Premises Liability Lawyer in Orland Park, IL

Two facts decide most premises cases, and an injured person rarely sees either one at the moment of the fall: who actually controlled the space, and what that party knew about the danger before you arrived. Everything else on this page—the hazards, the records, the deadlines—is a way of answering those two questions.

If you were hurt in a store, a parking lot, an apartment building, a stairwell, or on a public walkway in Orland Park, Tinley Park, Mokena, or a neighboring community, the medical appointments and missed work are already real. Michael J. Brennan reviews who was responsible for the property, what the records may show about the danger, and which deadline applies to your situation, then explains your options under Illinois law. He personally handles every matter he accepts, and the first step is a free case evaluation.

What Premises Liability Means Under Illinois Law

Premises liability holds the party in control of property responsible when an unreasonably dangerous condition injures a person who was lawfully there. The Illinois Premises Liability Act, found in the Illinois Compiled Statutes (ILCS) at 740 ILCS 130/2, directs owners and occupiers of land to use reasonable care under the circumstances toward lawful visitors, and it ended the old distinction between invitees and licensees. That obligation is the property owner’s duty of care, and the rest of this page asks whether the owner, or whoever stood in the owner’s place, met it.

Courts do not treat that duty of care as unlimited. In Marshall v. Burger King Corp., 222 Ill. 2d 422 (2006), the Illinois Supreme Court described the factors that shape it: how foreseeable the injury was, how likely it was, how hard it would have been to guard against, and what that burden would cost the defendant. A business that holds its property open to the public stands in a recognized relationship to its customers, and that is the starting point for many of the claims described below.

A premises claim still has the familiar parts of a negligence case: a duty, a failure to meet it, a connection between that failure and the injury, and losses. The slip-and-fall proof path is covered in detail on the slip-and-fall injury page and in this guide to proving negligence. This page concentrates on what is different about premises cases: finding the right party, proving what that party knew, and dealing with hazards that are not simple slips.

Who Controlled the Property When You Were Hurt

The first question in a premises investigation is not “who is the property owner?” but “who was responsible for this particular area, on this particular day?” Ownership, leasing, and day-to-day maintenance are often split among several parties, and each one may point to another when a claim is made.

In multi-unit housing, Illinois courts recite a common-areas rule. In Webster v. Heim, 80 Ill. App. 3d 315 (1980), the appellate court recited the rule that a landlord owes tenants a duty of reasonable care in managing and maintaining areas open for use by all tenants. The landlord won on the claim in that case, which concerned fire exits and detectors, so it is useful only for the common-areas rule. The same practical question applies to a shopping center, an office park, or a medical campus: which party had the authority to fix the problem or warn people about it?

Michael looks for that answer early in every Orland Park premises matter, because the answer shapes everything that follows: who receives a request to preserve records and video, whose insurer will respond, and which deadline governs the claim. Naming only the first company that comes to mind can leave out the party that actually controlled the condition.

What the Owner Knew: Notice as a Records Investigation

A property owner is not an insurer against every accident. For most hazards, the claim depends on what the responsible party knew, or should have known, before the injury. The Illinois Supreme Court described the main routes in a foreign-substance case, Olinger v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 21 Ill. 2d 469 (1961): liability may be imposed if the proprietor or its servants negligently placed the substance there, or, if it got there through third persons or it is unknown how, if the proprietor or its servants knew of it or it was there long enough that ordinary care should have discovered it. The store prevailed because nothing connected the substance to the store’s operations, and the plaintiff did not contend that the evidence showed actual or constructive notice. The case shows why proof on each route matters.

What the owner knew and what it should have known

Actual knowledge means someone with responsibility for the property knew about the danger: an employee saw it, a tenant reported it, a contractor wrote it up. Constructive notice means the party should have known. In Ruda v. Jewel Food Stores, Inc., 2024 IL App (1st) 230582, the First District stated that constructive notice can be shown in either of two ways: the dangerous condition existed long enough that ordinary care would have discovered it, or it was part of a pattern or recurring incident.

The facts in Ruda show how that works in practice. A customer slipped on a cherry pit. Employees said pits on the floor were a recurring problem, and the store’s sweep records left open questions. The appellate court reversed summary judgment for the store. That ruling did not decide who would win at trial, but it shows how a store’s own routines and records can carry the case past an early dismissal.

When the owner created the problem

If the injured person can show that the owner or an employee negligently created the condition, Olinger treats that as a basis for liability without a separate showing of knowledge or elapsed time. The difficulty is proving who created it, which is where the plaintiff in that case fell short. A display stacked unsafely by store staff, a cord run across a walkway by a maintenance worker, and a repair left half finished by a contractor all raise this question.

