A Chicago federal judge has rejected an attempt by a woman to sue the owners of Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, and cosmetics retailer Sephora, after the woman claimed she fell down a small flight of stairs because ads in the window of Sephora’s store were too distracting.
Attorney Ilia Usharovich, of Wheeling, had filed suit in Chicago federal court in 2019 on behalf of plaintiff Keum Soon Kim, against defendants Simon Property Group and Sephora USA.
According to the complaint, Kim, who was 62 years old at the time, was in Woodfield Mall in October 2017, walking past Sephora’s storefront, when she fell down four stairs, located just located near Sephora’s doors. According to the complaint, Kim suffered multiple fractures in her ankles and feet, among other injuries, which required surgery to repair.
In her lawsuit, Kim asked the court to order Simon Property Group and Sephora to each pay unspecified damages, of more than $75,000, plus damages for pain and suffering, and more.
In her complaint, Kim claimed she had been “distracted” by an advertising display in the windows of the Sephora store, causing her not to be properly aware of the danger posed by the open stairway she was approaching. The window displays featured “no flashing lights, protruding pieces, loud sounds, or special effects.”
Rather, court documents described the displays as “rather ordinary,” as they “merely showcased some of Sephora’s cosmetic products.”
In her complaint, Kim argued the placement of the “distracting” window display so near the stairs created a “dangerous condition,” which the store and the mall ownership were obligated to notice and remedy, to prevent “distracted” shoppers from falling down the stairs.
After nearly two and a half years of litigation in federal court, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman granted summary judgment to the defendants on April 28.
The judge said in other cases in which courts have ruled in favor of distracted plaintiffs who were injured in falls, the courts have determined those plaintiffs “were distracted due to some circumstance that required them to divert their attention from the open and obvious condition or otherwise prevented them from avoiding the risk.”
In this case, however, the judge said, “there was nothing requiring plaintiff to divert her attention from the steps or preventing her from observing them.”
“Unlike those cases, in the instant suit there was no dangerous condition other than an open and obvious staircase that plaintiff failed to observe because she was not paying attention,” Gettleman wrote. “… No reasonable jury could find otherwise.”
Sephora has been represented in the case by attorneys Jayne Bart-Plange and James A. Foster, of the firm of Cassiday Schade, of Chicago.
Simon Property Group has been represented by attorney Michael J. Linneman, of Johnson & Bell, of Chicago.