Brunner
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio Supreme Court has again refused to punish recreation centers for their furniture, as last week it rejected the idea a woman’s death was the fault of a bench.
The court ruled for the Berea Rec Center in a wrongful-death case brought by the Estate of Joan Steigerwald, an 83-year-old woman who tripped over a bench in a locker room and passed away 12 days later in April 2018.
The lawsuit alleged Berea recklessly purchased a bench with extended legs then placed it in a narrow space, creating a walking hazard that caused Steigerwald’s death. Berea, as a political subdivision, was entitled to immunity if injuries aren’t “due to physical defects” on its grounds. Though the Eighth District Court of Appeals found the bench could be a physical defect, the Supreme Court disagreed.
“No evidence suggests that the bench was broken, malfunctioning, or defective,” Justice Megan Shanahan wrote for the majority.
Shanahan’s opinion relied on a ruling the court made in April. In that case, the Thurgood Marshall Recreation Center in Cleveland was blamed for the drowning of a swimmer because a lifeguard was sitting in a wider, shorter chair rather than the narrower, elevated chair provided for her.
Lower courts had decided a jury could consider the lifeguard’s uncomfortable chair as a physical defect, but the Supreme Court disagreed.
“The decision to use one chair rather than another plainly does not amount to a physical defect on the pool grounds…” the court wrote.
“Our holding in Hoskins establishes the principle that the use or placement of functional equipment does not constitute a ‘physical defect,’” Justice Shanahan wrote. “As in Hoskins, in which the alleged physical defect arose from the lifeguard’s decision to use the folding chair and not the lifeguard chair, the alleged physical defect here arises from Berea’s decision to place a structurally sound bench in the women’s locker room.
“(The) physical-defect exception to political-subdivision immunity does not extend to such decisions.”
Justice Jennifer Brunner was the lone dissenter in both the Hoskins and Steigerwald rulings. The folding chair for lifeguards lacked adequate sight lines of the pool, she wrote in April, then last week she criticized the majority for a “tunnel-vision approach” on when equipment has a physical defect.
That term can’t just mean that it is broken or damaged in some way, she said.
“As numerous appellate courts have recognized, a physical defect may exist because of the negligent design or layout of an area within a building or the negligent deployment of an otherwise functioning object,” Brunner wrote.
“The statute by its terms requires common-sense inquiries in this case: Did the government cause the bench to be placed where it was, was that placement negligent, and did its placement in this manner at the recreation center cause the plaintiff’s injury? Under these inquiries, there remains a genuine issue of material fact to be determined by the trier of fact.”
