Landgraf v. Kuh

• Decision Date: 20 December 1900
• Citation: 59 N.E. 501,188 Ill. 484
• Parties: LANDGRAF v. KUH et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

188 Ill. 484

59 N.E. 501

LANDGRAF

v.KUH et al.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 20, 1900.

Appeal from appellate court, First district.

Action by Appollonia Landgraf, administratrix, against Abraham Kuh and others. From judgment of the appellate court (90 Ill. App. 134) affirming judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals. Reversed.Stedman & Soelke, for appellant.

Israel Shrimski (Samuel S. Page, of counsel), for appellees.

This is an action of trespass on the case, brought on February 3, 1896, by Appollonia Landgraf, as administratrix of the estate of Kittie Landgraf, deceased, against Abraham Kuh, Adolph Nathan, and Siegfried M. Fischer, to recover damages for the death of said Kittie Landgraf, alleged to have resulted from the failure of the appellees, defendants below, to provide a certain building owned by them, and situated in the city of Chicago, where the deceased was engaged in work, with sufficient and proper means of egress, ladders, and fire escapes, so as to enable the persons employed therein to leave said building, in case of fire, with reasonable safety. The declaration originally consisted of four counts, and to the declaration appellees filed a general demurrer on February 28, 1896. This demurrer was sustained, and the declaration was amended. On November 19, 1897, a plea of the general issue was filed by the appellees to the declaration. On April 19, 1899, the declaration was amended by changing the word ‘sixth’ to ‘fourth’ in describing the floor of the building demised by appellees to a certain co-partnership, doing business under the name of Stein & Co., who employed appellant's deceased. A jury was then impaneled, and the trial proceeded before the court and a jury. After the introduction of testimony by the plaintiff, counsel for appellees, the defendants below, moved the court to take the case from the jury, and to instruct the jury to return a verdict of not guilty. This motion was sustained by the court, and the bill of exceptions recites that the court ‘instructed the jury in writing to return a verdict of not guilty, to which ruling of the court counsel for appellant excepted.’ The written instruction, however, to the jury to return a verdict of not guilty is not found in the bill of exceptions. But it would appear from the recital in the record that the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, in accordance with the instruction of the court. A motion for a new trial was made by the appellant, and overruled, and judgment was entered in favor of the defendants, and against the plaintiff for the costs. This judgment has been affirmed by the appellate court, and the present appeal is prosecuted from such judgment of affirmance. The appellate court granted a certificate of importance.

