Fratto v. Illinois Sports Facilities Authority

2026 IL App (1st) 241979-U
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided January 28, 2026·No. 1-24-1979·Unpublished

Opinion

2026 IL App (1st) 241979-U

FIFTH DIVISION

January 28, 2026

No. 1-24-1979

NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).

IN THE

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST DISTRICT

ROSA FRATTO, )

) Appeal from the Plaintiff-Appellant, ) Circuit Court of ) Cook County

v. )

) No. 22 L 005816 ILLINOIS SPORTS FACILITIES AUTHORITY, ) CHICAGO WHITE SOX, LTD., AND CWS ) The Honorable MAINTENANCE COMPANY, ) Michael F. Otto, ) Judge, presiding.

Defendants-Appellees. )

JUSTICE TAILOR delivered the judgment of the court.

Presiding Justice Mitchell and Justice Mikva concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

¶1 Held: The judgment of the trial court is reversed. The trial court erred when it granted summary judgment to defendants because questions of fact exist about whether the dangerous condition on defendants’ premises was open and obvious and whether the distraction exception applies.

¶2 I. BACKGROUND

¶3 This appeal stems from a negligence action brought by Rosa Fratto against Defendants Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, Chicago White Sox, Ltd., and CWS Maintenance Company after she tripped and fell on their property.

¶4 For 29 years, Rosa Fratto sold concessions during White Sox baseball games at Guaranteed Rate Field. Her daughter, Elena Mancari, also worked at Guaranteed Rate Field during the games. They were both seasonal employees, employed by a food and beverage company called Illinois Sportservice.

¶5 On October 29, 2021, Fratto and Mancari went to Guaranteed Rate Field to return their employee identification badges to their employer at the end of the baseball season. To get to the Illinois Sportservice office inside the stadium, they walked down the same service tunnel they had used to get to the office at the start of each one of their shifts. The tunnel was approximately 20 to 25 feet wide, and was used as a pedestrian walkway, a cart path, and for storage. Items were stored along the outer wall of the tunnel, and a clear path for pedestrians and cart traffic was left open towards the inner wall of the tunnel. Defendants’ witness described the service tunnel as a “living, breathing, active area.”

¶6 As Fratto and Mancari walked through the tunnel, nothing obstructed their pathway to the Illinois Sportservice office. Then, Mancari noticed a large mural depicting a life-size image of star Chicago White Sox player, José Abreu, on the right side of the tunnel. The mural was approximately eight feet tall, and was supported by a frame made of two by four lumber. The legs of the frame were also made of two by four lumber. The legs were painted white, were attached to

either side of the mural frame, and extended behind and in front of the mural, with the front legs protruding into about the center of the tunnel.

¶7 During the 2021 baseball season, the Abreu mural, along with other life-size murals of White Sox players, were displayed on the concourse level of the Guaranteed Rate Field. The murals attracted patrons to stand in front of them and have their pictures taken. However, the record is not clear how the murals were displayed on the concourse level, including whether the same two by four lumber was used to hold the murals upright and whether the lumber protruded into the concourse level tunnel used by the many hundreds and thousands of baseball patrons at any given time during a game. The mural was to be sold at auction at the end of the White Sox baseball season, and was stored in the service tunnel, along with other murals behind it, until then. That is where Fratto and Mancari encountered the Abreu mural.

¶8 As Fratto and Mancari were walking in the service tunnel, Mancari grabbed Fratto’s arm, pointed out the Abreu mural as they were directly in front of it, and asked Fratto if she would like her picture taken in front of it. Fratto said yes, walked over to the mural, and stood between the white legs of the mural’s frame to have her photo taken. After Mancari took the photo, Fratto turned right to walk away and tripped over the mural’s leg. She was not paying attention to where she was walking and did not see the white wooden leg in front of her before she fell. During her deposition, Fratto said she was not distracted by anything at the time she fell; she only remembered talking to her daughter.

¶9 Surveillance footage captured Fratto and Mancari approaching the Abreu mural, Fratto walking to the mural to stand in front of it, and Fratto’s fall. From the video it appears that Fratto was looking directly at the mural and not at its wooden supporting base constructed of two by four

lumber. When she was shown a video of the incident during her deposition, Fratto admitted that the mural’s white legs were visible.

¶ 10 When Mancari was shown the photo she took of Fratto standing in front of the mural during her deposition, she admitted that the legs attached to the artwork appeared “white and a different color than the floor” and that the mural’s legs did not blend into the floor. Although she conceded that the lighting in the tunnel was not inadequate, she did not see the mural’s leg before Fratto tripped over it because she was “just distracted with taking the picture.” When Mancari was shown a video of the incident, she initially said the white legs of the mural were visible, but then said the whitish-gray hue of the concrete floor of the tunnel and the white legs of the mural “blended together” and made it difficult to see the legs.

¶ 11 Fratto, who sustained injuries as a result of her fall, filed suit against Defendants, alleging that they were negligent for failing to warn of an unreasonably dangerous condition and for allowing the walkway to remain in an unsafe condition. Defendants responded that they owed no duty to Fratto because the mural’s legs constituted an open and obvious dangerous condition, to which no exception applied.

¶ 12 On May 22, 2024, the trial court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. It concluded, based on the video evidence, photographic evidence and deposition testimony, that the tripping hazard was “open and obvious.” The court noted that “the legs of the mural were painted a bright white. That is plain in both the still photo and the video. And they were in contrast to the floor, which was not white. It was sort of a yellowish gray. And they were painted several inches high.”

¶ 13 The court noted that there “really hasn’t been any argument that the deliberate encounter exception applies,” but nevertheless found there was “no evidence” that Fratto had to encounter

the mural, because “[t]here was more than sufficient room in which Mrs. Fratto could have proceeded without encountering the mural or the tripping hazard.”

¶ 14 Next, the court considered whether the distraction exception applied. It noted that Fratto “expressly testified that she was not distracted at the time she fell” and that “all she remembered looking at was her daughter.” It found “no evidence *** that would have given any of the defendants reason to foresee that Ms. Fratto or anybody would have been distracted by a family member.”

¶ 15 In addition, the court found that although additional steps, like adding caution tape on the mural’s legs would have imposed a “minimal burden” on Defendants, the consequences of guarding against all open and obvious conditions on their property would be significant. Therefore, the trial court found, as a matter of law, that Defendants owed no duty to Fratto and granted their motion for summary judgment.

¶ 16 After the court denied Fratto’s motion for reconsideration, she timely appealed.

¶ 17 II. ANALYSIS

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Fratto v. Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, 2026 IL App (1st) 241979-U (Ill. Ct. App. 2026).

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