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Forsythe v. Clark USA9/29/2005
Plaintiffs Marguerite Forsythe, individually and as special administrator to the estate of her late husband, Michael F. Forsythe, and Elizabeth M. Szabala, special administrator of the estate of Gary Szabala, appeal from the judgment of the circuit court granting summary judgment to defendant Clark USA, Inc., pursuant to section 2-1005 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-1005 (West 2002)). On appeal, plaintiffs argue that because defendant owed a duty to the deceased, and because genuine issues exist as to whether defendant breached that duty and proximately caused their deaths, the circuit court erred in granting summary judgment for defendant. For the following reasons, we reverse the judgment of the circuit court and remand this cause for further proceedings.
BACKGROUND
Decedents Michael F. Forsythe and Gary Szabala were employed as maintenance mechanics for Clark Refining & Marketing, Inc. (Clark Refining), which operated an oil refinery in Blue Island, Illinois . On March 13, 1995, the decedents were killed when a fire erupted at the refinery while they were on their lunch break. The fire was apparently caused by other Clark Refining employees who attempted to replace a four-inch valve on an operating unit known as the Isomax without ensuring that flammable materials within the pipe had been depressurized. According to plaintiffs, those employees were not maintenance mechanics and not trained or qualified to work on the Isomax. After Clark Refining paid the estate of each decedent pursuant to the Workers' Compensation Act (820 ILCS 305/1 et seq. (2002)), plaintiffs brought a wrongful death suit against defendant, Clark Refining's sole shareholder.
According to their complaints, plaintiffs alleged that defendant had developed an "overall business strategy" for Clark Refining which "focused on minimizing operating costs and limiting capital expenditures" in order to increase revenue for its parent corporation, the Horsham Corporation. Plaintiffs alleged that defendant "had a duty to use reasonable care in imposing its overall business strategy on [Clark Refining] so as not to create an unreasonable risk of harm to others," but breached that duty by (1) "requiring [Clark Refining] to minimize operating costs including costs for training, maintenance, supervision and safety," (2) "requiring [Clark Refining] to limit capital investments to those which would generate cash for the refinery thereby preventing [Clark Refining] from adequately reinforcing the walls of the lunch room or relocating the lunch room to a safe position within the refinery," and (3) "failing to adequately evaluate the safety and training procedures in place at the Blue Island Refinery." As a result of defendant's overall business strategy of capital cutbacks, Clark Refining was required to have unqualified employees act as maintenance mechanics, whose inexperience resulted in the refinery fire which killed the decedents. Thus, plaintiffs alleged that defendant's overall business strategy was a proximate cause of the fire.
Filing a motion for summary judgment, defendant argued that, as a mere holding company whose only connection to Clark Refining was its status as sole shareholder, it owed no duty to either deceased. In support of its motion, defendant submitted numerous depositions and documents showing that its subsidiary Clark Refining owned and operated the refinery, and that it had no control over the day-to-day operations.
Plaintiffs responded that despite defendant's legal status in relation to Clark Refining, defendant was directly responsible for creating conditions in which such a fire could occur. Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that defendant's "ove
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