew that the risk is increased in a high traffic area such as the waiting room, the Medical Center failed to exercise reasonable care to inspect for bugs. The State responds that it has no duty to continually check for latent defects such as bed bugs.

The Court agrees with Claimant that the State may, in some circumstances, have a duty to inspect premises for dangerous conditions and may be held to have constructive notice of a condition if it fails to conduct reasonable inspections. See Chapman v. Foggy. 59 Ill. App. 3d 552, 555-56 (1978) (“Proof that the owner had actual knowledge of the dangerous condition is not a prerequisite to his liability for injury to his invitee. The owner may be found liable if by the exercise of reasonable care he could have discovered the dangerous condition.”) (citations omitted). Bed bugs obviously constitute a dangerous condition; whether they are latent or visible is open to debate. When the duty to inspect for bedbugs is triggered and what constitutes a reasonable inspection are also subject to disagreement.

To sustain her claim, Claimant must show that: (1) the State owed her a duty of care; (2) the State breached its duty of care: and (3) the breach was the proximate cause of Claimant’s injuries. Homer Rivera v. State, 63 Ill. Ct. Cl. 218, 224 (2011). We conclude that Claimant has failed to prove that the State was negligent, or that the State’s action or inaction in this matter was the proximate cause of Claimant’s injuries.

[*179] In the last decade, the number of bed bug infestations has increased dramatically throughout the world. “Bed bugs spread easily, hide well, reproduce quickly, and are difficult to treat.” City of Portland Health & Human Serv. Dept., Bed Bugs: Guidelines for Best Practices in Prevention and Treatment. In multi-unit buildings, such as hotels, apartments and hospitals, the risk of bed bugs is increased and treatment is more difficult.

Claimant argues that the Medical Center was negligent in that it had no protocol for preventing bed bugs. In fact, the Center followed most of the recommended best practices to control bed bugs. The waiting room had no clutter and was cleaned daily. The couches were vinyl, which is a preferred covering because it is easier to clean and makes it harder for the bugs to hide. The women were provided with newly washed sheets. Most importantly, the Center contracted with a certified pest control company to inspect for and respond immediately to reports of pests. See, e.g., Georgia Dept. of Public Health, Bed Bugs - Inspection, Prevention, Control; Los Angeles Dept. of Public Health, Bed Bug Prevention and Control in Hotels and Similar Multiple-Unit Dwellings; Nat’l Pest Management Association, Response to Bed Bugs in Medical Facilities; City of Portland Health and Human Serv. Dept., supra.

Training employees and staff to look for and detect bed bugs is another practice that frequently is recommended for medical facilities and hotels. See, e.g., Georgia Dept. of Public Health, supra: Los Angeles Dept. of Public Health, supra: City of Portland Health and Human Serv. Dept., supra. Ms. Thornton and Ms. Manzanarez testified that the Medical Center did not engage in this practice. However, the Court finds that the Center’s failure in this regard was not negligent.

Generally, courts have held building owners liable for bed bug bites only when the owner knew that bed bugs had been found on the premises and did not take reasonable measures to eradicate them, or otherwise protect and warn guests. For example, in Mathias v Accor Economy Lodging, Inc., 347 F.3d 672, 674-75 (7th Cir. 2003) the court found a hotel owner liable for both compensatory and punitive damages where the owner had knowledge of a serious bed bug infestation for more than two years but refused recommendations from its pest control provider and the hotel manager to spray every room. Instead, the owner allowed the rooms to be rented to guests repeatedly and, when guests complained of bed bugs, they were simply moved to another room. On the other hand, in Graham v. Ameristar Casino St. Charles, Inc., 2015 WL 12731816 (Mo. Cir. Ct. 2015) (adopting reasoning of Defendant’s Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment, 2015 WL 12731609), the court ruled that the hotel owner was not liable for a guest’s bed bug bite where the owner used a certified pest control company to inspect the premises, and there was no evidence that the owner had knowledge or reason to know of the presence of the bed bug. See also Grogen v. Gamber Corp., 19 Misc. 3d 798, 806-07 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2008) (summary judgment denied because there was a question of fact whether the hotel owner had constructive notice of the presence of bed bugs where extermination reports showed that bed bugs had been found in other parts of the hotel and on the same floor several weeks before the guest checked in). In this case, there was no evidence of a previous bed bug infestation in the area of the waiting room or anywhere else in the Medical Center. There was no evidence that the infestation was extensive which would suggest that the bed bugs had been there for some period of time.

[*180] Moreover, in employing ongoing professional pest control services, the Medical Center took what experts agree is the most important step for controlling bed bug infestations. Although the record is not clear what the pest control company did to look specifically for bed bugs, it was hired to inspect for and exterminate pests including bed bugs. We find that, under the circumstances of this case, the Medical Center’s actions fulfilled the State’s duty to provide guests with reasonable protection against bed bugs.

Even if we were to find that the Medical Center was negligent in failing to train the housekeepers or other staff to look for evidence of bed bugs, Claimant did not prove that the Center’s failure in this regard was the proximate cause of her bites. Visual inspections do not necessarily reveal bed bugs, especially if the infestation is recent or minimal. In the absence of any previous complaints, there is no way to know how long the bed bugs had taken up residence in the waiting room. The bugs could have been brought in that afternoon in which case an inspection by Ms. Manzanarez that morning could not possibly have revealed their presence. It is even possible that Claimant or her sister carried the bugs into the waiting room. Cf. Graham, supra (“it is just as reasonable to infer that Plaintiff or her roommate brought the bug into the room in their luggage or on their person, as to infer that it came from any other source”).

We find that Claimant has failed to prove that she was injured as a result of the State’s negligence. Her claim is denied.