Lemmenes v. Orland Fire Protection District

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State: Illinois

Court: 1st District Appellate

Docket No: 1-09-1133 Rel

Case Date: 03/23/2010

Preview:SECOND DIVISION MARCH 23, 2010 1-09-1133 BRIAN J. LEMMENES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ORLAND FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT, and BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE ORLAND FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT, Defendants-Appellants. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County.

No. 06 CH 14847

Honorable Richard J. Billik, Judge Presiding.

PRESIDING JUSTICE CUNNINGHAM delivered the modified opinion of the court upon denial of petition for rehearing: This appeal arises from the grant of a motion for summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff, Brian Lemmenes, against the defendants Orland Fire Protection District and the Board of Trustees of the Orland Fire Protection District (collectively, Orland Fire) by the circuit court of Cook County. On appeal, Orland Fire argues that the circuit court erred in finding that the requirements for health insurance coverage benefits under section 10(b) of the Public Safety Employee Benefits Act were satisfied (820 ILCS 320/10(b) (West 2006)). For the following reasons, we affirm the ruling of the circuit court of Cook County. BACKGROUND On August 17, 2001, the plaintiff was serving as a lieutenant with Orland Fire when he injured his right knee in the course of testing a fire hose. The plaintiff's job duties at that time involved fire suppression activities and emergency medical services. On September 17, 2002, the plaintiff re-injured his right knee during a training exercise. The training exercise was performed

1-09-1133 at an abandoned industrial building in Mokena, Illinois, and firefighters from different fire departments simultaneously participated in the training. Orland Fire used this training exercise to partially fulfill its training requirements under the Illinois Department of Labor guidelines. At the plaintiff's discovery deposition, he testified that he was required to participate in the September 17, 2002 training exercise as a part of his firefighting duties, and that he would have been disciplined had he refused to participate. On that day, the plaintiff and other Orland Fire firefighters arrived at the location of the training exercise on a fire engine with its emergency warning lights activated. The plaintiff testified that the training exercise was "done under emergency

circumstances" and that Mokena's assistant fire chief, Howard Stephens, informed the firefighters to "respond as if it were an actual emergency." The plaintiff was also informed that "there was a firefighter that was trapped inside [the] building, *** that he was running out of air, that his personal distress alarm was going off, and that [the firefighters] needed to locate him and rescue him or he would perish." The plaintiff further testified that he suffered his knee injury while "twisting and turning and pulling this individual[,] trying to free him" from an unknown restraint. Howard Stephens' deposition testimony revealed that he designed and oversaw the September 17, 2002 training exercise in Mokena, Illinois. He testified that the training exercise was modeled after a real-life fire tragedy in Phoenix, Arizona, during which Phoenix firefighters were unsuccessful in rescuing a fellow firefighter from a burning industrial building. The purpose of the training exercise, while not disclosed to the firefighters, was to impress upon them that rescue techniques employed in a residential building could not be used in an industrial setting. Stephens stated that the firefighters arrived at the training location in "full turn out gear," as they would have 2

1-09-1133 in an actual emergency situation, and that the firefighters' masks were "blacked out" during the training exercise in order to simulate "live fire situations." However, nothing was actually on fire during the training exercise. Subsequently, the plaintiff underwent knee surgery but was unable to return to full-duty work as a lieutenant at Orland Fire. In August 2004, the plaintiff was awarded a line-of-duty disability pension benefit from the Orland Fire pension fund. On July 27, 2005,1 the plaintiff applied for a continuation of health insurance coverage benefits under the Public Safety Employee Benefits Act (820 ILCS 320/10 (West 2006)), which Orland Fire subsequently denied. In September 2005, the plaintiff's employment with Orland Fire terminated. On July 25, 2006, the plaintiff filed a declaratory judgment action in the circuit court of Cook County against Orland Fire, requesting that Orland Fire be ordered to pay health insurance premiums on behalf of the plaintiff and his dependents pursuant to section 10 of the Public Safety Employee Benefits Act (820 ILCS 320/10 (West 2006)), and that Orland Fire be ordered to reimburse the plaintiff for health insurance premiums which he paid in order to prevent his health insurance coverage from lapsing. In October 2008, the plaintiff and Orland Fire filed cross-motions for summary judgment. On April 8, 2009, the circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff and made the following pertinent findings: "[F]actual assertions concerning the conduct that [the]

Although it is unclear from the record on appeal, there is some indication that the plaintiff started applying for a continuation of health insurance benefits prior to this date. 3

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1-09-1133 plaintiff was engaged in at the time he sustained his injury, [the] plaintiff's view of the training exercise based upon what he was told by officials arranging for the exercise that day and the circumstances involved in setting up the training exercise that [the] plaintiff has cited to in his and [Stephens'] deposition transcripts are not contested and/or contradicted. Based upon the submissions, [the] plaintiff has demonstrated that there is no genuine issue of material fact that at the time [the] plaintiff sustained his injury and for purposes of application of [section 10(b)], [the] plaintiff was actively engaged as if he was responding to what could reasonably have been believed to have been an emergency situation because that is what the exercise required of him and he reasonably believed that he was responding to an emergency under the uncontradicted circumstances involved in the training exercise." On April 21, 2009, Orland Fire filed a timely notice of appeal before this court. On August 27, 2009, this court allowed the filing of an amicus curiae brief by the Associated Firefighters of Illinois. ANALYSIS The sole issue on appeal before this court is whether the requirements under section 10 of the Public Safety Employee Benefits Act (820 ILCS 320/10 (West 2006)) were satisfied so as to entitle the plaintiff and his dependents to health insurance coverage benefits. 4

1-09-1133 As an initial matter, the parties disagree on the proper standard of review. The plaintiff argues that we should apply a "manifest weight of the evidence" standard because Orland Fire, in its brief before this court, made a "factual dispute" that was unsupported by the record

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