Casey v. Adams

• Citation: 234 Ill. 350,84 N.E. 933
• Parties: CASEY v. ADAMS.
• Decision Date: 04 June 1908
• Court: Supreme Court of Illinois

234 Ill. 350

84 N.E. 933

CASEY

v.ADAMS.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 23, 1908.

Rehearing Denied June 4, 1908.

Error to Branch Appellate Court, First District, on Error to Superior Court, Cook County; Theodore Brentano, Judge.

Action by John D. Casey, as administrator of the estate of Patrick E. Blackwell, deceased, against William P. Adams. Judgment for defendant affirmed by the Appellate Court, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.James C. McShane, for plaintiff in error.

Frank M. Cox and J. F. Dammann, Jr., for defendant in error.

On July 21, 1905, John D. Casey, administrator of the estate of Patrick E. Blackwell, plaintiff in error, brought suit in the superior court of Cook county against William P. Adams, defendant in error, to recover damages for the death of plaintiff in error's intestate, alleged to have been caused through the negligence of defendant in error. To the declaration the defendant interposed the general issue, and upon a trial, at the close of the evidence for plaintiff, under direction of the court, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were overruled, and judgment was entered by the court against plaintiff in error. An appeal was taken to the Appellate Court for the First District. There the cause was assigned to the branch court, where the judgment of the superior court was affirmed. Plaintiff in error was granted a certificate of importance, and brings the record here for review.

The declaration alleges, in substance, that the defendant, on May 10, 1905, owned a certain large business building in the city of Chicago, different portions of which were then and there occupied by various firms and persons as tenants of defendant in carrying on their business, and that defendant had then and there in said building in his control a certain large, open freight elevator shaft extending from the upper floors of said building to the basement and immediately inside the wall of said building, which wall was next to and parallel to a certain alleyway; that in said elevator shaft he owned and controlled and operated a large freight elevator for the use of his said tenants and those transacting business with them; that he then and there had and maintained, a short distance above the ground floor of said building, a large doorway or opening in the wall about 5 1/2 feet wide and 6 feet high, the bottom of which was about 4 feet from the surface of said alleyway, and which doorway opened directly from said alleyway into said elevator shaft, with only the thickness of said wall between the two; that through said doorway the said tenants, their employés and those with whom they transacted business were accustomed to pass, with the knowledge and consent of defendant, in taking and delivering goods for said tenants from said elevator to wagons standing in said alleyway and from said wagons to said elevator, and that by reason of the premises it was then and there the duty of defendant to have exercised ordinary care toward keeping and maintaining said doorway in a reasonably safe condition for such use by such persons, and for the reasons, among other things, that there was no light in said elevator shaft and but poor light in said alleyway, and that from the situation of said elevator shaft, doorway, and alleyway a person approaching and about to enter said doorway from a wagon in said alleyway would not ordinarily expect to find, and might through no want of ordinary care on his part fail to discover, the existence of said evevator shaft immediately inside of said doorway, all of which defendant knew or by the exercise of ordinary care could have known; that the reasonable safety of such persons required, and it was then and there the duty of defendant to place and maintain, a chain or other sufficient barrier across said doorway or a sufficient warning or notice in said doorway to apprise such person or persons, in the event said elevator was away from said doorway, of the presence of said elevator shaft, and to prevent them from falling into said shaft, but that defendant, in disregard and violation of his duty, negligently failed to place and maintain such chain or protection across said doorway or a sufficient warning or notice in said doorway for the purpose aforesaid.

The declaration further alleges that an express wagon belonging to Wells-Fargo & Co., in charge of one of its servants, at the request of one of the tenants of the building who had the right to use said elevator, shaft, and doorway, as aforesaid, called at said doorway in said alleyway to collect and receive certain goods which said tenant was to convey by said elevator from one of the upper floors of said building which it occupied down to the doorway and...