Tort Regulation
Chicago is not accountable for bicyclist injured by pothole on highway that wasn’t designated bike route, courtroom guidelines
A bicyclist who wasn’t on a delegated bicycle route when he was injured by a pothole can’t get well from town of Chicago, although there was a Divvy bicycle rental station close by, the Illinois Supreme Courtroom dominated final month. Picture from Shutterstock.
A bicyclist who wasn’t on a delegated bicycle route when he was injured by a pothole can’t get well from town of Chicago, although there was a Divvy bicycle rental station close by, the Illinois Supreme Courtroom dominated final month.
The state supreme courtroom dominated towards bicyclist Clark Alave, who mentioned he was thrown from his bicycle after hanging the pothole in 2019, fracturing his tooth, injuring his hip and shoulder, and inflicting facial cuts and scars.
The Chicago Sun-Times, the Cook County Record and Capitol Information Illinois by way of WTTW have protection.
The Illinois Supreme Courtroom interpreted the Illinois Tort Immunity Act, which mentioned cities have an obligation to take care of their property in a fairly protected situation to be used by folks “supposed and permitted” to make use of the property.
Chicago permits bicyclists to make use of any roadway that motorists use, however that doesn’t imply that bicyclists are supposed to make use of all these roadways, the Illinois Supreme Courtroom mentioned in its Dec. 14 opinion.
In Alave’s case, he was driving on a highway and not using a designated bike lane and signage, indicating that town didn’t intend him to be utilizing the highway, the state supreme courtroom mentioned.
The presence of a Divvy station about 100 ft away solely establishes that town permitted bicycling on the highway—not that it supposed it, the state supreme courtroom mentioned. The Illinois Supreme Courtroom famous that metropolis code permits bicyclists to trip on the sidewalk to entry the closest bicycle lane; on this case, the closest bicycle lane was one block away, town mentioned.
Michael S. Keating, who filed an amicus transient on behalf of the advocacy nonprofit Trip Illinois, mentioned in an announcement the Illinois Supreme Courtroom’s determination affirmed “harsh precedent” that distinguished between permitted and supposed customers of roads, in accordance with the Cook dinner County Report.
“This holding merely doesn’t mirror that large surge in bicycling that has occurred in Chicago, the suburbs and all through the remainder of Illinois,” Keating mentioned. “On that reality alone I feel the Illinois Supreme Courtroom ought to have clarified extra particularly what ‘supposed’ means past simply the presence of motorcycle lanes, a motorbike map or indicators.”
Keating did, nevertheless, reward the Illinois Supreme Courtroom for a Nov. 30 determination holding that an uninsured motorist coverage should cowl a policyholder’s son who was injured by a hit-and-run driver whereas driving his bicycle.
