An Illinois appellate court ruled that property owners owe no legal duty to safeguard unsupervised children who encounter open and obvious risks on the owner’s property, even if the child is too young to appreciate the danger.
Explains Illinois Appellate Court’s ruling to allow only limited use of Google Earth and other internet and satellite-based images as admissible evidence.
Describes changes in redaction requirements for all materials filed in Missouri courts from updates and revisions to the Missouri Rule of Civil Procedure.
Explains changes made to appropriate venues for challenging Illinois administrative rules, executive orders, and constitutionality of state laws. Includes pros and cons of those changes.
An Illinois appellate court held that for a premises owner to be liable, snow/ice accumulation must be considered an unnatural accumulation
In Tafoya-Cruz v. Temperance Beer Company, LLC, et al., 2020 Il App (1st) 190606, the Illinois Appellate Court First District recently upheld a trial court’s grant of summary judgment on the plaintiff’s slip-and-fall claim in favor of the defendant’s brewery. The decision is noteworthy because it provides a good example of defeating the argument of constructive notice, which is an essential element of many premises liability claims. The case also provides useful guidance for assessing whether a defendant’s internal policies/practices can trigger a legal duty to ...
On August 28, 2014, Patricia Watson suffered multiple facial fractures and other injuries while riding her bicycle in St. Peters, Missouri. Watson was riding on the sidewalk and flipped head-first over the handlebars when the front wheel of her bicycle went into a sump inlet that the City had installed on the sidewalk. Watson sued the City of St. Peters for negligence, alleging that the sump inlet was an unreasonably dangerous condition. To prevail on her claims, Watson had to establish: 1) a dangerous condition existed on the premises that was not reasonably safe; 2) the City knew of the ...
In Graham v. Lakeview Food Pantry, 2019 IL App (1st) 182003, the First District affirmed summary judgment for defendants, including the Catholic Bishop of Chicago (“the Archdiocese”), on plaintiff’s negligence complaint following a fall at defendant’s church. Ultimately, the court found that plaintiff’s claim against the Archdiocese was time-barred by the Illinois statute of repose for construction (735 ILCS 5/13-214(b) (West 2016) (“the statute”).
Case Summary
On January 17, 2015, plaintiff went to the Archdiocese’s church to accept food donations from ...
We’ve all heard of, or even litigated, those cases where someone does something ridiculous on another person’s property, injuring him or herself in the process, then sues the property owner as if it was somehow the owner’s fault. Rest assured, Illinois’ Second District Appellate Court was having none of this in its recent decision in Lee v. Lee, 2019 IL App (2d) 180923. The decision is noteworthy not only because the court applied the open and obvious defense to an ordinary negligence case, but also because the court sua sponte held as a matter of law—based solely on the ...
