Background
A disabled MK Deliveries box truck stopped in the outer travel lane of southbound Interstate 55 near Plainfield before dawn after a pickup truck struck it and disconnected its battery. The truck’s lights no longer worked. Its driver, Felix Ocampo Jr., called his manager and 911 and waved flashlights, but did not deploy the reflective warning triangles stored under the passenger seat.
Erin Zilka’s SUV then struck the rear of the unlit truck. Her passenger, Berwyn police officer Charles A. Schauer, died at the scene. Schauer’s estate alleged that Ocampo negligently failed to provide the federally required warnings. A Cook County jury awarded $13.8 million to Schauer’s estate, allocating 99% fault to MK Deliveries and Ocampo and 1% to Zilka.
The Court’s Holding
The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed. Evidence from the estate’s accident-reconstruction expert and an investigating trooper supported the jury’s finding that Ocampo’s failure to deploy warning triangles was a proximate cause of the fatal collision. It was foreseeable that an unlit truck blocking nearly an entire highway lane in the dark could be struck by an approaching driver, and the evidence did not so overwhelmingly favor MK Deliveries that judgment notwithstanding the verdict was warranted.
The court also upheld the trial court’s evidentiary rulings. It found no abuse of discretion in excluding evidence about the first driver’s intoxicated conduct and flight, Zilka’s drinking and alleged fatigue, the FMCSA’s “non-preventable” crash determination, and a draft marital settlement agreement between Schauer and his wife. The court further rejected claimed errors involving closing argument, a staged demonstrative photograph of reflective triangles, an autopsy photograph, and Zilka’s testimony about how warning triangles would affect her driving.
Key Takeaways
- A jury could find that failing to deploy warning devices behind an unlit commercial truck obstructing a highway lane proximately caused a later collision.
- An agency’s ultimate conclusion that a crash was “non-preventable” was properly excluded where the agency stated that its finding was not for use in civil litigation to establish fault or negligence.
- Evidence of alcohol consumption without competent evidence of actual intoxication or impairment was properly excluded.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that trucking-safety regulations and evidence concerning available warning devices can provide substantial support for causation in highway-crash litigation. It also illustrates the broad discretion Illinois trial courts retain over evidence that is speculative, weakly relevant, or likely to unfairly prejudice or confuse a jury.