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Torres v. City of Chicago9/17/2004
UNPUBLISHED
On July 24, 1998, police officers responded to a call to 911 reporting a shooting. When officers arrived at the scene shortly after 2 a.m., Hector Rivera was lying on a bathroom floor, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. Police called for an ambulance for Rivera an hour and a half later. Rivera died that morning. Angelina Torres, as special administrator of Rivera's estate, sued the City of Chicago (the City) for wrongful death. The trial court granted the City's motion for summary judgment, finding that the City and its officers owed no duty to Rivera. Torres appeals.
Assuming that the City had no duty to respond to the 911 call, we hold that the City voluntarily undertook the response, and at that point it assumed a duty not to harm Rivera. Torres presented evidence that the City breached that duty when its officers told at least one person who sought to help Rivera to leave the area. Section 4-102 of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act (Act) (745 ILCS 10/4-102 (West 1998)) does not apply here because Rivera needed those responding to the 911 call to provide medical care, not police protection or services. We find that Torres presented sufficient evidence to withstand the motion for summary judgment.
Because the trial court granted the City's motion for summary judgment, we state the facts supported by the record in the light most favorable to Torres. The City's 911 service received at least five calls reporting persons shot near a specified intersection. Officers responding to the calls found two persons outside an apartment building at that location with gunshot wounds. The officers called for two ambulances and both arrived and took away the two injured persons within minutes. Witnesses at the scene told police that a third person also had been shot. An officer told one such witness, a neighbor, "Don't worry about it. Get out of this area." When the neighbor repeated that another man was wounded, the officer again told the neighbor to leave. Another witness told the officers that a man with gunshot wounds was in a bathroom in the witness's apartment. Officers told the man to wait because they needed to take pictures of the scene. A trail of blood marked the stairs and led to the bathroom where Rivera lay bleeding.
An officer found Rivera alive in the bathroom, but he left him there because Rivera appeared drunk. Some time later a witness took another officer into the bathroom. The witness lifted Rivera's shirt and showed the officer the bullet wound. The officer then called for an ambulance, dispatched at 3:33 a.m. Rivera died before 7 a.m. that day. A doctor who reviewed the medical records opined that if Rivera had received treatment within an hour of the shooting, "his chances of survival would have been increased * by at least 50%."
Torres, in her complaint, alleged that the willful and wanton conduct of the officers increased Rivera's suffering and caused his death. She also claimed that the City deprived Rivera of equal protection of the laws. The City removed the case to federal court. The federal court denied the City's motion to dismiss the complaint (Torres v. City of Chicago , 123 F. Supp. 2d 1130, 1136 (N.D. Ill. 2000)), but later the court entered judgment in favor of the City on the claim that it deprived Rivera of equal protection of the law. The court remanded the state law claims to the circuit court of Cook County.
The circuit court held that the City had only a duty to the public, and no duty to Rivera, to respond to the 911 call. Because Torres presented no evidence of breach of any enforceable duty, the court granted the City summary judgment.
ANALYSIS
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