BENTON – U.S. Magistrate Judge Reona Daly gave the estate of Washington Park auxiliary policeman Ricardo Davis 30 days to connect his death to a repair job on Poplar Street Bridge where he fell.
Daly dismissed the estate’s complaint against KCI Construction, D and K Welding, and Thomas Industrial Coatings on Jan. 19, without prejudice.
She found the bare allegations failed to satisfy the requirement of proximate cause necessary to sustain the claims. She set a Feb. 18 deadline for amendment.
Davis jumped from the bridge on the Illinois side while chasing a suspect in 2018, expecting to land on bridge surface below.
Estate administrators Jacqueline Davis and Romero Davis sued the contractors in St. Clair County circuit court last October.
Their counsel Jason Caraway of Belleville wrote that KCI worked under a contract with the state of Missouri.
Caraway claimed KCI owed a duty of safety to Davis under its contract and common law.
He sued D and K Welding and Thomas Industrial Coatings as subcontractors.
He claimed defendants failed to maintain a safe site, provide proper safety oversight, and warn Davis and others of hazardous conditions. He also claimed they stored equipment in a way that caused danger, failed to supervise employees, and failed to stop work at the construction site.
KCI removed the complaint to district court in November, asserting diversity jurisdiction over all defendants as Missouri citizens.
KCI counsel David Berwin claimed the amount in controversy exceeded the $75,000 minimum for federal jurisdiction.
Berwin wrote that the estate sought recovery for six children including three minors.
D and K Welding and Thomas Industrial Coatings consented to removal.
In two weeks all defendants moved to dismiss the complaint.
After all parties consented to magistrate jurisdiction, Daly delivered a decision.
“In determining whether a legal duty is owed, the court must consider whether the defendant and the plaintiff stood in such a relationship to one another that the law imposed upon the defendant an obligation of reasonable conduct for the benefit of the plaintiff,” Daly wrote.
She wrote that factors include foreseeability of injury, its likelihood, the burden of guarding against it, and the consequences of placing the burden on a defendant.
She agreed with a defense argument that just because work is being done doesn’t mean liability is conveyed because an injury occurs in the vicinity.
“In reviewing the allegations in the complaint, it is impossible to find that plaintiffs have pleaded sufficient facts to establish that defendants owed a duty under common law,” she wrote.
She found the estate didn’t provide KCI’s contract or allege that a contractual duty of safety extended to Davis.
She found no allegations to substantiate a finding of a dangerous condition that an entrant wouldn’t discover or realize.
She found no allegation that contractors failed to exercise reasonable care.
She found “no allegation that Mr. Davis’s fall through an opening was even related to their construction on the bridge.”
“If the amended complaint fails to cure the noted deficiencies, the court may dismiss this matter with prejudice,” she wrote.