Court Opinion

ID: 9860820
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:33:22.122454+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:44.730653
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GORDON, dissenting: Whether pedestrians injured while on public streets while leaving or approaching their parked vehicles may recover from a municipality has been the subject of increasing divergence among the districts and within the first district. Cases which have denied such recovery include: Wojdyla v. City of Park Ridge (1991), 209 Ill. App. 3d 290, 568 N.E.2d 144 (but see dissent by Justice Egan); Greene v. City of Chicago (1991), 209 Ill. App. 3d 311, 567 N.E.2d 1357; Vlahos v. City of Chicago (1990), 198 Ill. App. 3d 911, 556 N.E.2d 660; and Mason v. City of Chicago (1988), 173 Ill. App. 3d 330, 527 N.E.2d 572. Cases which have refused to deny such recovery include Princivalli v. City of Chicago (1990), 202 Ill. App. 3d 525, 559 N.E.2d 1190, and Di Domenico v. Village of Romeoville (1988), 171 Ill. App. 3d 293, 525 N.E.2d 242. While the majority opinion is thoughtful and well researched, I cannot accept its conclusions, which would distinguish between injuries sustained by a pedestrian parker in the immediate proximity of a parked vehicle while seeking access to its trunk and injuries sustained by the pedestrian at a greater distance from the vehicle while proceeding towards it or away from it. In either event it would impose a new and costly area of liability upon municipalities to pedestrians for street injuries outside of crosswalks, in the eventual complete erosion of the holding of this division in Risner v. City of Chicago (1986), 150 Ill. App. 3d 827, 502 N.E.2d 357. The duty of the municipality to maintain its streets for pedestrian use would now extend the full curbside length of all streets which permit public parking. The duty of the municipality to maintain its streets would not be limited to those conditions which present hazards to vehicles as is presently the case but to every type of defect which presents a risk to pedestrians as if on a sidewalk. Furthermore, the tenuous demarcation between those who are injured while avoidably using the street and those unavoidably using the street cannot be long maintained either in concept or in practice. For example, what of a driver who is injured adjacent to his vehicle, as in this case, but unlike the facts in this instance not because he tries to reach his car trunk but because he sought to cross the street mid-block from his vehicle? What of a driver who can with some added effort leave his vehicle through the curbside passenger door, who nevertheless chooses to leave through his street-side door, and is injured as a result of a defect in the street? Is it really appropriate to permit recovery to a driver using the street rather than the sidewalk to reach his car trunk while denying recovery to one who crosses mid-block on a quiet side street to reach his vehicle parked a short 20 feet across the roadway where the alternative route to his vehicle is to walk 300 feet to a crosswalk to cross the street and then walk back again? These hypotheticals are merely examples of those questions which will undoubtedly challenge and breach the thin line being drawn here between parkers whose use of the street is unavoidable and those whose use is avoidable. Thus, for the reasons which are already expressed in Vlahos v. City of Chicago (1990), 198 Ill. App. 3d 911, I must respectfully dissent.