Find Legal Information

JUSTICE O'MALLEY delivered the opinion of the court:

Pursuant to a supervisory order issued by the Illinois SupremeCourt on October 2, 2002 (Andrade v. General Motors Corp, No. 94111(October 2, 2002)), this court vacated its initial decision in thiscase, entered on May 7, 2002 (Andrade v. General Motors Corp, No.2--01--0480 (2002) (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule23)), and reconsidered the matter in light of Simmons v. Garces,198 Ill. 2d 541 (2002). The following opinion represents ourresolution of all issues on appeal.

Plaintiff, Jennifer Andrade, sued defendant, General MotorsCorp., for injuries she sustained when the 1998 Chevrolet Cavaliershe was driving was struck in the rear by a Ford Taurus driven byJerry Vojtech. The impact forced plaintiff's seat to reclineviolently and her body to slide back along the seat until her headforcefully struck the back seat, breaking her neck and renderingher partially paralyzed. Claiming the seat was too weak to sustaina reasonably foreseeable impact to the rear end of the Cavalier,plaintiff alleged strict liability, failure to warn, andnegligence. A jury found against plaintiff on all three counts. The trial court subsequently denied plaintiff's motion for a newtrial on the negligence and strict liability counts and forjudgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, a newtrial on the failure-to-warn count. Plaintiff appealed, anddefendant cross-appealed. Plaintiff died during the pendency ofthis appeal, and the co-executors of her estate, Gilbert Andradeand Lynn Andrade, were substituted as plaintiffs-appellants. Forease of discussion, we will refer to plaintiffs-appellants asplaintiff.

Plaintiff reasserts on appeal the following bases for a newtrial on all counts: (1) the trial court refused to admit assubstantive evidence a study of 50 accidents involving defendant'svehicles undertaken by defendant's legal and engineering staff; (2)the trial court refused to consider affidavits from the jurorsindicating that they considered plaintiff's size and weight to havebeen a cause of her injuries; (3) plaintiff was prejudiced bydefendant's expert's demonstration of how plaintiff wore herseatbelt at the time of the accident; (4) the general verdict infavor of defendant was inconsistent with the jury's answer to oneof the special interrogatories; (5) the trial court discharged thejury without resolving the apparent contradiction; and (6) certainof the special interrogatories did not adequately reflect theissues in the case. Plaintiff also reasserts her argument that thejury's verdict on the failure-to-warn count was against themanifest weight of the evidence. In its cross-appeal defendantargues that the trial court erred in refusing to seal thetranscripts of the trial proceedings that contain references to thecontent of the 50-case study. We affirm.

Plaintiff was driving her 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier on April 3,1998, when she stopped at a red light. The Cavalier was thenstruck from behind by a Ford Taurus traveling at about 50 miles perhour. The collision occurred because the driver of the Taurus,Jerry Vojtech, was driving inattentively. When paramedics arrived,they discovered that plaintiff's seat was reclined, its backresting against the bench seat in the back of the car. Plaintiffhad slid back on the driver's seat; her buttocks were against theback of the seat and her head against the bench seat in the back ofthe car. Plaintiff was found to have sustained spinal fractures resulting in paraplegia.

In the first count of a three-count complaint againstdefendant, plaintiff alleged strict liability, asserting that thedriver's seat in the 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier "was unreasonablydangerous in that a foreseeable rear collision would likelycollapse the seat quickly into the rear seat area of the vehiclecausing the driver to be thrown head-first into the rear seatingarea." In the second count, plaintiff alleged that defendant wasliable for failing to warn her about the "dangerous propensity" ofthe driver's seat. In her third count, plaintiff claimed thatdefendant was liable in negligence for (1) installing seats in the1998 Chevrolet Cavalier that were "incapable of resisting areasonably foreseeable rear end collision"; (2) failing "to followits own testing and experimental data which had established thatthe type of front seats used in the Cavalier vehicle did notprotect the occupant from serious injury caused when the seat backcollapsed in reasonably foreseeable collision situations"; and (3)failing "to strengthen the front seats so that they would notcollapse during an impact of the type experienced by the[p]laintiff."

