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City of Chicago v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp.11/18/2004
the question of proximate or legal cause of the expenditures. Rather, the identity of the claimant and the nature of the cost combined to deny recovery. City of Flagstaff, 719 F.2d at 324. As the court explained:
"Where such services are provided by the government and the costs are spread by taxes, the tortfeasor does not expect a demand for reimbursement. This is so even though the tortfeasor is fully aware that private parties injured by its conduct, who cannot spread their risk to the general public, will have a cause of action against it for damages proximately or legally caused." City of Flagstaff, 719 F.2d at 323.
Thus, the expectations of potential defendants, both business entities and individuals, and their insurers would be upset substantially if an entirely new scheme of liability were imposed. City of Flagstaff, 719 F.2d at 323. Settled expectations are often upset when new tort doctrines emerge. Nevertheless, with regard to municipal services "a fair and sensible system for spreading costs is already in place." City of Flagstaff, 719 F.2d at 323.
" overnmental entities themselves currently bear the cost in question, and they have taken no action to shift it elsewhere. If the government has chosen to bear the cost for reasons of economic efficiency, or even as a subsidy to the citizens and their business , the decision implicates fiscal policy; the legislature and its public deliberative processes, rather than the court, is the appropriate forum to address such fiscal concerns." City of Flagstaff, 719 F.2d at 324, citing Standard Oil, 332 U.S. at 314-17, 91 L.Ed. at 2075-76, 67 S.Ct. at 1611-12.
We agree that where a system already exists for the rational allocation of costs, and where society as a whole relies upon that system, there is little reason for a court to impose an entirely new system of allocation. This is particularly true where, as here, allowing recovery of the costs of routine police and other emergency services could have significant unintended consequences.
In addition to stating that such recovery would be permitted if it were authorized by statute or regulation, the court of appeals in City of Flagstaff noted that recovery has been allowed "where the acts of a private party create a public nuisance which the government seeks to abate * and where the government incurs expenses to protect its own property." City of Flagstaff, 719 F.2d at 324. "These cases fall into distinct, well-defined categories unrelated to the normal provision of police, fire, and emergency services, and none are applicable here." City of Flagstaff, 719 F.2d at 324.
A, C & S, one of the cases cited by the plaintiffs, is such a case. Plaintiffs suggest that this court approved the school boards' recovery of costs as a consequence of a defendant's wrongdoing. However, the plaintiff school boards in A, C& S were suing under ordinary tort principles as owners of damaged property, not as governmental entities seeking to recover the costs of the services they routinely provide to the public. A, C & S, 131 Ill. 2d at 450-51. See also People ex rel. Department of Transportation v. City of Chicago , 36 Ill. App. 3d 712, 714 (1976) ("it is well established that when the State brings an action to recover for damages to property, it stands in the same position as to rights and remedies as any other litigant").
Other cases cited by plaintiffs involve various forms of environmental pollution, for which the costs of abatement are recoverable; or damage to public property, in which the city sues in tort as a property owner; and, thus, fall within one of the "distinct, well-defined categories unrelated to the normal provision" of p
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