Batelli v. Vill. of Addison
| Decision Date | 19 May 2022 |
| Docket Number | 2-21-0439 |
| Citation | 2022 IL App (1st) 210439 U |
| Parties | SANDRA BATELLI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VILLAGE OF ADDISON, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23(b) and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Du Page County. No. 20-L-470 Honorable Bryan S. Chapman, Judge, Presiding.
¶ 1 Held: Summary judgment for defendant municipality was proper on plaintiff s complaint that defendant was negligent because of the raised sidewalk slab on which plaintiff tripped. Defendant had no duty to guard against the danger. The slab was an open and obvious hazard, as it was raised more than one inch above the adjacent slab, and nothing obstructed plaintiffs view of it as she walked. Also the danger from the slab did not justify the enormous burden of inspecting sidewalks regularly enough to prevent such defects.
¶ 2 Plaintiff, Sandra Batelli, appeals from an order of the circuit court of Du Page County entering summary judgment for defendant, the Village of Addison (Village), in her personal-injury lawsuit. The trial court concluded that the Village was entitled to judgment as a matter of law because (1) the hazardous condition on the Village's property that led to plaintiffs injury was open and obvious and (2) the Village lacked constructive notice of the condition. We conclude that the condition at issue was open and obvious and that the Village had no duty to protect plaintiff from it. We therefore affirm.
¶ 4 Plaintiff testified at her discovery deposition that, on the evening of July 29, 2019, she went for a walk with her friend, Angela Mastrolonardo. While walking on the sidewalk along Lake Street in Addison, plaintiff tripped over a raised sidewalk slab and fell, injuring herself. Plaintiff went back to the scene of the accident about a week later and observed the sidewalk slab that she tripped over. It was raised by about three inches. However, during her deposition, she was shown a photograph of the slab with a measuring stick next to it. She acknowledged that the photograph showed that the slab was raised by less than two inches.
¶ 5 Plaintiff testified that when she fell, she was looking forward because she and Mastrolonardo were about to cross the street. Plaintiff was looking straight ahead "[t] o make sure there wasn't [sic] cars going to be turning." The record establishes that the intersection they were about to cross was about 15 to 20 feet ahead of the location where plaintiff fell. Plaintiff was asked, "Was there anybody [sic] obstructing that raised sidewalk such as shadows, landscaping, debris, garbage, anything of that nature?" Plaintiff answered, "No." She acknowledged that, if she had been looking down, she would have been able to see the raised slab.
¶ 6 Mastrolonardo testified at her discovery deposition that she and plaintiff went for a walk on the evening of July 29, 2019. After plaintiff fell, Mastrolonardo noticed that the sidewalk was not level where the slabs met. Mastrolonardo prepared a verified statement in which she asserted that the deviation in the sidewalk was approximately two to three inches at the place where plaintiff fell. In contrast, she testified at her deposition that the displacement between the slabs was an inch or less, but "you could totally see that it was uneven." She admitted that she never measured the displacement between the sidewalk slabs. She also testified that it was still light out when plaintiff fell and that Mastrolonardo had no difficulty seeing where she was going as she was walking along the sidewalk.
¶ 7 Rick Federighi testified at his discovery deposition that he was director of public works for the Village. The department of public works has eight divisions, including the street division, which is responsible for the maintenance of sidewalks. The Village is responsible for approximately 220, 000 sidewalk squares and tries to replace about 1000 sidewalk squares each year. Divisions other than the street division will sometimes report hazardous conditions. Federighi testified that the sidewalk on which plaintiff fell was constructed in 2007 and was last inspected in 2012, at which time no defect was noted. Federighi acknowledged that, in March 2019, a motor vehicle struck a light pole located near where plaintiff fell. A crew visited the location to inspect the damage to the light pole. The crew was near the area where plaintiff fell.
¶ 8 The Village's written sidewalk inspection policy was submitted as an exhibit to the Village's summary judgment motion. The policy provided that," [a]nnually, the street supervisor will schedule a team of employees to canvas [sic] a geographical area of the [V]illage with the goal that municipal walkways or parkways are inspected at a minimum of once every five years."