At trial, plaintiff's and defendant's experts agreed on themechanics of the collision and plaintiff's injury. The Taurusstruck the rear of the Cavalier squarely, bumper to bumper. Theimpact created a "Delta V," or change of velocity, in the Cavalierof between 21 and 30 miles per hour. The change occurred in thespan of only 100 to 200 milliseconds. At the time of thecollision, the velocity combined with plaintiff's body weight,which was between 250 and 260 pounds, to create a total force onthe driver's seat of between 25,000 and 30,000 pounds. Yielding tothe force, the driver's seat reclined and plaintiff was propelledheadfirst into the backseat, where she injured her neck.

Plaintiff's and defendant's experts disagreed at trial overwhether the backs of the front seats in the 1998 Cavalier weresufficiently resistant against the threat that a rear impact wouldcause the seats to forcibly recline and "ramp" the occupant intothe backseat of the car, as happened with plaintiff. The partiesagreed on the following facts relevant to that dispute: (1) whenclaimant's 1998 Cavalier was manufactured, federal standardsrequired front seat-backs of automobiles to withstand a minimum of3,300 pounds, and defendant required its front seat-backs towithstand at least 6,600 pounds; (2) the front seat-backs in the1998 Cavalier could withstand 11,000 pounds; (3) plaintiff's bodyweight at the time of the accident placed her in the 99thpercentile of body weights for both male and female drivers; and(4) the largest crash test dummy available when the 1998 Cavalierwas designed weighed 217 pounds, which was in the 95th percentileof male drivers. Plaintiff's and defendant's experts disagreedover whether plaintiff's body weight at the time of the accidentwas beyond the design range for the 1998 Cavalier front seats. Also, plaintiff and defendant presented conflicting interpretationsof data showing the frequency of rear-impact accidents resulting ininjuries due to collapsing seat backs.

Much of the testimony at trial reflected apparentlyirreconcilable differences between two schools of thought on seatresistance. Plaintiff's experts claimed that nonyielding seatsgenerally are safer because the occupant of a front seat canwithstand a much greater rear impact without injury while seatedupright than while in a prone position, which increase the riskfor neck injuries caused by a headfirst collision with thebackseat. Defendant's experts claimed that nonyielding seats placeoccupants at a far greater risk for whiplash injuries than doyielding seats. Yielding seats, they contended, also reduce thelikelihood that an occupant will rebound off the seat into theceiling of the car or into the steering wheel or dashboard. Plaintiff's experts testified that a nonyielding seat would haveprevented plaintiff's injuries. Defendant's experts insisted thatplaintiff would have been paralyzed even with a nonyielding seatbecause the force of the impact would have "ramped" her headfirstinto the ceiling of the car.

Nonpublishable material omitted here.

After the jury rendered a general verdict in favor ofdefendant on all counts of plaintiff's complaint, the jury answered

several special interrogatories in the negative. The interrogatories relevant here are the following (the numbering isadded here for convenience):

(1) "Was the seat in plaintiff's 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier designed by General Motors unreasonably dangerous?"

(2) "Was General Motors negligent in the design of theseat in plaintiff's 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier?"

(3) "Did General Motors fail to exercise ordinary carefor the safety of the plaintiff, Jennifer Andrade?"

(4) "Did General Motors fail to adequately warn theplaintiff about the dangers, if any, of its product of whichit knew, or in the exercise of ordinary care, should haveknown?"

(5) "Was the conduct of Jerry Vojtech the sole proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries?"

Plaintiff claims there is an inconsistency between the generalverdict and the answer to special interrogatory No. (5) becausedefendant and Jerry Vojtech were the only proximate causes that thejury legitimately could consider. If the jury found a proximatecause other than Vojtech, plaintiff contends, that cause must havebeen defendant. Denying plaintiff's motion for a new trial basedon the alleged inconsistency, the trial court found:

"[I]t is logical that 12 lay people may conclude that the severity of the accident, the relative sizes of the car, thespeeds involved or any other number of factors might have beensomehow causative and, as a consequence, conclude that Mr.Vojtech in his actions *** was not the sole proximate cause."

