Court Opinion

ID: 9529109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:47:36.815463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:40.984266
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE BARRY, dissenting: I dissent. I agree with the reasoning of Justices Carter and Goldenhersh in McGovern v. Standish, 33 Ill. App. 3d 717, 341 N.E.2d 739, and McGovern v. Standish, 65 Ill. 2d 54, 1134 N.E.2d 357, respectively. Further and specifically, McGovern, so heavily relied upon by the majority, does not involve an owner as defendant, in addition to an architect defendant. Justice Crebs’ majority opinion for the Supreme Court while reciting that an architect should not be required to comply with the onerous burdens of the Structural Work Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1969, ch. 40, par. 60 et seq.), did not, in my judgment, even infer that the same result should obtain with owners so totally in charge of change, as State Farm in the instant case. Here State Farm reserved the right to make change orders and initiated some 127 such orders involving substantial redesign and resulting in a 37% increase in the cost of the structure and the expenditure of millions of additional dollars. Given the purpose of the Structural Work Act to provide for the protection and safety of persons in and about construction sites, I deem it inconceivable to assume this owner defendant was not in charge of safety. I believe the owner is statutorily obligated to be interested in safety and that the owner by change orders actually participated, which participation inheritently involved safety. In my view that obligation can be carried out by an architect agent of the owner, and the architect not be liable, as in McGovern, but with the owner still remaining liable. The owner should not escape liability for failure to provide safe scaffolding by entrusting that duty to another. As unquestionably more than one party can be in charge of the work, I see no inconsistency with McGovern in approving the action of the trial court in its allowing the plaintiffs motion to strike the petition of plaintiffs employer to intervene. I would affirm the judgment for the plaintiff rendered upon the verdict returned by the jury involving a question of fact.