Court Opinion

ID: 9518973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:06:04.011283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:39:34.626412
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE RYAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE DAVIS joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I cannot agree with the interpretation of section 7 of the Structural Work Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1963, ch. 48, par. 66) adopted by the opinion of the court. In my opinion section 7 does, not impose a- duty to erect barricades around all openings on construction projects but only around those shafts or openings through which elevating machines or hoisting apparatus operate. If the legislature had intended to protect construction workers against the hazards of falling into any hole or opening on a construction site, it could have provided, as did the city of Chicago in section 76 — 4(a) of its Safeguards During Construction Ordinance, that all openings in the floors be covered or properly protected. The legislature did not so provide but only saw fit to apply the special protection of the Structural Work Act to the special hazards created by openings which are used in connection with elevating or hoisting operations. Section 7 is not intended to extend the protection of the Act to accidents which happen in a permanent opening not being used for elevating or hoisting material. Under the construction given to section 7 by the opinion of the court, the plaintiff’s right to recover under the Act depends upon the pure happenstance of the use of this baffle chamber at some time as a hoistway. The plaintiff was exposed to no special danger or additional hazard by virtue of the fact that at some time during the construction of the building material had been hoisted through this opening. He would have been exposed to the same danger if the opening had never been used for that purpose. The opinion recognizes that the requirements of section 1 of the Act are designed as a remedy for the special hazards incident to the use of scaffolds and ladders and other equipment mentioned in that section. I think the same reasoning requires that the provisions of section 7 of the Act be limited to the special dangers created by hoisting or elevating operations on a construction site. I would agree that the duty to barricade would continue under section 7 even after hoisting operations are terminated if the hoistway was a temporary opening which would eventually be sealed off. I adopt this reasoning because in this event the opening would constitute a special hazard that had been created by the hoisting operation, but that was not the situation in this case. The baffle chamber was a permanent opening in the structure and could not fulfill its intended function if barricaded. At some point in time someone would necessarily have had to remove whatever barricades were present. Any special dangers related to the hoisting ceased when the hoisting operation ceased, and in my opinion at that point in time the special protection afforded by section 7 of the Act terminated. This court has held that the Structural Work Act was not intended by the legislature to cover any and all construction activities whatsoever. (Crafton v. Knight & Associates, Inc., 46 Ill.2d 533.) All activities carried on in the construction area do not enjoy the benefits of the Act. The Act was designed to protect against certain specific extra-hazardous construction operations, and it is only when an injury has some connection with the hazards of the particular operation specified in the statute that relief may be had under the Act. Thus, in regard to section 7 of the Act, I believe that it is only when an injury has some connection with the extra-hazardous nature of hoisting or elevating materials within a building that a cause of action should be available under that section. In my dissent in McNellis v. Combustion Engineering, Inc., 58 Ill.2d 146, 152, I urged this same position in regard to section 1 of the Act. The opinion of the court in the case we are now considering has applied this theory which I have heretofore urged insofar as it relates to section 1 of the Act. I maintain that the same principle should be applied to section 7, which in my opinion would require a reversal of the judgment of the circuit court without remandment. I concur with the remainder of the opinion.