Illinois Elevator and Escalator Accident Lawyer

Was It the Building or the Machine? How Illinois Law Applies to Elevator and Escalator Injuries

An elevator or escalator injury usually raises one of two legal questions, and often both. The first is about the place. The second is about the machine.

The place question is called premises liability: the duty that a person who owns or controls property owes to the people who enter it, whether a hotel, mall, apartment building, office, airport or hospital. The machine question is called product liability: the responsibility of a manufacturer or seller when a defective product causes injury.

If the machine itself may have failed, Illinois law defines that kind of claim narrowly. Under section 13-213 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, a "product liability action" means an action based on the doctrine of strict liability in tort that is brought against the seller of a product. The harm can be one caused by the product's manufacture, design, installation, testing, warnings, repair or maintenance, among other things the section lists. For an elevator or escalator, which is installed and maintained over many years, that list can reach more than the original design. The deadline this section sets is explained below.

A maintenance contractor, a company hired to service, adjust and repair the equipment, often enters the picture too. Its work can be examined alongside the owner's conduct and the equipment's design.

Two failure terms come up often. Misleveling is when an elevator car stops with its floor out of level with the landing, which can cause a trip and fall. Entrapment is when a passenger is confined inside a stopped car. Some people also ask whether an elevator operator is a common carrier, meaning a business that holds itself out to carry the public and may owe a heightened duty. How that idea applies in Illinois depends on the state's current law and on the facts.

No injury proves that anyone was at fault. Premises liability and contractor negligence ask about duty, breach, causation and damages. Strict product liability asks about a defect and causation. In one incident these theories can overlap.

One Illinois statute concerns a different setting. If you were hurt on land used for recreation, section 3 of the Recreational Use of Land and Water Areas Act says an owner of land owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe for people entering for recreational or conservation purposes, or to warn them of dangerous conditions, except as section 6 provides. Section 6 keeps liability for a willful and wanton failure to guard or warn, and for injury where the owner invites or charges the people who enter for recreational use. Whether that Act has anything to do with a particular elevator or escalator case depends on the facts.

For you, the theory that fits shapes who may be responsible and which deadline applies. Questions worth weighing include whether the problem seemed to come from the property, the equipment or its servicing, and these are the questions a conversation with an attorney can help sort out.

Where Illinois Elevator and Escalator Accidents Happen — and Who May Be Responsible

The setting often decides who had a duty and what records exist. A hotel guest, an apartment tenant, a mall shopper, an airport traveler, an office worker and a hospital patient or visitor are each on property that someone owns and someone manages. Sometimes those are different parties.

Depending on the facts, the parties who may be examined include:

• the building owner;
• a lessee or property manager who runs the building day to day;
• the elevator or escalator manufacturer;
• the maker of a component part, such as a door system or brake;
• a maintenance contractor that serviced the equipment;
• an inspection company.

Section 13-213 defines a product liability action as one brought against the "seller" of a product. Who counts as a seller for a given elevator or escalator depends on the section's full definition and on the facts.

If more than one party may share responsibility, Illinois law can handle that in a single case. Section 2-1116 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure applies to "all actions on account of bodily injury or death" based on negligence or on strict product liability, so the owner's, contractor's and equipment's roles are often looked at side by side.

What this means for you is that identifying the right parties, including whether any owner is a public body, can affect both who answers for the injury and how long you have. A maintenance log or inspection record shows what work was done and when; it is not, on its own, a finding that anyone was negligent. Useful things to note or ask about include who owns the building, who manages it, and which company services the equipment. The site's guide to escalator accidents covers common mechanisms.

Filing Deadlines and the Rules That Can Shorten or Extend Them

The core Illinois deadline is in section 13-202 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure. Actions for damages for an injury to the person "shall be commenced within 2 years next after the cause of action accrued." The section lists exceptions that rarely fit an equipment accident:

• damages resulting from first degree murder or a Class X felony, where the perpetrator is convicted;
• actions against a defendant in whose name an escrow account was set up under the Criminal Victims' Escrow Account Act, which run two years from the account's establishment;
• tolling while a plaintiff is incarcerated or prosecuted because of a confession compelled by threat of bodily harm.

The last exception does not apply to units of local government subject to the Tort Immunity Act.

If a city, county or other local public body owns the building, the clock may be half as long. Under section 8-101 of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act, no civil action other than one arising out of patient care may be commenced against a local entity or any of its employees for any injury unless it is commenced "within one year from the date that the injury was received or the cause of action accrued," and the section defines "civil action" to include any action, whether based on the common law, statutes or the Illinois Constitution. The section sets a separate period for actions arising out of patient care. Whether a particular owner is a "local entity" is a threshold question that a conversation with an attorney can help sort out.