There is no fixed number of minutes

Illinois law does not give a magic number of minutes. Courts weigh the layout, the traffic, and the inspection practices of the particular place, and results differ from one case to the next. Anyone who names a fixed minimum time a hazard must have existed is simplifying. Ruda (¶ 42) cites decisions that sent questions about what the store should have known to trial where a plaintiff testified that no one inspected the area for 20 minutes, while in Hresil v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 82 Ill. App. 3d 1000 (1st Dist. 1980), the court found 10 minutes insufficient on its facts, in a store that was not busy with no customer or employee near the substance, and affirmed a directed verdict for Sears. For what to gather and how video can help, see the guides on slip-and-fall evidence and surveillance footage.

If an owner, manager, or insurer has already questioned you about what happened, talk with Michael before you give a recorded statement to the owner’s insurer. He can explain what the questions are trying to establish about control and notice.

Hazards Beyond the Slip: Where Premises Cases Arise

People in the southwest suburbs get hurt where they spend their days: shopping centers, big-box stores, restaurants, apartment complexes, medical and office parks, and municipal buildings. Each setting raises its own question about control and knowledge. Snow and ice have their own rules and are covered in the guide on falls on ice outside a business, so this section concentrates on other conditions.

Stairs, Handrails, and Code Violations as Evidence

Stairways produce serious injuries because a fall happens suddenly and from a height. They also leave some of the clearest proof, because building and safety codes often address stair construction, handrails, and lighting. The Illinois Supreme Court addressed the legal weight of that kind of violation in Kalata v. Anheuser-Busch Cos., 144 Ill. 2d 425 (1991), a case involving a stairway that had a handrail on one side where the City of Chicago building code required rails on both sides. The court held that violating a statute or ordinance designed to protect human life or property is prima facie evidence of negligence, and it affirmed the trial court’s judgment for the plaintiff, a driver for a distribution company who fell on a snow- and ice-covered stairway at the defendant’s warehouse. The trial court reduced his damages for his own negligence, but that fall occurred in 1984; how shared fault affects a claim today is governed by 735 ILCS 5/2-1116, discussed below.

That holding has limits. A violation is not negligence per se, so the defendant can still try to show it acted reasonably. The injured person must also show the violation caused the injury and that the rule was meant to protect people like them from that kind of harm. A code violation can carry real weight, but it is not automatic liability.

Chicago’s code does not govern Orland Park or its neighbors. Each municipality adopts its own building and property-maintenance codes, and which provisions apply depends on the community and the building. Michael checks the code that applies to the specific property rather than assuming a standard. The guide on building code compliance covers the topic in more depth.

If you fall on a stairway, document the whole staircase and not only the step where you fell: both sides for railings, the lighting at the top and bottom, the condition of the surface, anything on the steps, and the footwear you wore. Permits, inspection history, and repair records for the building may later show whether the problem was known or whether recent work changed the stairs.

Apartment Buildings and Shared Common Areas

Residential injuries raise a threshold question that commercial cases usually do not: was the hazard inside the part of the property the resident controlled, or in an area shared by everyone? Lobbies, stairwells, hallways, laundry rooms, garages, walkways, and parking areas are typically shared, and the common-areas rule described earlier concerns reasonable care in managing and maintaining areas open to all tenants.

In these cases the paper trail often lives with a property manager. Written maintenance requests from residents, work orders, correspondence about burned-out lights or broken railings, and warnings posted to tenants can show what the landlord or manager knew. If you live in the building, keep your own copies of every request you submit and every response you receive. The guide on slip-and-fall claims at apartment complexes adds more on how courts approach these buildings.

Negligent Security: When Crime on the Property Was Foreseeable

Some of the most serious premises injuries come from an assault, robbery, or shooting in a parking lot, apartment building, hotel, or business. Illinois starts from a cautious rule. In Rowe v. State Bank of Lombard, 125 Ill. 2d 203 (1988), the Illinois Supreme Court said a landowner generally has no duty to protect others from criminal acts by third persons absent a special relationship. Negligent security claims therefore depend on showing both a relationship that creates the duty and facts that made the attack foreseeable.

