Illinois property owners owe their visitors reasonable care. When an owner ignores a known hazard and someone is hurt, that person can pursue compensation for the harm. If you were injured on unsafe property anywhere in Chicago, a Chicago premises liability lawyer at Herbert Rosner Connelly Law Firm can review what happened and explain your options.
These claims turn on evidence that disappears quickly, including surveillance video, incident reports, and cleaning logs. Our attorneys move to preserve that proof while you focus on medical treatment. We handle premises liability claims on a contingency fee basis, and we will explain those terms before you sign anything.
Property owners and their insurers rarely accept responsibility on their own. Our Chicago personal injury attorneys build the record that makes responsibility hard to deny.
Our settlements include $9 million in a premises liability case involving a serious injury caused by unsafe property conditions. The firm has also obtained $50 million for a railroad worker seriously injured on the job, $8.1 million in a medical negligence case against a Chicago hospital, and $3 million against a trucking company and freight broker.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not predict any other outcome. Our office sits at 65 W Jackson Blvd in downtown Chicago, and our founding partners handle personal injury and workers' compensation claims across the city.
There is no single government database that tracks every premises liability injury in Chicago. However, Illinois injury data shows that falls, slips, and other accidents that can occur on unsafe property remain a significant source of harm.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois private-sector employers reported 101,400 nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2023. Of those cases, 93,200 involved injuries rather than illnesses, and 42,800 resulted in days away from work.
Falls, slips, and trips are also a significant cause of fatal injuries. In 2023, 25 Illinois workers died in falls, slips, or trips, accounting for about 17% of all fatal workplace injuries in the state.
Illinois Department of Public Health data also shows the broader impact of falls. In 2023, 1,508 Illinois residents died from fall-related injuries, up from 1,484 in 2022.
These numbers are not limited to premises liability claims. However, they illustrate how seriously falls and other injury-producing hazards can affect people throughout Illinois.
More than one party is often responsible. Identifying all of them matters, because each may carry separate insurance.
Anyone who owns or controls the property can be liable, including a grocery chain, a restaurant, a bar, a parking garage operator, or a homeowner. Control matters more than the deed. A tenant who runs the storefront may answer for the condition of the entrance even though it does not own the building.
Landlords typically retain responsibility for common areas such as stairwells, hallways, lobbies, and shared walkways. Management companies and janitorial contractors can share liability when their work created or ignored the hazard. Identifying each of them early can open additional insurance coverage for your claim.
Injuries on public sidewalks, in public parks, at a public school, or on a Chicago Transit Authority platform involve a government defendant. Those claims follow different rules and much shorter deadlines, so they need attention right away.
No attorney can quote a reliable number early, and you should be cautious of anyone who does. Value depends on documented losses and on how clearly the property owner's conduct caused them.
Several factors drive the value of a claim:
Illinois law allows recovery for both financial losses and personal harm.
When an unsafe property condition causes a death, surviving family members may bring a wrongful death claim for their own losses.
Usually, yes. Illinois follows a modified comparative fault under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116. You are barred from recovery only if your own fault is more than 50% of the cause of the injury. At 50% or less, your damages are reduced by your percentage of fault.
Consider a claim worth $200,000 where a jury assigns you 20% of the fault. The award becomes $160,000 rather than nothing. Insurers know this rule and often argue that you were distracted, wearing the wrong shoes, or ignoring a warning sign, which is why early evidence matters so much.
A back strain on the day of the fall can become a herniated disc months later. Head injuries, torn ligaments, and fractures often reveal their full cost long after the initial emergency room visit.
Our attorneys work with treating physicians and, where appropriate, retain experts to document the entire scope of harm. Settling before that picture is complete usually leaves real losses uncompensated.
Most claims trace back to a condition the owner knew about or should have found during reasonable inspection.
Common causes include:
Many of these incidents are slip and fall injuries, though the same duty applies to every dangerous condition on the property.
Winter cases follow their own rules, and many people assume wrongly that no claim exists.
Illinois property owners generally owe no duty to remove naturally accumulated snow or ice, a principle reflected in the state's pattern jury instructions on falls involving snow and ice. Liability can still attach when the accumulation is unnatural. Defective gutters that drip onto a walkway, plow ridges left across an entrance, and refreezing caused by poor drainage all fall outside that shield.
Chicago requires owners and occupants to clear abutting sidewalks to a path at least five feet wide under Municipal Code section 10-8-180. Separately, the Snow and Ice Removal Act protects residential owners from liability for their removal efforts unless the conduct was willful and wanton.
That statutory protection does not extend to commercial property, so a store or office building that plows carelessly can still be held responsible.
Under the Premises Liability Act, 740 ILCS 130/2, the old distinction between invitees and licensees no longer controls. Owners owe every lawful entrant reasonable care under the circumstances.
A successful claim generally establishes the following:
Point three decides many cases. Proof of notice often comes from maintenance schedules, prior complaints, employee testimony, and timestamped video showing how long the hazard sat there.
Most injury lawsuits must be filed within 2 years of the injury under 735 ILCS 5/13-202. Wrongful death actions also run 2 years from the date of death.
Government claims are far shorter. Suits against a city, county, school district, or park district must begin within 1 year under 745 ILCS 10/8-101, and claims against the Chicago Transit Authority carry their own 1-year limit. Waiting to call an attorney can quietly cost you the claim.
You did nothing wrong by walking into a store, an apartment lobby, or a parking garage and expecting it to be safe. If a property owner's carelessness changed your health, your income, or your independence, it is worth getting a straight answer about what the law allows you to pursue.
Founding partners Daniel Q. Herbert, Adam R. Rosner, and Thomas M. Connelly represent injured people throughout Chicago on a contingency fee basis. Call a Chicago premises liability lawyer at Herbert Rosner Connelly Law Firm today to schedule your free case evaluation.
