In September 2012, Kimberly Ross won a summary judgment motion in a slip and fall on ice case in Kane County, Illinois. Plaintiff was visiting Defendant’s warehouse facility in February 2010. Upon entering the building, Plaintiff did not notice any ice or snow on the surface of the parking area. He exited from a different door, and while he was walking towards his vehicle, he slipped and fell and broke his ankle. After he fell, he realized he had slipped on a patch of ice.

Plaintiff alleged in his complaint that the ice was unnatural because it emanated from a snow pile that had been plowed against the side of the building near where he fell. He alleged that that the parking lot sloped from the building towards the drain in the lot and that the ice had been formed during a freeze-thaw cycle, with the trail of ice leading toward the drain. At his deposition, however, Plaintiff testified that he did not remember observing any piles of snow against the building and that he did not know from where the ice came. Employees of Defendant testified that there were no piles of snow along the side of the building, and some testified that there were patches of ice in the lot, mainly where the cars parked, caused from foot and vehicular traffic packing down snow from previous snow falls. Although the employees testified that portions of the lot did drain towards the slope, the uncontroverted evidence was that the area 20 to 30 feet out from building was flat, and then the lot began to slope towards the drain. Three paramedics testified that they observed ice in the area where they found Plaintiff, but none remembered seeing any piles of snow against the building and none knew from where the ice they saw came.

In response to the summary judgment motion, Plaintiff submitted an affidavit of his wife, who came to the scene shortly after the accident (while Plaintiff was still there). The wife stated that she observed a pile of snow against the building and ice “trailing” from the pile. She tried to link her observation to the “area” of the accident based on alleged hearsay of her husband and Defendant’s employees. Defendant moved to strike the affidavit and Plaintiff was given another chance to provide an affidavit not based on hearsay; however, her second affidavit was equally replete with hearsay.

Ultimately, the court struck the second affidavit, finding that it did not comply with Supreme Court Rule 191 in that it contained hearsay and was not based on the wife’s personal knowledge. The court also found that even if the affidavit were considered, it did not raise a genuine issue of material fact. The court granted the motion for summary judgment, finding there was no genuine issue of material fact to prove the ice on which Plaintiff slipped was unnatural. The court recognized that there was no evidence to show that there was any slope in the area where Plaintiff fell, let alone a "dangerous slope," which is what case law requires.