SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (Legal Newsline) - A man who lost his leg in a forklift accident didn’t forfeit his right to sue a machinery distributor by denying the lawsuit in a personal bankruptcy filing, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled, upholding an appellate decision reversing a trial court’s dismissal of the case.
Darrius Duniver’s “no” answer on a Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing asking if he had any pending lawsuits “suggests confusion rather than deceit,” the court ruled in a Jan. 20 opinion by Justice Lisa Holder White. Duniver disclosed a pending workers’ compensation case in the filing and attempted to identify the law firm representing him, albeit by a misspelled name.
Duniver was injured in a 2017 workplace accident and sued a number of parties, including Clark Material Handling, Equipment Depot of Illinois and Neovia Logistics Services. He filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and Neovia moved to dismiss the case against it after discovering Duniver had denied any outstanding lawsuits to the bankruptcy court.
A trial judge agreed, dismissing the case because Duniver had no standing and any lawsuit belonged to his bankruptcy estate. An appeals court reversed, however, finding that the doctrine of judicial estoppel required the trial court to find Duniver received some benefit from the misstatement.
The Illinois Supreme Court agreed. Duniver disclosed his workers’ comp suit and the lawyers representing him, the high court noted, suggesting he was confused about whether he also had to disclose lawsuits stemming from the same accident. The court differentiated another case in which a plaintiff sued in Illinois, filed for bankruptcy in Arizona and then demanded a $1.2 million settlement in the Illinois action while denying having filed for bankruptcy. The plaintiff in that case was justly penalized for having “played fast and loose with the courts,” the Illinois Supreme Court said.
“When we consider all of the facts and circumstances of this case, there is ample room to conclude Duniver was indeed confused and intended no deceit,” the court concluded.