Opinion
No. 01 C 7865
May 3, 2004
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
J. C. Reed committed suicide in a City of Chicago police lockup on November 12, 2000, by hanging himself with an isolation gown. Since the filing of this action considerable effort has gone into determining who manufactured and who distributed the gown. Plaintiff contends that Cypress Medical Products, Ltd., or Cypress Medical Products, Inc. (Cypress), may have manufactured the gowns and Edwards Medical Supply, Inc. (Edwards) was the Cypress distributor. She has named them as defendants.
Those defendants have now moved for summary judgment. The time frame indicates that they could have been involved. Cypress gowns were distributed to the City beginning May 13, 2000. Prior to that date, however, the City relied upon other suppliers. The moving defendants claim the implicated gown must have come from one of the earlier supplies; it has a tag indicating it was manufactured in Thailand and their gowns were manufactured only in China or Taiwan and had no tags.
Plaintiff does not dispute that the implicated gown has the Thailand tag. She relies, rather, upon an interrogatory answer of the City, which states that the implicated gown was, manufactured by Cypress and distributed by Edwards. The answers, however, are not under oath, although they should have been. They are signed by an assistant corporation counsel, who we can assume has no personal knowledge about the source of the gown. Apparently the information was provided by Daniel McKernan — another answer so indicates. And if that is not so, counsel can and should so advise plaintiff's counsel. We think the best way to clear this up is to take a short deposition of the person who provided the information in the interrogatory answer as to the basis for it. While plaintiff may well be pursuing a vain hope, we think she is entitled to clarification. The motion for summary judgment is, for now, denied.