The same opinion adds two points that matter in apartment and office settings. The simple relationship between landlord and tenant is not a special relationship that imposes a duty to protect against criminal acts. But a landlord that voluntarily undertakes security measures and performs them negligently can be liable if that negligence proximately causes the injury. The duty follows what was actually undertaken: in Rowe, the plaintiffs failed to show such an undertaking as to the door locks and lighting, and the lease disclaimed responsibility for protecting tenants from criminal acts. The court found a separate duty tied to control over master keys, described below.

The business-and-customer relationship can supply the first piece. The Illinois Supreme Court has also held that a special relationship alone does not impose the duty: the attack must also have been reasonably foreseeable (Hills v. Bridgeview Little League Ass’n, 195 Ill. 2d 210 (2000)). Foreseeability is where these cases are won or lost. In Witcher v. 1104 Madison St. Restaurant, 2019 IL App (1st) 181641, the court affirmed judgment for the defendant and explained that the criminal act must have resulted from the same risk present in earlier incidents. Generalized allegations of prior crimes are not enough; the earlier incidents must resemble the attack.

What the investigation looks for

• Earlier similar incidents: prior assaults, break-ins, or thefts at the same property or immediately around it, and whether anyone reported them to management.
• Security measures promised or abandoned: lighting, locks, gates, cameras, patrol schedules, and contracts with security companies, along with any decision to cut them back.
• Repair history: complaints about broken door locks, inoperable entry systems, or burned-out lights, and how long each problem sat.
• Keys and access: In Rowe, the Supreme Court held that Paramount, which held the beneficial interest in the office park and leased the offices, assumed a duty to take reasonable precautions against unauthorized entries by master-key holders by retaining access to the units, and that its managing agent, who had been told the keys were unaccounted for, had a duty to warn or take precautions. The court reversed summary judgment for them and sent the case back for further proceedings, so the claims against them continued. It affirmed summary judgment for the developer, a prior owner who had sold the park before the attack.

Because the evidence of foreseeability sits mostly in the owner’s files, these cases depend on early preservation requests and careful records review. If a security contractor was involved, its contract and post orders may also show who was responsible for what.

Injuries on Village, Park District, or Other Public Property

A fall on a public sidewalk in Orland Park or a neighboring village, in a municipal building, at a park, or on school grounds changes the legal framework and the clock. The Premises Liability Act is the framework for private land. Local public property is governed by the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act (745 ILCS 10), which sets the entity’s duty of ordinary care. The Illinois Supreme Court said in Bruns v. City of Centralia, 2014 IL 116998, that the Act did not create that duty but codified the duty that already existed at common law, so common-law doctrines such as the open-and-obvious rule still inform it.

• Ordinary care and notice: Under 745 ILCS 10/3-102, a local public entity must use ordinary care to keep its property reasonably safe for people it intended and permitted to use the property, in the manner and at the times it was reasonably foreseeable that the property would be used. It is liable only if it had actual or constructive notice of the condition in reasonably adequate time to fix it or protect against it. An entity can defend by showing that a reasonably adequate inspection system would not have discovered the condition.
• Recreational property: For an injury caused by the condition of parks, playgrounds, and similar recreational property, the law (745 ILCS 10/3-106) requires willful and wanton conduct before an entity is liable. This does not bar every park injury, but it is a much higher standard than ordinary care. Supervision of an activity is addressed separately (745 ILCS 10/3-108), and other immunities in the Act may also apply.
• Who counts: The statute’s definition of a local public entity includes counties, townships, municipalities, school districts, and park districts, and excludes the State of Illinois.

Sidewalk cases carry one more wrinkle. Illinois courts have long held that a municipality need not keep every sidewalk in perfect condition, and that slight inequalities in level and other minor defects are generally not actionable; the question is whether a reasonably prudent person would anticipate some danger from the defect (see Warner v. City of Chicago, 72 Ill. 2d 100 (1978), discussing the rule; the pedestrian there nonetheless had her jury verdict reinstated). The size and character of the specific defect and the surrounding circumstances matter, so photograph it, with something for scale, as soon as you can.

Deadlines depend on the defendant

These are general rules, and a particular case can turn on accrual, the defendant’s status, or an exception. The practical lesson is to identify the correct defendant quickly: a sidewalk in front of a business, for example, may belong to the business or the municipality, and the one-year and two-year deadlines are very different. For background on these claims, see the guides on suing a government entity and injuries on public property.

Open and Obvious Dangers, Distraction, and Shared Fault

A property owner facing a premises claim often argues that the danger was open and obvious and that you should have seen it. Illinois courts apply the open-and-obvious rule and its exceptions as case-law doctrine, and how it plays out depends on the facts, as the decisions discussed below show.

