Cook County Jury Awards $8.24 Million Against Railroad for Teen's Brain Injury at Highland Park Crossing

Shortly before midnight on September 4, 1976, a 15-year-old boy and two friends rode their bicycles home from a movie theater in Highland Park, Illinois, heading west on Central Avenue. As the boy crossed the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company's tracks, the front wheel of his Schwinn Continental 10-speed came out of its fork. He went over the handlebars and landed about 10 feet past the crossing, with the bicycle on top of him.

A neurosurgeon at the Highland Park hospital found massive injuries to his brain. He was in a coma for about two months and stayed in hospital care until June 1977. The injuries left permanent damage: impaired speech, an unstable gait, weakness and spasticity on his left side, a clawed left hand, blindness in his right eye and loss of half the visual field in his left eye. He can dress and bathe himself and do simple household tasks, but he needs supervision, cannot live alone and was found unemployable. He was later declared a disabled person, and his parents were appointed co-guardians of his estate.

The family sued the railroad, which owned the crossing, on negligence and statutory theories, and sued Schwinn on a strict liability claim that the quick-release front hub was unreasonably dangerous without a device to keep the wheel on the fork. Philip H. Corboy, Bruce Robert Pfaff and David A. Novoselsky of Corboy & Demetrio, P.C. represented the plaintiff.

The evidence centered on the crossing. It had been built in 1959 with gumwood timbers between the rails. The railroad budgeted money to rebuild it in 1971 but cancelled the work, and Highland Park officials wrote in 1974 and 1975 to complain that it was rough and hazardous. An Illinois Department of Transportation crossing inspector testified from photographs that the timbers sat well above the rails, in violation of an Illinois Commerce Commission rule. Two Schwinn employees who inspected the site in September 1976 found the timbers 2 to 3 1/2 inches higher than the rails and described the ride over it as quite rough. The boy's two friends said the same. The railroad's engineering expert, several police officers and its section foreman testified that the crossing was in good condition. The railroad rebuilt the crossing in June 1977, after naming it the top repair priority in its division.

The trial ran more than four weeks and produced a transcript of over 4,500 pages. Before the case went to the jury, the parties agreed that punitive damages claims would be dropped, that neither defendant would argue the boy's own conduct contributed to his injuries, and that the verdict forms would require judgment against at least one defendant. The jury returned a verdict against the railroad and for Schwinn, found the bicycle was not unreasonably dangerous when made, and assessed damages of $8,235,000 on an itemized form.

Both sides appealed. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed in 1987 (161 Ill. App. 3d 742). On June 19, 1989, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed as well (129 Ill. 2d 1). It found that the errors the railroad claimed, including admission of evidence that the crossing was replaced after the accident, were harmless or moot, and it did not reach the plaintiff's conditional cross-appeal against Schwinn.