The trial court's ruling on a motion for new trial will not beoverturned unless it amounted to an abuse of discretion. Tedeschiv. Burlington Northern R.R. Co., 282 Ill. App. 3d 445, 448 (1996). We reject plaintiff's argument for two reasons. First, weagree with defendant that the issue of whether the design of the1998 Chevrolet Cavalier's front seats contributed to plaintiff'sinjuries was mooted by the jury's finding that the seats were notunreasonably dangerous and that defendant's design of the seats didnot constitute a lapse of ordinary care. An essential element ofstrict liability and failure to warn is that the product causingthe plaintiff's injury was unreasonably dangerous. See Hansen v.Baxter Healthcare Corp., 309 Ill. App. 3d 869, 880-81 (1999); Sorcev. Naperville Jeep Eagle, Inc., 309 Ill. App. 3d 313, 327 (1999). An essential element of negligence is that the conduct of thedefendant that caused the plaintiff's injury constituted a lapse ofordinary care. See Lode v. Mercanio, 77 Ill. App. 3d 150, 154(1979). Plaintiff does not challenge the sufficiency of theevidence supporting the jury's findings on these elements withrespect to the strict liability and negligence counts. Althoughplaintiff does challenge the sufficiency of the evidence concerningthe failure-to-warn count and asks that a judgment notwithstandingthe verdict be entered on that count, we reject that argument. Because plaintiff has not successfully challenged the jury'sfinding that defendant was at fault in designing the driver's seatin the Cavalier, the issue of whether plaintiff's injuries werecaused by the design of that seat is moot.

Even if we were to reach plaintiff's allegation of aninconsistency between the general verdict and the jury's answer tospecial interrogatory No. (5), we would reject the argument. "Whenthe special finding of fact is inconsistent with the generalverdict, the former controls the latter and the court may enterjudgment accordingly." 735 ILCS 5/2--1108 (West 2000). However,a general verdict and a special interrogatory are inconsistent onlywhen the answer to the interrogatory is clearly and absolutelyirreconcilable with the general verdict. Kessling v. United States Cheerleaders Ass'n, 274 Ill. App. 3d 776, 779 (1995). Allpresumptions are given in favor of the general verdict. Kessling,274 Ill. App. 3d at 779-80. When a special interrogatory does notcover all the issues submitted to the jury, and a "reasonablehypothesis" can resolve the alleged inconsistency, the specialinterrogatory will not control. Kessling, 274 Ill. App. 3d at 780.

The trial court instructed the jury pursuant to IllinoisPattern Jury Instructions, Civil, No. 15.01 (1995) (hereinafter IPICivil (1995)), which states:

"When I use the expression 'proximate cause,' I mean anycause which, in natural or probable sequence, produced theinjury complained of. It need not be the only cause, nor thelast or nearest cause. It is sufficient if it concurs withsome other cause acting at the same time, which in combinationwith it, causes the injury."

IPI Civil (1995) No. 15.01 places no limit on the number ofproximate causes a jury might find to have resulted in a particularinjury. Indeed, it is axiomatic that there may be more than oneproximate cause of an injury. See Bentley v. Saunemin Township, 83Ill. 2d 10, 17 (1980). Moreover, "proximate cause" is notsynonymous with "negligent cause." McDonnell v. McPartlin, 192Ill. 2d 505, 523 (2000). An injury may be caused by one or morenonnegligent, or nonhuman, causes. See McDonnell, 192 Ill. 2d at523.

