Man falls from Rogers Park porch after railing gives way

A man was injured in a fall from a porch to an apartment building on the 7300 block of North Winchester yesterday evening.  The fall happened when the railing to the porch gave way and the man fell to the ground from the second story porch.  He was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston in critical condition with head injuries.

I wrote earlier this summer about the City's failure to inspect porches for code violations.  This was the subject of a series of articles in the Chicago Tribune. 

Even though there was likely no citation written in advance of this accident, the property owner had a legal obligation to maintain the porch in a safe condition, including complying with all applicable City building codes.  This means that the responsibility for this fell to the landlord (if this was a rental apartment building) or the condominium association (if this was a condo building).

You can be certain that there will be City inspectors out in short order doing inspections that should have been done a long time ago and that there will be work done to repair the porch.  As experienced Chicago personal injury lawyers, we would strongly recommend that (1) photos be taken to document the condition of the porch, as evidence of repairs done after the accident may not be admissible at the trial of this case and (2) that experienced investigators contact current and former residents of the building to obtain witness statements to help establish the landlord's notice of the defective condition of the porch.