Melanie Shaker had gone out to dinner and had been drinking with her husband when she became angry with him on the walk home. She tried to kick her husband, lost her footing, and fell through the front window of Fases Salon. She is now suing the salon for failing to anticipate falling drunken and clumsy people by installing safety glass. She is also suing the hospital that treated her and the trust that owns the property.
Her complaint alleges that the salon was negligent in having a plate glass window on a sidewalk “frequently traveled by intoxicated pedestrians” in violation of the City of Chicago’s building code– suggesting a negligence per se claim. They should have had safety glass to “prevent injuries from those coming into contact with it, including pedestrians, intoxicated pedestrians [or] pedestrians on their way to or from a Cubs game.” She is also suing the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where Shaker was treated — claiming that someone stole $6,000 worth of jewelry and her blackberry. She is also suing the North Star Trust Company, who holds the title to the property; and Amato and Rose Banducci who own the beneficial interest to the land trust.
She could prove the newest Dustin Dibble, a drunken man who collected $2.3 million after falling on a metro track and being hit by a train, here.
In 1855 in Robinson v. Pioche, Bayerque & Co., the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of a drunk who fell in a hole in a sidewalk, noting “A drunken man is as much entitled to a safe street, as a sober one, and much more in need of it.”
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If this were a child on a bike , no one would have a problem with it.