Court Opinion

ID: 9516286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:39:50.058635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:33:23.242104
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE DAVIS, specially concurring: I concur in the judgment herein, but not in the rationale used to reach this judgment. The majority opinion seems to hold that when the roof of a building is “being temporarily used as a platform in support,” it is a scaffold under the Scaffolding Act. Under this rationale it would appear logical, then, to say that since the rest of the building provides the support for the roof, the entire building is a scaffold, or that each internal floor is a scaffold as long as a workman is located on it. This broad application of the Scaffolding Act is not necessarily dictated by this court’s decision in Louis v. Barenfanger (1968), 39 Ill. 2d 445, which concerned the classification of steel girders as a scaffold. It would seem reasonable that at some point in time a building with four walls, several floors, and a roof should cease being a scaffold and become a building. The language of the majority opinion could be construed to say that this transition never takes place. I concur in the result reached by the majority in this case because a roof with unguarded holes for the later insertion of equipment is not a completed roof. On the facts of this case, the roof was being used as a scaffold for the purpose of inserting integral parts of the roof’s structure. In my judgment, however, the circumstance does not warrant a holding that the roof in this case is a scaffold merely because it is “being temporarily used as a platform or support.”