ILLINOIS: Versus Church & State

In a sudden fire that engulfed the second floor of Our Lady of the Angels grammar school in Chicago last December, 91 children and three nuns died, scores of children were seriously injured (TIME, Dec. 15). Last week, on behalf of five children still under medical care for severe burns. Chicago Lawyer Burton Joseph filed in Cook County circuit court a $1,750,000 damage suit against 1) the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, for letting the school become a “dangerous fire trap,” and 2) the City of Chicago, for failing to enforce its own fire ordinances for safety standards in schools.

A few years ago, Lawyer Joseph, 29, would have had scant prospects of winning his case. But in Illinois, as in most other states of the U.S., the past few years have seen a striking trend in favor of the plaintiff in damage suits, with ever bigger awards and ever broader liability. Such charitable institutions as churches have been held liable to the extent of having to pay damages out of their previously sacrosanct trust funds. The trend has even shaken the old common-law principle that a government entity is immune from damage claims as long as it stays within the bounds of strictly governmental activities (“The King can do no wrong”). Only last May, the Illinois Supreme Court declared that government immunity to damage suits rests on a ”rotten foundation.”

So crowded are Cook County court dockets that the school-fire case will not come to trial for an estimated five years. But if it is decided in the plaintiffs’ favor, it could have far-reaching results, facing Chicago and other cities with an endless procession of negligence damage suits after any fire, explosion or accident in an area where the city is charged with safety inspection.