We disagree with plaintiff that the instructions given by thecourt did not permit the jury to consider nonnegligent or nonhumancauses in reaching its findings. Plaintiff claims that suchconsideration was foreclosed by IPI Civil (1995) No. 12.04, whichstates:

"More than one person may be to blame for causing aninjury. If you decide that the defendant was negligent andthat his negligence was a proximate cause of injury to theplaintiff, it is not a defense that some third person who isnot a party to the suit may also have been to blame.

However, if you decide that the sole proximate cause of injury to the plaintiff was the conduct of some person otherthan the defendant, then your verdict should be for thedefendant."

Plaintiff emphasizes the reference to "some person" and contrasts this instruction with IPI Civil (1995) No. 12.05, which theparties, after discussion, decided not to submit to the jury. Thatinstruction reads:

"If you decide that the defendant was negligent and thathis negligence was a proximate cause of injury to theplaintiff, it is not a defense that something else may alsohave been a cause of the injury.

However, if you decide that the sole proximate cause of injury to the plaintiff was something other than the conductof the defendant, then your verdict should be for thedefendant."

Plaintiff suggests that, since IPI Civil (1995) No. 12.05 was notgiven, the jury should not have considered "something," i.e., anonnegligent cause, to have been the cause of plaintiff's injuries. We see no such limitation in any of the instructions given to thejury. IPI Civil (1995) No. 12.04 instructs the jury to find forthe defendant if it determines that a human agent other than thedefendant was the sole proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury. The instruction itself neither explicitly nor implicitly bars thejury from finding for defendant upon determining that plaintiff'sinjuries were brought about not by any negligent conduct bydefendant but by the negligence of Jerry Vojtech combined with oneor more nonnegligent causes. Even in the absence of IPI Civil(1995) No. 12.05, the jury could consider any cause that met thebroad definition of "proximate cause" contained in IPI Civil (1995)No. 15.01, which does not distinguish between negligent andnonnegligent causes.

The evidence revealed several nonnegligent causes at work inplaintiff's injuries. According to the expert testimony thatdefendant presented at trial, the force that reclined the frontseat and propelled plaintiff into the rear seat was the product ofseveral factors including the speed of the Taurus, the relativeweights of the Taurus and the Cavalier, the strength of the seat inwhich plaintiff sat, and plaintiff's body weight. Dr. Joseph Rice,a mechanical engineer, testified as follows:

"Q. What is your understanding with regard to theseverity of this accident relative to all rear impacts *** ?

A. Well, the percentile in terms of the change in velocity is probably about 98, 95th to 98th percentile. Andthat's talking about reported accidents.

* * *

Ms. Andrade is larger than a 95th percentile male in terms of her body mass, so the combination ends up on to [sic] pretty extreme--pretty high percentile of occurrences.

Q. When you say 'the combination', you're talkingabout the severity of the impact in combination with the load youput on the seat?

A. Yes."

Dr. Smith, an automotive engineer, described how the rearcollision caused plaintiff's seat to collapse:

"The car--her car, will come forward. She will want to remain stationary until her seatback and her seat itself comeforward and catch her, or tries [sic] to push her.  

She will resist that with her weight. She will resist that against the seatback with what is considered to be someportion of her mass, typically taken at 60 percent, somepeople use 70 percent, but 60 percent of the 200 and--260pounds, she would then resist being moved and that creates aneffective force against the seatback.

In this case, at 26 to 30 miles an hour Delta V, that force is considerable.

It will--it will yield or it will yield a calculational number of between 25,000 and 30,000 inch pounds of loading onthe seat, depending on whether you use 26 miles an hour DeltaV, or 28 miles Delta V.

The seat design per GM, as you heard from [Dr.] Rice, their standard is double of the [Federal Motor Vehicle SafetyStandard], or 6,000 pounds.

Now, this seat will withstand more than that, but that's the minimum design range for GM.

But even beyond that, it's not going to resist 25,000 to 30,000 inch pounds.

And so the seat will begin to yield. It will begin to yield as she loads it. 

* * *

And as the seat goes back further then, she will come up and this will allow her to slide and go up and impact with herhead towards the back."

