Sutter v. State

In Sutter v. State (1996), 48 Ill. Ct. Cl. 84, the accident also occurred on a weekend morning and failure to respond in a timely manner was alleged. A call from the county police was received by IDOT regarding water on the roadway about 90 minutes before Claimant's accident. Both parties agreed to this fact. The IDOT supervisor who received the message and his subordinate were called to testify as to the particulars of the communications. The evidence indicated there was some debate as to IDOT's maintenance jurisdiction of the bridge in question which led to a delay of some 20 minutes in response time by employees called from their homes to respond. Sutter found that, "So long as the IDOT employees conducted themselves in a reasonably diligent manner in relation to the known hazard and circumstances, we cannot hold them to a greater duty." Id. at 97.