In Bruns, the Court explained that a party who owns or controls land is not required to foresee and protect against an injury if the condition is open and obvious. It also stressed that an open and obvious danger is not an automatic or per se bar to a finding of duty. Obviousness affects the first two factors of the duty analysis, foreseeability and likelihood of injury. The Court recognized two exceptions, the distraction exception and the deliberate encounter exception, and required evidence from which a court can infer that the person was actually distracted. The question is not whether the plaintiff was looking elsewhere, but why. The plaintiff in Bruns, who tripped on a defective municipal sidewalk while looking toward a clinic door, did not qualify, and the Court affirmed summary judgment for the City. A task that demands attention, as in Ward below, can be different.

A visible hazard can still support a claim. In Ward v. K mart Corp., 136 Ill. 2d 132 (1990), the Court held that a store’s duty encompassed the risk that a customer carrying a large, bulky item would collide with a concrete post at the exit, and that the customer’s own fault did not necessarily bar recovery.

How shared fault works

Under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116, an injured person is barred only if the trier of fact finds that his or her own fault is more than 50 percent. At 50 percent or less, damages are reduced in proportion to that fault. Expect the defense to raise comparative fault in almost every premises case, and expect it to be tested against the facts: the lighting, the layout, what you were carrying, what the owner had done to warn people. The guide to comparative fault covers the arithmetic.

If an owner or insurer is blaming you for the fall, ask Michael to review the facts before you accept that account of what happened.

After an Injury on Someone Else’s Property

Medical care comes first. Beyond that, a few steps protect a premises claim in ways that differ from other injuries:

• Report the injury to the manager, landlord, or property office, and ask for a copy of any report they prepare. Do not assume one exists or that it will help you; what it records and what it leaves out are both worth knowing.
• Photograph the condition, the surrounding area, the lighting, and any signs or warnings, and do it before the area is repaired or cleaned.
• Write down the names of witnesses and employees you spoke to, and the time and place.
• Keep the shoes and clothing you wore.
• Report the facts of what happened plainly, but avoid speculating about the cause or admitting fault in writing, on social media, or in recorded statements. Your own health insurer, or any insurer your policy requires you to notify, is different from the property owner’s insurer; follow your policy’s terms for the first, and get advice before giving a recorded statement to the second.

Evidence in the owner’s hands can disappear. The Illinois Supreme Court observed in Martin v. Keeley & Sons, Inc., 2012 IL 113270, that mere possession of an item is not enough to create a duty to keep it and that something more, such as a request to preserve it, is required. Under Boyd v. Travelers Insurance Co., 166 Ill. 2d 188 (1995), Illinois recognizes no automatic duty to preserve evidence, though one can arise from an agreement, a contract, a statute, or another special circumstance, and a defendant can also assume the duty by affirmative conduct. In each case the duty applies only if a reasonable person in the defendant’s position should have foreseen that what was lost would be material to a potential civil action. A prompt written preservation request does not guarantee that video, logs, or physical items will survive, but it strengthens the position if they do not.

Working With Michael J. Brennan on a Premises Case

Michael brings more than 40 years of personal injury litigation experience and is a former Assistant State’s Attorney in Cook County. That background means he is accustomed to evaluating proof, questioning witnesses, preparing a case, and presenting facts clearly. In a premises matter, those skills go into identifying who controlled the property, requesting the records that show what each party knew, and explaining the result in terms you can follow.

His work on a premises matter generally includes:

• Interviewing you about exactly how the injury happened and what you saw.
• Identifying every party who may have owned, leased, managed, or maintained the area.
• Sending preservation requests for video, logs, work orders, and repair and complaint histories.
• Reviewing medical records and documenting how the injury affected your work and daily life.
• Explaining Illinois law, the likely defenses, and the deadline that applies to your case.

Illinois lets an injured person seek the reasonable value of medical care, as the Supreme Court confirmed in Wills v. Foster, 229 Ill. 2d 393 (2008), and a claim can also include lost income and pain and suffering. What a case is worth depends on the facts and the medical course; see this discussion of claim value for context. Michael does not predict a result before he has reviewed the evidence.

Michael works from his Orland Park office and represents people from Tinley Park, Homer Glen, Mokena, Frankfort, Palos Hills, Midlothian, Oak Forest, and the surrounding southwest suburbs. His cases are handled on a contingency fee—no upfront cost. You can read more about him on his attorney profile page, and the accident liability page explains how responsibility is assessed in other kinds of accidents.

Premises Liability Questions Answered