In both opening and closing arguments, counsel for defendantidentified several causes involved in plaintiff's injuries. Inopening argument, counsel stated:

"What you're going to learn in this case is that the realcause of the injuries here is not an unreasonably dangerousdesign of the seat because you'll hear from the evidence whythis is a proper design ***.  So you're going to--we need to tell you more about the magnitude of this impact, the severity of the impactbecause it was a severe, high-speed impact. And you're goingto learn that the real cause of Jennifer's injury was theseverity of this impact. The fact that Mr. Jerry Vojtechdriving that Ford Taurus drove into the back side of theAndrade car, he was the sole cause in effect--"

At this point, plaintiff's counsel objected on the ground that theremarks were "conclusory." The court sustained the objection. Counsel for defendant continued:

"You're going to see from the evidence that the seatdeformed and absorbed energy. And we're going to explain thedifference between a collapse of a seat and a yield, adeformation, a bending of the seat. ***

* * *

You'll see that the driver's seat did not collapse. *** You'll see evidence that the driver's seat did not cause theplaintiff's injuries in this case. And you'll see evidencethat Mr. Vojtech, the driver of that bullet car, the Taurus,caused the accident and Ms. Andrade's injuries, that he wasthe sole cause of her injuries.

* * *

*** [Jerry Vojtech] never saw the Cavalier before he hitit.  So it was a big hit according to the evidence, a huge hit into the back of that Cavalier. It was a very high-speedimpact that is the cause of Ms. Andrade's injuries in thiscase.

* * *

*** G, remember, is the acceleration due to gravity.  Thirty-two feet per second per second. *** And that's the kind of G's or what accelerated this car.  G's are what put the force into this car. G's are what causedthe deformation of the seat.

* * *

It's this 28-to-30-mile-per-hour Delta V that Ms. Andrade was exposed to. That change in velocity of her car is anextremely high Delta V. ***

* * *

*** [Dr. Smith] will explain to you that the same forces act on a car when it's lifted to the very top of the roof ofa three-story building and then dropped *** three stories. It's the same force that Mr. Vojtech put into the back side ofthe Cavalier in this accident.  In addition to having large speed, there was also a large load in this case. That is the size--the force has to do withboth acceleration, change in speed, and mass, weight, which iseffectively weight, divided by acceleration. And so you needto consider both the weight that is acting on the seat andalso the speed that is acting on the seat and now let's talkabout the load, the weight that is acting on the seat and thatis also unusual. That is, it was also a high load.

Ms. Andrade weighed 260 pounds at the time of theaccident and that made her a 99 percentile woman. That is tosay, 99 percent of women weigh less than that. So we have a99-percentile accident with an impact speed with a 99-percentile occupant. That's very rare. It's unique."

In closing argument, defendant's counsel stated:

"It's our position, as we said in opening statement andsaid throughout this case, that we believe that General Motorsdid not cause Ms. Andrade's injury, that the real cause hereis that this is a real high-speed impact. No matter whatanyone says about the severity of this collision, we know thatit's way up into the 90th, 95th, 98th percentile of allaccidents, the severity of it.

And it's our position that the real sole cause of Ms. Andrade's injury is Mr. Vojtech, who ran into her. And,moreover, that the seat did not cause the plaintiff'sinjuries. The seat, even if it was designed differently,wouldn't have prevented the plaintiff's injuries.

* * *

*** [A] special interrogatory that you're going to beasked to answer and sign is whether, *** if you were to findthat there was something unreasonably dangerous about theseat, then you go on to whether it's a cause of Ms. Andrade'sinjuries in this case, whether it's a proximate cause. Whether some unreasonably dangerous condition of that seat bynatural and probable sequence caused her injury is the issueyou need to decide. That is, was it the seat or was it theseverity of the collision? Was it Mr. Vojtech that was thereal and sole proximate cause?

