Background
Cody Kraeplin was cleaning the roof of John B. Sanfilippo & Son’s Fisher Nuts factory when a pressure-washer hose became entangled around his feet. As he tried to free himself, he slipped and fell through an uncovered skylight approximately 30 feet to the factory floor, suffering severe injuries.
Kraeplin knew the skylight had no exterior cover and that skylights could break if stepped on. But he testified that he had not been told the skylight lacked protective screening underneath. The roofing crew used fall protection while working near the skylight on the first day, but did not use it on the second day after establishing a six-foot perimeter. Sanfilippo’s safety director had identified unscreened skylights as a hazard before the accident and recommended guards.
The Court’s Holding
The Illinois Appellate Court reversed summary judgment for Sanfilippo and remanded. Although the skylight’s general danger was open and obvious, the court held that the company could still owe a duty to warn workers that it lacked underlying protective netting, making it more dangerous than it appeared.
Applying Illinois’s four-factor duty analysis, the court found at least a moderate likelihood of injury, high foreseeability, and a minimal burden of warning the contractor about the missing protection. It also held that the distraction exception to the open-and-obvious doctrine could apply because Kraeplin was trying to avoid tripping over the entangled pressure-washer hose. Whether the company’s failure to warn proximately caused the injuries and whether Kraeplin was contributorily negligent were fact questions for the trier of fact.
Key Takeaways
- An open and obvious condition does not automatically eliminate a landowner’s duty of reasonable care.
- A landowner may have to warn when a known hazard has a concealed feature that materially increases its danger.
- Questions of proximate cause and contributory fault ordinarily cannot be resolved on summary judgment.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes awareness of a skylight as a fall hazard from awareness that the skylight has no protection beneath it. For property owners and contractors, it underscores that a simple warning about hidden safety deficiencies may be required even where workers know the general hazard is visible.