Jackson v. Urban Investment Property Services

839 N.E.2d 650, 362 Ill. App. 3d 88, 298 Ill. Dec. 327
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 18, 2005
Docket1-03-3001
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 839 N.E.2d 650 (Jackson v. Urban Investment Property Services) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jackson v. Urban Investment Property Services, 839 N.E.2d 650, 362 Ill. App. 3d 88, 298 Ill. Dec. 327 (Ill. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

PRESIDING JUSTICE McNULTY

delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiff Dawn Jackson sued Urban Investment Property Services (Urban) and Designed Equipment Corporation (Designed) in negligence to recover for injuries she sustained when part of a scaffolding Urban leased from Designed fell on plaintiff outside of Urban’s property. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the fire fighter’s rule (sometimes called the inherent risk principle) barred plaintiff from recovering for her injuries because she was injured while performing her duties as a public officer. The trial court granted defendants’ motion and plaintiff appealed. We hold that when an officer responds to a call about a scaffold falling, the landowner is not liable in negligence to the officer for injuries caused by the scaffold falling on the officer. However, since Designed presented no evidence that it performed any activity on Urban’s premises, the record does not support application of the fire fighter’s rule to reheve Designed from liability Therefore, we affirm the circuit court’s ruling as to defendant Urban and reverse as to defendant Designed.

BACKGROUND

On April 7, 2001, plaintiff, a Chicago police sergeant, responded to a call that scaffolding was falling around a theater, damaging cars parked nearby. Defendant Urban owns the theater and defendant Designed leased the scaffolding equipment to Urban for renovations.

When she arrived at the scene, plaintiff observed debris, including plywood boards, scattered across the four-lane street. She also noticed a board flapping in the wind. After she spoke to another officer to determine what damage had occurred, plaintiff called for a building inspector. Plaintiff also radioed for additional police units to help her keep traffic off the street.

When the building inspector arrived at the scene, he discussed the situation with plaintiff and asked for some additional information. Plaintiff walked toward her squad car to retrieve the information. When she was about 15 feet from her car, a board flew off the scaffolding and struck her, injuring her severely. Plaintiff sued Urban and Designed, alleging that defendants negligently constructed and maintained the scaffolding.

In the motion for summary judgment, defendants asserted that the fire fighter’s rule barred plaintiff’s claim because plaintiff was performing her official duties when she suffered the injury Plaintiff replied that the fire fighter’s rule did not apply because she was never on defendants’ premises. Plaintiff also argued that, because courts have not extended the fire fighter’s rule beyond the context of owner and occupier liability, Designed could not use the rule to protect itself from liability.

The trial court found that the fire fighter’s rule relieved defendants of liability because the plaintiff “was not merely a traffic officer injured by a hazard unassociated with her duties.” She was a police officer on duty, responding to a call of debris falling from scaffolding, and “she was injured by that same debris from that property owned and or occupied by the Defendants, including Designed which was engaged in construction activity vis-a-vis the scaffold on Urban’s property on behalf of Urban.” (Emphasis in original). The trial court therefore granted defendants summary judgment.

ANALYSIS

On appeal, plaintiff asserts that defendants cannot avail themselves of the fire fighter’s rule because she was not on defendants’ premises when she was injured. Additionally, plaintiff contends that contested issues of fact, especially issues concerning the relation between her work and her injury, preclude summary judgment.

A trial court should grant summary judgment only if the pleadings, depositions, affidavits and admissions on file entitle the moving party to judgment as a matter of law. Boswell Memorial Hospital v. Bongiorno, 314 Ill. App. 3d 620, 621 (2000). We review de novo the decision to grant summary judgment. Bongiorno, 314 Ill. App. 3d at 621.

Under the fire fighter’s rule, “public officers may not recover from those whose negligence caused the emergency that required their presence when their injuries were caused by that emergency.” Knight v. Schneider National Carriers, Inc., 350 F. Supp. 2d 775, 780 (N.D. Ill. 2004). For example, “while a landowner owes a duty of reasonable care to maintain his property so as to prevent injury occurring to a fireman from a cause independent of the fire[,] he is not liable for negligence in causing the fire itself.” Washington v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 66 Ill. 2d 103, 108 (1976).

Plaintiff argues that we should apply the fire fighter’s rule narrowly because the legislature recently amended the Fire Investigation Act to state that “ftjhe owner or occupier of the premises and his or her agents owe fire fighters who are on the premises in the performance of their official duties *** a duty of reasonable care in the maintenance of the premises.” 425 ILCS 25/9f (West 2004). Plaintiff claims that the legislature, with this amendment, has rejected the fire fighter’s rule. As plaintiff concedes, the amendment on its face does not apply to this case as it addresses only the owner’s or occupier’s duty to fire fighters and not to police officers. The amendment does not affect the binding precedent concerning application of the fire fighter’s rule to police officers.

Our supreme court followed precedent involving the fire fighter’s rule in Fancil v. Q.S.E. Foods, Inc., 60 1Ill. 2d 552 (1975). In Fancil, burglars concealed on the defendant’s premises, outside its store, killed a police officer during the officer’s security check. The officer’s estate sued the store owner, alleging that the owner failed to provide adequate lighting for the store’s exterior. Our supreme court applied section 343 of Restatement (Second) of Torts, which provides:

“A possessor of land is subject to liability for physical harm caused to his invitees by a condition of the land *** only if *** the condition *** involves an unreasonable risk of harm to such invitees ***.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343 (1965).

The court, interpreting the phrase “unreasonable risk” in light of the fire fighter’s rule, held that a police officer conducting a security check should reasonably expect to encounter dangers like those created by the conditions on the defendant’s premises. Fancil, 60 Ill. 2d at 558. The court concluded that the danger was therefore “not an unreasonable risk for a police officer” and that the “officers realized the danger inherent in their occupation and protected themselves against it.” Fancil, 60 Ill. 2d at 558. Accordingly, the court affirmed the trial court’s decision dismissing the officer’s complaint.

Here, plaintiff did not actually enter onto defendant’s premises. She correctly argues that section 368 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, and not section 343, governs Urban’s liability. Section 368 provides:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
839 N.E.2d 650, 362 Ill. App. 3d 88, 298 Ill. Dec. 327, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jackson-v-urban-investment-property-services-illappct-2005.