* * *

And then the last issues we believe are whether Mr. Vojtech caused the accident and her injuries and whether hisconduct was the sole proximate cause of her injuries. Plaintiff's counsel in closing argument suggests that[Vojtech] didn't have anything to do with her injury. He justcaused the accident and not her injury. Well, if he had beenpaying attention *** he wouldn't have hit her so hard. Wouldn't have bashed into the rear end. Wouldn't have hadmore energy available to deform the seat like it did.

So, as I said on opening, the focus here is on the severity of the collision, the high speed of this accident andhow it stacks up in relationship to the range of accidents. Mr. Vojtech, who didn't ever see the Cavalier before he it,caused a very severe collision. ***

* * *

Again, it's our position that this was a very high-speed collision that caused very large forces. Delta V, 26 to 30. Cavalier goes from standing still up to a speed of about 28miles per hour, gets accelerated so fast in a tenth of asecond to a sixth of a second, between a hundred millisecondsand about a hundred and sixty milliseconds, much less than theblink of an eye, goes from zero up to 28. Big wack [sic] tothe back, tends to put a lot of load on that seatback as ittries to push Ms. Andrade forward. Everybody agreed that theload on the seatback was high.

* * *

So, in summary, it's our position that while this is a horrible injury, General Motors is not at fault for it. Theresponsibility for the accident is with Mr. Vojtech. Hecaused this high-speed collision. He generated these veryhigh forces on Ms. Andrade's car and on her seat. The seatdeformed and it yielded as designed as a result of these highforces, not as a result of failure."

The jury reasonably could find that one or more of thenonnegligent causes referenced in the testimony of defendant'sexperts and the arguments of counsel had combined with theinattention of Jerry Vojtech in causing plaintiff's injuries. Sucha finding would be perfectly consistent with the general verdict infavor of defendant. That is, the jury logically could have foundthat defendant was not negligent in designing its automobile seatsand, yet, that plaintiff's injuries would not have occurred but for(1) the weight limitation of the seats, and (2) Vojtech'snegligence. The jury, that is, could have found that plaintiff'sinjuries were the result of Vojtech's negligent conduct anddefendant's nonnegligent conduct.

Although counsel for defendant at times remarked thatVojtech's conduct was the sole proximate cause of plaintiff'sinjuries, these remarks could not have limited the scope of thejury's consideration of possible causes. "It is the exclusiveprovince of the trial court to instruct the jury as to the law, andit is not the function of counsel to do so." Lounsbury v. Yorro,124 Ill. App. 3d 745, 748 (1984). The instructions given by thetrial court allowed for consideration of causes besides Vojtech'sconduct--indeed, of any cause that met the definition of "proximatecause" in IPI Civil (1995) No. 15.01. Consequently, we find noinconsistency between the general verdict and the special finding.

Simmons v. Garces, 198 Ill. 2d 541 (2002), does not warrant adifferent conclusion. In Simmons, plaintiff sued defendant, aphysician, for wrongful death, claiming that defendant's negligencewas the proximate cause of the death of plaintiff's baby daughter,LaTonya. Plaintiff adduced evidence at trial that she consulteddefendant over the phone and in person intermittently over thecourse of an entire day because LaTonya was drowsy, had diarrhea,and refused to eat. Defendant initially told plaintiff to feedLaTonya a particular brand of baby formula. When LaTonya refusedthe formula, plaintiff again consulted defendant, who told her totry a different baby formula and, failing that, to take LaTonya tothe emergency room because she might be dehydrated. Plaintiffbrought LaTonya to the emergency room without feeding her moreformula. LaTonya was found dead on arrival.

Plaintiff presented the testimony of the pathologist whoconducted the autopsy. The pathologist testified that LaTonya diedof dehydration due to gastroenteritis. Plaintiff also called anindependent expert, Dr. Given, who agreed that LaTonya's death wasdue to dehydration and opined that defendant's failure to have thechild hospitalized for the administration of intravenous fluids wasmore likely than not the cause of the child's death. Defendant'sexperts opined that LaTonya's death was caused not by dehydrationbut hypothermia, or possibly suffocation.

