Court Opinion

ID: 9717751
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:09:52.235475+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:55.055774
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, dissenting: The Structural Work Act (the Act) (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 48, par. 60 et seq.) was adopted “in order to afford ‘broad protection to working men.’ ” (Halberstadt v. Harris Trust & Savings Bank (1973), 55 Ill. 2d 121, 127.) I dissent from the majority opinion because I believe this fundamental principle of the Act is violated by holding that the platform and compressors did not comprise a “structure” for purposes of the Act. This court’s recent decision in Simmons v. Union Electric Co. (1984), 104 Ill. 2d 444, applied a meaning of “structure” broad enough to encompass the plaintiff’s activity here. Just as the ash pit was the “structure” in Simmons, the concrete platform was the structure in this case. The platform housed the compressors just as the ash pit housed the sump pumps. In both cases the plaintiff fell from a permanent structure resulting in an injury covered by the Act. Finally, the majority’s reliance on Farley v. Marion Power Shovel Co. (1975), 60 Ill. 2d 432, is misplaced. In Farley this court held that a “mobile power shovel” (60 Ill. 2d 432, 435) was not a “structure.” Unlike Farley, the Elmhurst Dodge facility is a permanent building. The plaintiff was required to ascend the building to the platform in order to fix an inoperative machine which was placed in a specific area and was not meant to move. The plaintiff was repairing a machine permanently affixed to a platform not intended to move — -a structure for purposes of the Act — unlike the plaintiff in Farley whose injury resulted from a fall from a large machine never intended to be attached to a permanent structure. CLARK, C.J., and GOLDENHERSH, J., join in this dissent.