BELLEVILLE - Three months after appellate judges classified a pump as an office to affirm St. Clair County jurisdiction over Prairie State power plant in Washington County, plaintiff John Lewellyng of Florida sued Prairie State in St. Clair County.
Thomas Keefe III of Swansea filed the suit on Dec. 20 on behalf of Lewellyng, claiming he fell 20 to 25 feet through a hole in the floor of a silo at the plant.
He claimed Lewellyng suffered permanent pain, mental anguish, disability and disfigurement.
He claimed Lewellyng lost past and future wages, incurred large sums in medical expenses, and is permanently prevented from attending to his usual affairs and duties.
He claimed Prairie State failed to rope off the hole, or formally walk Lewellyng through the site, or give him instructions as to how to avoid the hole.
He identified Lewellyng as an employee of Hayes Mechanical.
He identified Prairie State as a corporation operating as a mine “and residing by other office in St. Clair County.”
Fifth District appellate judges ruled in October that a pump station on the St. Clair side of the Kaskaskia River qualified as an “other office” of Prairie State.
Keith Stefanisin filed the previous suit in St. Clair County in 2022, claiming Prairie State terminated him for seeking medical treatment, taking time off per doctor’s order, and seeking benefits.
Prairie State moved for transfer to Washington County.
Stefanisin’s counsel at Rich, Rich and Cooksey responded that the Fifth District affirmed St. Clair County jurisdiction in 1999 in a similar case.
That decision, Melliere v. Luhr Bros., defined “other office” as a fixed place of business at which the affairs of the corporation are conducted in furtherance of corporate activity.
Melliere's case involved an airplane hangar.
In Stefanisin's suit, St. Clair County Circuit Judge Heinz Rudolf applied Melliere's jurisdiction precedent to the pump house, and denied the motion to transfer.
On appeal, Fifth District judges applied the precedent, too.
Justice Thomas Welch wrote, “The company purposefully chose St. Clair County as the location for the pump house because of the proximity to the Kaskaskia River. “
Welch found water generated from the pump was a vital part of energy production and the company could not produce energy without water pumped from St. Clair County.
“The defendants sent employees, including the plaintiff on eight occasions, to the pump house daily for maintenance purposes,” he wrote.
Welch found it sat on 11.49 acres and had an assessed value of $47,293.
“Lastly, the pump house contains three river forwarding pumps, an acid injection skid, an air compressor and compressor tank, and a motor control center,” he wrote.
“These facts indicate that the trial court did not err in denying the motion for change of venue,” he added.