According to the jury instructions, the plaintiff's claim wasthat the defendant was negligent in failing to refer LaTonya to aphysician or hospital for examination, diagnosis, or IV treatment. The trial court gave the jury IPI Civil (2000) No. 15.01 in itsentirety. At the defendant's request and over the plaintiff'sobjection, the court submitted the following special interrogatory:"Did dehydration contribute to cause the death of LaTonya King?" Simmons, 198 Ill. 2d at 553. The jury returned a general verdictin favor of the plaintiff but answered the special interrogatory inthe negative. The trial court found the general verdictirreconcilable with the special finding and granted the defendant'smotion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The supreme courtagreed that there was an inconsistency:

"Plaintiffs here presented the testimony of one expert,Dr. Given, who opined that LaTonya was severely dehydrated andthat this contributed to her death. According to Dr. Given,it was more likely than not that LaTonya would have survivedif Dr. Garces had intervened with appropriate IV fluids.

*** [P]laintiffs presented no expert testimonyestablishing any cause of death other than dehydration. Inaddition, while defendant's experts did suggest other possiblecauses, i.e., hypothermia and suffocation, plaintiff'sattorney disputed these theories in closing argument. Moreover, the trial record reveals no expert testimonyestablishing that Dr. Garces would have been to blame ifLaTonya died from either of these other causes. Plaintiffs'counsel conceded as much when, in arguing against the givingof the special interrogatory, he stated that if the jurythought LaTonya died of suffocation, 'there's been notestimony from the plaintiffs that suffocation would make thedoctor responsible, so [the jurors] wouldn't even get to this. They would be on verdict form B [in favor of Dr. Garces].' Absent expert testimony linking Dr. Garces' conduct to deathby hypothermia or suffocation, and given the jury's rejectionof dehydration as a cause of death, there is no reasonablehypothesis remaining on which to reconcile the jury's specialfinding with the general verdict." Simmons, 198 Ill. 2d at557.

We find Simmons distinguishable from the present case. Thespecial finding in Simmons that dehydration was not a cause of thevictim's death conflicted with the general verdict in favor ofplaintiff because dehydration was the only cause of deathidentified by plaintiff's expert testimony and the only causeargued by plaintiff's counsel. Here, the special finding that theconduct of Jerry Vojtech was not the sole proximate cause ofplaintiff's injuries did not contradict the general verdict infavor of defendant because the expert testimony presented bydefendant identified several nonnegligent factors that,concurrently with Vojtech's conduct, caused the collision and theresulting collapse of plaintiff's seat. Counsel for defendantstressed throughout its opening and closing arguments thatplaintiff's injuries were the result of a confluence of causes thatincluded Vojtech's negligence, the speed of the Taurus, therelative weights of the vehicles, plaintiff's own body weight, andthe strength of her seat. While counsel for defendant repeatedlystated that Vojtech's conduct was the sole proximate cause ofplaintiff's injuries, counsel also repeatedly linked Vojtech'sconduct with two particular causal factors: the speed of the Taurusand the severity of the collision. Moreover, counsel identifiedother causal factors for which Vojtech, obviously, could have hadno responsibility, i.e., the weight limitations of the seat andplaintiff's body weight. We see nothing in the jury instructionsthat precluded the jury from finding that these nonnegligentcauses, in combination with Vojtech's negligence, causedplaintiff's injuries. Therefore, we see no inconsistency betweenthe general verdict in favor of defendant and the special findingthat Vojtech was not the sole proximate cause of plaintiff'sinjuries. Because there was in fact no inconsistency for the trialcourt to resolve, we also reject plaintiff's argument that thetrial court should have submitted additional interrogatories to thejury in light of the special finding.

Plaintiff's remaining contentions on appeal, as well asdefendant's contention on its cross-appeal, are addressed in anunpublished portion of this disposition.

Nonpublishable material omitted here.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the circuit courtof Lake County is affirmed.

Affirmed.

BOWMAN and BYRNE, JJ., concur.