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Redmond v. Socha9/29/2004
l. 2d at 455.
Verdicts are legally inconsistent when they are absolutely irreconcilable and unsupported by any reasonable hypothesis. Kleiss v. Cassida, 297 Ill. App. 3d 165, 175-76, 696 N.E.2d 1271 (1998). As noted earlier, this case involves a two vehicle collision. Both vehicles were traveling in the same direction on Ogden Avenue when the right front fender of the car being driven by the defendant struck the left rear of the plaintiff's motorcycle. Each party charged the other with negligence proximately resulting in the collision. Neither party introduced evidence of a cause of the collision other than the negligence of the other. Further, it is undisputed that the plaintiff suffered personal injuries as a result of the collision and the defendant's car was damaged. Nevertheless, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant on the plaintiff's complaint and in favor of the plaintiff on the defendant's counterclaim. To do so, the jury must have determined both that the plaintiff either failed to prove that the defendant was negligent or failed to prove that her negligent acts were the proximate cause of his injuries and that the defendant either failed to prove that the plaintiff was negligent or that his negligent acts were a proximate cause of the damage to her vehicle. However, in the context of the facts of this case such a hypothesis is unreasonable. In the absence of any evidence of an intervening cause of the collision, one or both of the parties must necessarily have been negligent. Further, because there was but a single accident involving only two drivers, it would be impossible to find that the contributory negligence of both drivers was greater than 50% of the total proximate cause of the collision.
In the case of Barrick v. Grimes, 308 Ill. App. 3d 306, 720 N.E.2d 280 (1999), the Fourth District of the Appellate Court was faced with a factual circumstance quite similar to this case. Barrick involved a negligence action resulting from a collision at a controlled intersection between a car driven by the plaintiff and a truck driven by the defendant. The plaintiff sued the defendant seeking damages for personal injury and property damage. The defendant filed a counterclaim against the plaintiff also grounded in allegations of negligence, seeking a recovery for property damage. The evidence was conflicting as to which driver entered the intersection in violation of a red light. Barrick, 308 Ill. App. 3d at 307. As in this case, the jury returned a verdict for the defendant on the plaintiff's complaint and in favor of the plaintiff on the defendant's counterclaim. However, unlike this case, the trial court denied the plaintiff's post-trial motion based on inconsistent verdicts. Barrick, 308 Ill. App. 3d at 309. In affirming the trial court, the Barrick court found that the verdicts were not inconsistent, stating that the jury could have determined that neither party proved that the other was negligent or that each failed to prove that the others' negligence was a proximate cause of the damages for which they sought recovery. The court went on to state that the jury may well have felt that the evidence of which vehicle had the green light was so conflicting, inconclusive, and unsatisfactory that it could not determine which party was negligent. Barrick, 308 Ill. App. 3d at 310.
We most respectfully decline to follow the reasoning of the Barrick court. Either the plaintiff or the defendant entered the intersection in violation of a red light and, as consequence, one or the other of the parties was negligent as there was no evidence of any other cause of the collision. If the jury was unable to determine which of the parties was negligent, a mistrial should have been de
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