¶ 9 Ron Remus testified at his discovery deposition that he was the foreman of the Village's street division. Plaintiff advised the Village that she had tripped on the uneven sidewalk slab on Lake Street. On August 6, 2019, Remus repaired the defect using hot mix asphalt. In August of 2020, Remus removed the asphalt so that he could take measurements of the height of the raised slab. Remus took photographs that showed that the raised slab was approximately 1¼ inches higher than the adjacent slab.
¶ 10 The trial court found, as a matter of law, that the uneven slabs were an open and obvious condition that the Village had no duty to guard against. The trial court also found no evidence that the Village had either actual or constructive notice of the defect in the sidewalk along Lake Street; therefore, the Village could not be held liable. The trial court entered summary judgment for the Village, and this appeal followed.
¶ 12 Summary judgment is appropriate when there are no genuine issues of material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. 735 ILCS 5/2-1005(c) (West 2020). "The trial court may grant summary judgment after considering 'the pleadings, depositions, admissions, exhibits, and affidavits on file in the case' and construing that evidence in favor of the nonmoving party." In re Marriage of Onishi-Chong, 2020 IL App (2d) 180824, ¶ 30 (quoting Purtill v. Hess, 111 Ill.2d 229, 240 (1986)); 735 ILCS 5/2-1005(c) (West 2020). "While use of the summary judgment procedure is to be encouraged as an aid in the expeditious disposition of a lawsuit [citation], it is a drastic means of disposing of litigation and therefore should be allowed only when the right of the moving party is clear and free from doubt." Purtill, 111 Ill.2d at 240. "Inferences may be drawn from undisputed facts [citation], but an issue should be decided by the trier of fact and summary judgment denied where reasonable persons could draw divergent inferences from the undisputed facts." Pyne v. Witmer, 129 Ill.2d 351, 358 (1989). The trial court's order granting summary judgment is reviewed de novo. Guns Save Life, Inc. v. Ali, 2021 IL 126014, ¶ 14.
¶ 13 Plaintiff's complaint sounds in negligence. "The elements of a negligence cause of action are a duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, a breach of that duty, and an injury proximately caused by the breach." Jones v. Chicago HMO Ltd. of Illinois, 191 Ill.2d 278, 294 (2000). Traditionally, whether a duty exists depends on "whether defendant and plaintiff stood in such a relationship to one another that the law imposed upon defendant an obligation of reasonable conduct for the benefit of plaintiff." Ward v. K mart Corp., 136 Ill.2d 132, 140 (1990). In determining whether a duty exists, courts consider four factors: "(1) the reasonable foreseeability of the injury, (2) the likelihood of the injury, (3) the magnitude of the burden of guarding against the injury, and (4) the consequences of placing that burden on the defendant." Bruns v. City of Centralia, 2014 IL 116998, ¶ 14.
¶ 14 The duty of a local public entity, such as the Village, to guard against injuries resulting from hazardous conditions on its property is governed by section 3-102 of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act (745 ILCS 10/3-102 (West 2020)). Section 3-102 provides, in pertinent part:
"[A] local public entity has the duty to exercise ordinary care to maintain its property in a reasonably safe condition for the use in the exercise of ordinary care of people whom the entity intended and permitted to use the property in a manner in which and at such times as it was reasonably foreseeable that it would be used, and shall not be liable for injury unless it is proven that it has actual or constructive notice of the existence of such a condition that is not reasonably safe in reasonably adequate time prior to an injury to have taken measures to remedy or protect against such condition." Id.
The "open and obvious" rule provides a potential exception to this duty. The "open and obvious" rule generally provides that "a party who owns or controls land is not required to foresee and protect against an injury if the potentially dangerous condition is open and obvious." Rexroad v. City of Springfield, 207 Ill.2d 33, 44, (2003).
¶ 15 In Bucheleres v. Chicago Park District, 171 Ill.2d 435, 448 (1996), our supreme court explained:
...
To continue reading
Request your trial