20-L-454 (Will County, Illinois)
Brittney Frederick and Jessica Biagi won summary judgment on a case involving a trip and fall in a shopping plaza in Will County. Plaintiff was an older woman who claimed she was walking from the parking lot into a liquor store when she tripped over an unmarked height differential on the sidewalk. Plaintiff sustained a shattered/fractured wrist requiring two surgeries, and then filed suit against the shopping plaza and the liquor store. Jessica and Brittney defended the liquor store on behalf of CGW.
Plaintiff initially made a settlement demand to both Defendants totaling $300,000, but Brittney and Jessica didn’t believe their client owed any duty to maintain the sidewalk. They moved for summary judgment on behalf of their client, arguing that the terms of the lease between the liquor store and shopping plaza put the responsibility of sidewalk repairs squarely on the plaza, not on their client. Because of this, the liquor store owed no duty to Plaintiff. They further argued that any responsibility that the liquor store took on voluntarily, like shoveling or sweeping the sidewalk, did not create a duty to repair the sidewalk.
Plaintiff argued that the liquor store still owed a duty to provide a safe ingress and egress to Plaintiff because she was a business invitee, and this was enough to establish a duty on the part of the liquor store. The Judge agreed with Brittney and Jessica, and believed that any duty to Plaintiff was owed solely by the shopping plaza, and dismissed the liquor store from the suit.
