Bier v. Leanna Lakeside Property Ass'n

Case Date: 05/19/1999
Court: 2nd District Appellate
Docket No: 2-98-0331

Bier v. Leanna Lakeside Property Ass'n, No. 2-98-0331

2nd District, May 19, 1999



RICKIE BIER and KATHY BIER,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

LEANNA LAKESIDE PROPERTY ASSOCIATION,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Winnebago County.

No. 94--L--392

Honorable Galyn W. Moehring, Judge, Presiding.

Modified Upon Denial of Rehearing

JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the court:

The plaintiffs, Rickie Bier (hereinafter, the plaintiff) and Kathy Bier (collectively, the plaintiffs), filed a two-count complaint against the defendant, Leanna Lakeside Property Association, seeking damages for personal injuries and loss of consortium sustained by the plaintiffs when Rickie fell from a rope swing into the defendant's lake. The trial court dismissed the plaintiffs' complaint, finding that the rope swing was an open and obvious danger, and, therefore, the defendant did not owe the plaintiff a duty as a matter of law. The plaintiffs appeal.

PLAINTIFFS' SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT

The plaintiffs' second amended complaint alleged that the defendant was an association of five or more homeowners that owned, operated, maintained, and controlled a lake and bathing beach. According to the complaint, the defendant erected and maintained a ladder and rope swing(1) that were connected to a tree at its beach adjacent to the lake and that it intended swimmers to use to swing out over the lake and fall or dive into it. While lawfully on the property, the plaintiff used the rope swing and fell into the lake, hitting his head on the lake bottom. As a result, he sustained a fractured neck and was rendered a quadriplegic.

The second amended complaint further alleged that the defendant was negligent in one or more of the following respects: (1) inviting swimmers to swing from the rope into the lake when it was not safe to do so; (2) erecting and maintaining the rope swing over water it knew or should have known was too shallow for diving or falling into the lake; (3) providing a "diving facility" over water that was shallower than the minimum depth required by the Illinois Swimming Pool and Bathing Beach Act (Beach Act) (210 ILCS 125/5, 13 (West 1994); 77 Ill. Adm. Code