If the injured person is a child, the timing differs. Under section 13-211 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, if the person entitled to sue was under 18 or under a legal disability when the claim accrued, the action may be brought within two years after the person turns 18 or the disability is removed. If a legal disability begins later, before the period runs out, the period is stayed until the disability is removed.

A death has its own deadline, covered below. None of these rules says how much time remains in a specific matter; that depends on dates and facts.

If the Elevator or Escalator Is Older: Illinois Product Liability and the Statute of Repose

Elevators and escalators often run for decades, and Illinois has a rule written for long-lived products. A statute of repose is a deadline that runs from a fixed past event, such as a product's sale or delivery, rather than from the date of the injury.

Under section 13-213 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, the repose period for a product liability action, meaning one based on strict liability in tort, runs 12 years from the date of first sale, lease or delivery of possession by a seller. Alternatively, it runs 10 years from the date of first sale, lease or delivery of possession to the initial user, whichever expires earlier. The section also sets out exceptions in its other subsections, and whether one fits depends on the equipment's history.

For you, the key point is that this period can close a strict-liability claim against a seller even if the injury happened recently and section 13-202's two years are still open, because the clock started when the machine was first sold or delivered.

The definition is limited to strict liability in tort. A negligence claim, against a maintenance contractor or a manufacturer for example, is not what it describes. Which deadlines govern a negligence theory depends on Illinois's current law and the facts.

If the equipment is older, the facts worth gathering or asking about include its age, when it was first sold or delivered and to whom, and when components were replaced. These usually come from purchase, installation and service records, not from the scene, and an attorney can help weigh how they bear on which claims remain.

Comparative Fault in Illinois — How Shared Responsibility Affects a Claim

People who were hurt often worry that something they did, such as stepping on quickly or holding a closing door, will count against them. Illinois answers that with a specific rule.

Comparative fault compares the injured person's fault with the defendants' fault and adjusts recovery to match. Section 2-1116 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure makes Illinois's version a modified one. The plaintiff "shall be barred from recovering damages if the trier of fact finds that the contributory fault on the part of the plaintiff is more than 50% of the proximate cause of the injury." If the plaintiff's fault is not more than 50 percent, the plaintiff is not barred, "but any damages allowed shall be diminished in the proportion to the amount of fault attributable to the plaintiff."

In practice, at 50 percent or less, damages are reduced by your share of fault. Above 50 percent, recovery is barred. The rule covers negligence claims and product claims based on strict tort liability.

A defendant may argue, for example, that the person ignored a posted warning or forced a door. Whether that argument holds depends on what the person was doing, what warnings were posted, and whether the equipment was operating normally. If you are concerned about your own role, details worth recalling include what you did just before the accident and what signs were visible, and an attorney can help weigh how those facts might be viewed.

What Records May Show What Happened in an Illinois Elevator or Escalator Accident

Each theory above has parts that must be shown, and evidence attaches to those parts. For a negligence or premises claim, those are duty (who was responsible for the equipment or space), breach (whether that responsibility was met), causation (whether the failure led to the injury) and damages (the harm itself). For a strict product claim, the questions are whether the product had a defect and whether it caused the injury.

For you, this is where a claim is supported or weakened: without records tying the failure to the injury, the legal theories above have little to rest on. If you were hurt, the records that usually matter include:

• the building's incident report;
• maintenance logs and the equipment's service history;
• inspection records;
• surveillance video of the car, the landing or the escalator;
• photographs of the scene and of any injury;
• medical records and bills;
• the names and contact information of witnesses.

A missed log entry or repair note is not a finding of negligence, and a clean record does not end the inquiry either. What these documents mean depends on how they fit with the rest of the evidence. For product questions, the machine's age and service history also tie back to the repose period. The site's page on elevator accident statistics summarizes national government injury data for background.

Wrongful Death After an Illinois Elevator or Escalator Accident

When an elevator or escalator accident takes a life, Illinois treats the family's claim as its own cause of action, separate from an injury claim the person might have brought while living.

Under section 2 of the Illinois Wrongful Death Act, the action is brought by and in the names of the personal representatives of the person who died. It is for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse and next of kin. The Act describes damages for injuries resulting from the death, "including damages for grief, sorrow, and mental suffering, and punitive damages when applicable." Punitive damages are not available in an action against the State or a unit of local government, or against their employees in an official capacity.

Except as subsection (e) provides, the action "shall be commenced within 2 years after the death." Subsection (e) extends the period only against an individual who allegedly committed a violent intentional act, or a defendant charged with a crime that subsection lists. It does not extend the period against any other person or entity. If a local entity is involved, section 8-101's one-year rule is also part of the picture.

The Act also reduces a beneficiary's share if that beneficiary's own contributory fault is found to be not more than 50 percent of the proximate cause of the death. For families sorting out who the personal representative is, which deadline fits and how the estate connects to the claim, a case evaluation is a way to talk those questions through. A related page covers elevator accident claims more broadly.