Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog

Antonio Olivo and Tonya Maxwell of the Chicago Tribune reported on Tuesday that a six-year-old boy fell through a rotten step on a Chicago porch. (Full Story). This, unfortunately, is a typical personal injury case that could have resulted in serious injury or even death.

The authors report, "City officials attributed the accident at the 34-unit building near 79th Street and South Ingleside Avenue to "rotted wood," said Peter Scales, spokesman for the Buildings Department. Inspectors also found that other porches in the building were "in various states of disrepair, though none as serious as this one," Scales said. According to city records, the building has had problems since 2003 that included leaking ceilings, defective floors and windows and holes in walls."

The manager of the property is quoted as saying that nobody had reported problems with the porch and that he attributed the accident to someone damaging the stair.

This is a typical defense in these types of cases. While the defense is probably baseless, the law does not require the plaintiff to show that the owner or manager actually knew of the dangerous condition. The law allows an injured person to recover in circumstances such as this if they prove that the owner or manager should have known of the condition on its property. Lawyers ordinarily prove this concept, known as constructive notice, through testimony that the condition had existed for a significant period of time, or through evidence that the property had not been repaired or inspected for a significant period of time. In this case, the plaintiff could prevail simply by showing that the rotten wood slowly decayed over a period of years.