The issue presented in this case is whether the CTA owed a duty of care to Plaintiff’s Decedent, Ricardo Quiroz, who was struck by a CTA Red Line train inside the underground subway tunnel connecting the Grand and Chicago Rail Stations. Plaintiff’s Decedent trespassed into the CTA subway tunnel and fell next to the tracks.

The Circuit Court of Cook County held that the CTA owed no legal duty to protect Plaintiff’s Decedent from the open and obvious danger of a moving train. However, the Appellate Court reversed and found that the Complaint was sufficient to establish a duty under Section 337 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts where Plaintiff alleged that Plaintiff’s Decedent was a discovered trespasser in a position of peril.

The Illinois Supreme Court allowed the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association to file an amicus curiae brief in support of Plaintiff’s position. They also allowed the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation (Metra) and the Association of American Railroads to file amici curiae briefs in support of the CTA’s position.

Because this was an appeal from an Order granting the CTA’s Section 2-615 Motion, it was reviewed de novo.

The Illinois Supreme Court began its analysis by discussing the factors it reviews to determine whether a duty exists. When analyzing the relationship between the Defendant and the Plaintiff, the court should look to: (1) the reasonable foreseeability of the injury, (2) the likelihood of injury, (3) the magnitude of the burden of guarding against the injury, and (4) the consequences of placing the burden on the defendant.

The Court stated that, “traditionally, at common law, a landowner owes a duty of reasonable care under the circumstances to all those entering the premises except to trespassers.” In this case, the Plaintiff was a trespasser. Therefore, the only duty Plaintiff owned was to refrain from willfully and wantonly injuring him. Based on that, the railroad operator is not required to keep a lookout for persons on the track, especially in the subway tunnel where pedestrians are clearly not expected or anticipated.

With respect to the foreseeability of the injury and the likelihood of injury, a party who owns or controls land is not required to foresee and protect against open and obvious dangers. “Obvious” means the condition and the risk are apparent to a reasonable person exercising ordinary perception, intelligence, and judgment.

Section 337 of the Restatement has an exception relating to a duty to warn trespassers if the possessor of the land knows or has reason to know of the trespasser’s presence and the danger is of such nature that the trespasser would not discover or realize it. In the case at bar, a moving rapid transit train was found to be an open and obvious danger that a trespasser would expect. Therefore, the Supreme Court found that Section 337 is not applicable.

Despite the open and obvious nature of the moving train, a duty of reasonable care could still arise once the landowner discovers the trespasser in peril. Plaintiff cited Section 336 of the Restatement which provides that a possessor of land who knows, or who has reason to know, of the presence of another who is a trespasser is subject to liability if the landowner fails to carry on his activities with reasonable care for the trespasser’s safety.

However, this section has never been adopted to address places of danger that are open and obvious. Therefore, the Court concluded that the Plaintiff was asking the Court to adopt a new exception to the general duty owed trespassers, which encompasses a broader duty to rescue. This argument was based on the allegation that previous train operators who did not strike the Decedent but allegedly saw him lying next to the tracks should have alerted subsequent trains.

Also, the Plaintiff was, in essence, asking the Court to require the CTA personnel, who were allegedly monitoring security cameras in the tunnel, to be under an affirmative duty to stop train service in order to rescue this Decedent once his presence in the tunnel was allegedly known. The Court found the magnitude of the burden of requiring the CTA personnel to monitor 32,000 cameras across its system to be extremely high. Also, the consequence of imposing a duty to rescue trespassers in situations of open and obvious danger creates risks and safety concerns to other passengers as well as the CTA personnel.

The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the Appellate Court and affirmed the Trial Court. In conclusion, the Court held that the CTA is not an insurer of a trespasser’s safety but instead must focus on ensuring mass transportation for the public ridership at large. Although the collision was tragic, under the allegations as pled in this case, the imposition of a duty was found to be unreasonable.