Dallas v. Granite City Steel Company

A four-year-old boy (plaintiff) injured his eye when he and two of his brothers and a playmate were playing in the yard of an abandoned and debris-ridden residence owned by the Granite City Steel Company (defendant). A tort action for attractive nuisance on behalf of the boy was filed against Granite City Steel in state court. The boy alleged that he was injured when he tugged a saw loose that had been protruding from the ash pit where he had been playing. The boy’s brothers testified that they were on the roof of a shed near the ash pit when the injury occurred. The brothers further testified that they threw glass and rocks toward an alley, not the ash pit, and that several minutes passed between the time they threw the debris and when they heard their brother cry and found him bleeding from his eye. Evidence was presented that showed the cost to clean up all of Granite City Steel’s dilapidated property in the vicinity was $55,000—or approximately $200 per parcel. Testimony also showed that Granite City Steel had no plans to use the buildings and planned to eventually raze them. A jury returned a verdict for the boy and awarded him $115,000. Granite City Steel appealed. The parties disagreed whether Granite City Steel should have foreseen the likelihood of injury to the boy, whether the evidence supported an inference that the boy’s injuries were caused by the saw, and whether the expense to remediate the property was slight compared to the risk of injury to children-trespassers on the property.