Neel and Buether Win Summary Judgment for Architect Client in Concert Fall Case

CM Shareholder Paige Neel and associate Blake Buether recently obtained summary judgment for their architect client in a negligence case pending in the Circuit Court of Cook County – no easy feat!  

The Plaintiff, a former singer for a 1990’s tribute band, shortly after concluding her performance at Chicago Ribfest decided to walk off the front of the stage onto a large subwoofer placed in front of the stage to check on a fan in the audience. As Plaintiff stepped off the stage and onto one of the subwoofers, she misplaced her footing and fell in a large gap between two subwoofers placed in front of the stage.

The subwoofers were also covered by tarps draped over to protect from rain. Plaintiff alleged that she sustained permanent and disabling injuries to her left ankle resulting in her inability to continue her music career. Plaintiff filed a negligence suit against the City of Chicago, and the sponsors and contractors involved with Chicago Ribfest, including our client, the architect who was hired by an event sponsor to prepare drawings and permit applications for the stages used at Chicago Ribfest.

We moved for summary judgment, arguing that our client’s duties are defined by its contract with the event sponsor who hired it, which are limited to preparing stage drawings and submitting a permit application. To the extent any duties to warn exist, our architect client had no such duties because it never performed an act upon the land that would impose a duty upon it. The motion was further supported by undisputed testimony from multiple witnesses that our client had no scope of responsibility regarding any audio equipment, and had no knowledge of what speakers or subwoofers would be used, how, or where they would be placed, including a tarp to protect the audio equipment from bad weather.

Further given that Plaintiff’s claims included design allegations against a licensed architect, we also moved for summary judgment that Plaintiff failed to disclose an expert on the applicable standard of care or any deviation of the same regarding our client’s alleged conduct. Although Plaintiff tried to disclose an expert well past the disclosure deadline to remedy this defect, Plaintiff was forced to withdraw her expert after we filed a Motion to Bar the expert and Plaintiff was unable to prove her expert did not review any materials relied upon after the disclosure deadline. The Court agreed with all the arguments in our motion and held that our client “was never informed where any audio/visual equipment would be placed on or around the stage, and did not perform any activities regarding installation and placement of audio/visual equipment, and the submitted drawings and permit did not include anything related thereto . . . The sole and exclusive responsibility of [client] was for the provision of drawings and obtaining a permit.”  The Court further held that there is no evidence in the record that the stage itself was in any sort of dangerous or defective condition.” Regarding the lack of an expert, the Court held that Plaintiff “has no admissible evidence against the Defendant establishing conduct which imposed duties upon it as alleged by Plaintiff. . .”