The facts, substantially, are as follows: On November 22, 1895, appellees owned a brick building, seven stories high, situated at 215 and 217 Van Buren street, in the city of Chicago. The building was erected in the shape of an L. having a frontage of 48 feet on Van Buren street, extending north about 100 feet, and then running east on the west side of Franklin street, where it had a frontage of about 51 feet. Its various floors were arranged in lofts and offices, and rented by appellees to various tenants, several of whom were engaged in manufacturing vests, garters, dummies, dyes, and other commodities. A. Stein & Co. were among the tenants of appellees, and occupied a part of the fourth floor in the southwest corner of the building, where they conducted the business of manufacturing garters and hose supporters, and employed some thirty-eight people, mostly women, of whom the deceased, Kittie Landgraf, was one. The part of the fourth floor so occupied by A. Stein & Co. faced on Van Buren street, and ran back northward a certain distance, upon the alley side of the building; there being an alley along the west side of the building, and running northward from Van Buren street. The hallways on the floors of the Franklin street side of the building were connected with the hallways on the Van Buren street side by doorways, which were open in the daytime. A fire escape was attached to the Franklin street front of the wall looking to the east, and there was another fire escape upon the west wall of the building, facing upon the alley, and some distance back from the Van Buren street front. The fire escape on the alley side of the building was accessible from the various floors by platforms in communication with a row of windows. Between the fire escape and the southwest corner of the Van Buren street front wall on the fourth floor was a single window. The window, which communicated with the fire escape on the fourth floor in A. Stein & Co.'s apartments, was a double window, consisting of two windows close together, with a frame or piece of metal between them. The platform of the fire escape projected from the south half of this double window about 2 1/2 feet. There were iron shutters on this double window, which opened outwardly. On the Van Buren street side of the building, in the hallway, some distance back from the Van Buren street entrance, was a passenger elevator, capable of holding about 25 persons, and back of that a short distance was a stairway going down from the floors. On the morning of November 22, 1895, a fire broke out in this building, and the deceased, Kittie Langraf, a girl 17 years old, and then working for A. Stein & Co., while attempting to leave the building by way of the bay window opening upon the Van Buren street front of the building, fell, and lost her life. The firemen put up ladders on the Van Buren street front, and, among those, an extension ladder, which was not long enough to reach the sill of the bay window, where the deceased and some of the other working girls were standing or sitting. The deceased was hanging out over the central portion of the bay window, and a fireman, who came up to the top of the ladder, which extended to only within about four feet of the window ledge, is said by some of the witnesses to have told those of the girls who were holding deceased to let her go. As she was about to step on the ladder, some one on the third floor of the building jumped upon it, and, the clutches not having been set, the extension portion of the ladder was driven to the ground, and the deceased fell to the sidewalk, and was killed. Several other of the girls jumped from said bay window, after the deceased fell, but were caught by the firemen. The heat of the fire seems to have been so great that some of the girls had their hair singed and their clothes burned while standing at the bay window at the Van Buren street front. There was no fire escape upon the Van Buren street front of the building. In order to prevent suffocation, as it would appear, several of these girls sat upon the window ledge, hanging out as far as possible, and among them was the deceased.

By an act of the legislature of this state approved June 29, 1885, in force July 1, 1885, entitled ‘An act relating to fire escapes for buildings,’ it is provided, in section 1, ‘that * * * all buildings in this state which are four or more stories in height, excepting such as are used for private residences exclusively, but including flats and apartment buildings, shall be provided with one or more metallic ladder or stair fire-escapes attached to the outer walls thereof and extending from or suitably near the ground to the uppermost story thereof, and provided with platforms of such form and dimensions and in such proximity to one or more windows of each story above the first, as to render access to such ladder or stairs from each such story, easy and safe; the number, location, material and construction of such escapes to be subject to the approval of the board of supervisors in counties under township organization, and the board of county commissioners in counties not under township organization, except in villages, towns and cities organized under any general or special law of this state, such approval shall be had by the corporate authorities of such villages, towns and cities: provided, however, that all buildings, more than two stories in height, used for manufacturing purposes or for hotels, dormitories, schools, seminaries, hospitals or asylums, shall have at least one such fire escape for every fifty persons for which working, sleeping or living accommodations are provided above the second stories of said buildings; and that all public halls, which provide seating room above the first or ground story, shall be provided with such numbers of said ladder or stair fireescapes as the board of supervisors or commissioners or corporate authorities aforesaid may direct.’ Section 2 of the act provides that ‘all buildings of the number of stories and used for the purposes set forth in section 1 of this act, which shall be hereafter erected in this state, shall, upon or before their completion, each be provided with fireescapes of the kind and number, and in the manner set forth in said section 1 of this act.’ Section 3 of the act provides for giving notice by the supervisors, commissioners, and authorities above mentioned to ‘the owner or owners, trustees, lessee, or occupant of any building,’ etc., not provided with such fire escapes, commanding ‘such owners, trustees, lessee or occupant, or either of them, to place or cause to be placed upon such building, such fire-escape or escapes' within a certain time. Said section also provides that the grand juries may hear testimony for the purpose of ascertaining whether buildings are provided with fire escapes, as directed by the act. Section 4 provides that ‘any such owner or owners, trustees, lessee or occupant, or either of them, so served with notice as aforesaid, who shall not within thirty days after the service of such notice upon him or them, place or cause to be placed such fireescape or escapes upon such building as required by this act,’ etc...