Full title: DORIS M. ANTAL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MATTIE L. TAYLOR…
Court: Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District. Reversed and remanded
Date published: May 21, 1986
Facts
Plaintiff, Doris Antal, appeals from an order of the circuit court of Macon County dismissing her personal injury complaint.
The plaintiff filed suit against Mattie L. Taylor, and defendant Taylor filed an answer and a counterclaim against the plaintiff’s husband, Tibor Antal, who had been driving the plaintiff’s car at the time of the accident. Defendant Taylor then filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the plaintiff had executed a release, which was a bar to any cause of action against the defendant. By agreement of the parties, the issue of the legal effect of the plaintiff’s general release was submitted to the trial court on the pleadings, affidavits, and plaintiff’s discovery deposition.
Issue
Decision
Under the law of Illinois, where there was a mistake as to the scope and extent of the known injuries, a clause in the release covering unanticipated consequences should not be a bar to setting aside the release. ( Reede v. Treat (1965), 62 Ill. App.2d 120, 210 N.E.2d 833.) Without dispute, the plaintiff was compensated only for her car repairs in consideration of the execution of the release. It is hard to imagine a situation where a mutual mistake of fact could be more clearly established.
Accordingly, we conclude that the release, in this case, was not a bar to the plaintiff’s cause of action for personal injuries. The trial court erred in granting the motion to dismiss. We reverse the dismissal order and remand for further proceedings.
It was reversed and remanded.
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