Opinion
No. 01 C 7865.
October 14, 2005
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Defendants Edwards Medical Supply, Inc. (Edwards), Cypress Medical Products, Ltd. and Cypress Medical Products, Inc. (collectively "Cypress"), move for summary judgment. That judgment is granted.
A major continuing issue in this case is who sold to the City of Chicago the isolation gown J.C. Reed used to hang himself. Edwards and Cypress insist it was not them and plaintiff has not presented enough evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that they are wrong.
An earlier summary judgment motion was denied because an answer by the City indicated that the gown came from these defendants. A subsequent deposition disclosed that the City really did not know; its answer was an assumption based on the fact that these defendants were the current suppliers at the time of the incident.
So, what do we know? We know that the gown had a label indicating it was manufactured in Thailand. An affiant and witness for these defendants has represented that their gowns did not have individual labels and that they were purchased from companies with manufacturing facilities in China and Taiwan. Plaintiff has not come up with any gowns clearly attributable to these defendants that have individual labels, much less any such gowns indicating they were manufactured in Thailand. Rather, she relies on the supposition that these defendants have not excluded the possibility that the Chinese or Taiwanese companies may have outsourced orders to Thailand. Of course, such outsourcing is a possibility, although it is highly unlikely that an Asian manufacturer would choose to have a product it is capable of manufacturing made by a concern in another country. But it is up to the plaintiff to prove the source of the gowns, and its supposition is at best a speculation insufficient to permit a reasonable jury to conclude that these defendants were in the chain of distribution of the isolation gown worn by the deceased.