Cole v. Paper St. Grp., LLC
| Citation | 127 N.E.3d 682,431 Ill.Dec. 149,2018 IL App (1st) 180474 |
| Decision Date | 01 November 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 1-18-0474,1-18-0474 |
| Parties | Leslie COLE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PAPER STREET GROUP, LLC, and Paper Street Realty, LLC, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
David J. Gallagher, of Vrdolyak Law Group, LLC, of Chicago, for appellant.
Donald G. Machalinski and Danita L. Davis, of Tressler LLP, of Chicago, for appellees.
¶ 1 The instant appeal arises from the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants Paper Street Group, LLC, and Paper Street Realty, LLC, in connection with a premises liability lawsuit filed against them by plaintiff Leslie Cole. Plaintiff alleged that she was injured when she slipped on an accumulation of ice on the stairs of a property owned and managed by defendants and alleged that defendants were negligent in failing to keep the premises safe. On appeal, plaintiff claims that she has raised issues of material fact with respect to all elements of her negligence claim. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
¶ 4 On October 2, 2015, plaintiff filed a complaint against defendants,1 in which she alleged that defendants "own[ed], operate[d], manage[d] and control[ed]" a building on South Kimbark in Chicago and that, on March 5, 2014, plaintiff was lawfully upon the premises when she was injured through defendants' negligence, "to wit: an unnatural accumulation of ice on the stairwell outside of [the building] that formed as a result of faulty gutters causing her to fall and be injured." The complaint further alleged that defendants "had actual or constructive notice of the existence of the aforesaid unreasonably dangerous condition." The complaint was amended on March 21, 2016, with respect to the allegations against the lawn maintenance company; the allegations against defendants remained the same as in the original complaint.
¶ 5 On December 8, 2015, defendants filed an answer to the complaint, in which they admitted that defendant Paper Street Group, LLC, was the owner of the building and that defendant Paper Street Realty, LLC, managed the building; defendants denied all remaining allegations. As affirmative defenses, defendants alleged that plaintiff's own negligence caused her injuries and that any accumulation of ice was the result of natural accumulation, which defendants did not have a duty to remove.
¶ 7 The parties proceeded to discovery, and on July 5, 2017, defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. Defendants claimed that during the time in which plaintiff had lived at the building, plaintiff had never noticed any problems with the stairwell, nor had she ever observed ice on the landing prior to her fall. Defendants further claimed that plaintiff testified in her deposition that she fell when descending the stairs after her foot slipped on ice on the first step and that, while plaintiff "speculated" that the ice formed as a result of melting icicles, plaintiff "testified she did not know whether the snow naturally melted on the steps to form the ice." Additionally, agents of defendants testified that they had not been made aware of any complaints concerning the condition of the property or any icicles on the railings. Finally, the owner of the lawn maintenance company, which was responsible for clearing snow and ice from the property, testified that he was not aware of any complaints regarding the condition of the property and further testified that when he arrived at the premises on the day of plaintiff's fall, he observed no ice on the step where plaintiff allegedly slipped. Defendants claimed that
¶ 8 Defendants claimed that plaintiff's complaint was based on "mere speculation and conjecture" and that there was no evidence to suggest (1) that defendants had faulty gutters, (2) that the faulty gutters caused an unnatural accumulation of ice on the stairs where plaintiff fell, (3) that defendants knew of the faulty gutters causing an unreasonably dangerous condition, or (4) that such an allegedly dangerous condition caused plaintiff's fall. Accordingly, defendants argued that they were entitled to summary judgment.
¶ 10 Attached to the motion for summary judgment were several deposition transcripts. First, plaintiff testified in her deposition that she lived in an apartment on the second floor of defendants' building from approximately 2010 to 2015; that each apartment in the building contained a back door that opened onto a porch, and there was a stairway on the back exterior of the building; and that there was a landing at the top of the stairway on each floor, as well as a second landing midway between floors. Plaintiff testified that the building did not have a parking lot, but that she had noticed that when there was snowfall, the snow would be removed from the sidewalk and walkways around the building. Plaintiff also noticed that snow would be removed from the back of the building, including the stairs and landings on each level, and the steps and landings would be salted. During the time she lived at the building, she had never complained about a lack of shoveling, although immediately after her accident, she contacted "Bruce,"2 the property manager, to inform him that he needed to send someone over to shovel.
¶ 11 Plaintiff testified that, to her recollection, the winter of 2014 was very cold, and the week prior to March 5, 2014, was a cold week. On March 5, 2014, between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m., plaintiff decided to take out the garbage; her usual custom was to leave through her back door, walk downstairs, and deposit the garbage in the trash containers on the ground floor level. Sometime prior to her doing so, it had snowed—plaintiff recalled that Plaintiff testified that "it ended up" that there was ice in addition to the snow, and specifically, there was ice on the stairs. Plaintiff was asked where the ice came from, and testified that "[t]he ice came from the roof and the ice that was dripping, the * * * ice dripping or water dripping from above." However, plaintiff did not know whether the snow that landed on the steps naturally melted and refroze to form ice. The first time that plaintiff noticed "a lot of" ice developing from the roof was March 5. She did not know the first time that she observed any ice developing at all. Plaintiff testified that she had "no idea" how long the ice had been on the steps prior to her fall, but testified that there was no ice on the steps when she went out the prior week to take out her garbage.
¶ 12 Plaintiff testified that on March 5, when she took out the garbage, plaintiff was wearing a jacket and flat, UGG-type boots. Plaintiff held the garbage bag in her left hand; her right hand was free, and the handrail was to her right. When plaintiff stepped off the landing on her floor and onto the first step, "my foot slipped out from under me and I fell." Plaintiff was not holding the handrail at the time of her fall.
¶ 13 Plaintiff testified that it was approximately three feet from her door to the stairs and that there was approximately half an inch of snow on the porch immediately outside her door; plaintiff did not know how long the snow had been there. There was no ice on plaintiff's porch; plaintiff testified that the ice began after "a foot and a half, two feet approximately, like when I got onto the landing." Plaintiff testified that she Plaintiff testified that there were two inches of snow "[a]ll over the back porch," but that she noticed the ice beginning at the landing of the stairway. When plaintiff stepped down onto the first step, her foot slipped out from under her and she lost her balance, falling down the stairs; plaintiff landed half on the between-floor landing and half on the step directly above it, with her buttocks and tailbone landing first. After a moment, plaintiff was able to stand and took photos of the location where she fell, then made her way back to her apartment, where she contacted the property manager to inform him about her fall. She also called her uncle, who came to visit her. She sat on the couch for a few minutes and, when she went to stand, noticed the extent of her injuries, which included pain in her lower back, in her right hip, in her neck, and in her right shoulder. She sat back down because she believed she just needed rest, but was then unable to stand again and so called an ambulance. The paramedics helped her stand and walk down the stairs, and then transported her to the University of Chicago hospital, where she was given a prescription and told to follow up with her doctor. Plaintiff testified that her doctor prescribed her pain pills and topical numbing cream, as well as ordering physical therapy. She also received several lumbar epidural steroid injections over several months, as well as a biacuplasty.
¶ 14 Plaintiff testified that she and her uncle took photographs of the scene on March 5, the day of her fall, as well as two days later; plaintiff could not recall which photographs were taken by her uncle and which photographs she took herself. Plaintiff identified a photograph of the handrail leading from her floor down the stairs to a landing below. Plaintiff also identified a photograph of icicles formed from the roof above the third floor. Plaintiff did not observe any icicles hanging over her second-floor...
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