Suit Filed Against City For Trying To Shift Blame In Porch Collapse
By Sam Bakken in News on Mar 31, 2005 9:59PM
John Koranda, who watched a porch crush his brother in the infamous 2003 Lincoln Park porch collapse, filed suit today in federal court against the city of Chicago and we say, "Right on." The city filed suit against him in February claiming that a number of witnesses, corroborated by an EMT that was at the scene, said that he and another man, William Fenton-Hathaway, were jumping up and down on the porch the night of the collapse. Koranda denies that he was jumping up and down and his suit claims that the city's suit is malicious and based on fabricated evidence.
This city is being a big fat dick about this whole thing. Koranda was a bit more articulate:
"It's sickening to have to experience firsthand the city's arrogance and also the disregard for any sort of compassion," Koranda said during a news conference in the federal courthouse's lobby. "The city is definitely stretching, trying to divert some blame."
It doesn't seem to us that it matters whether or not Koranda and Fenton-Hataway were jumping. Shouldn't the structure of a porch be sound enough to handle people jumping up and down on it? Oh and shitty city, did you forget that five of your Building Department employees said in depositions that they hadn't received enough training on porches and that some of them had no prior construction experience? Did you forget that the porch had gone through at least two inspections prior to the collapse and neither one mentioned that the porch was 100 square feet too large or that the hardware attaching the porch to the building was not strong enough?
We pay your taxes and elect you to office to provide us with services. One of those services is inspecting the integrity of structures to be sure we can walk around on them (maybe even jump on them) and not die. Apologize, hire experienced inspectors and train them thouroughly, and provide some closure for these poor families and the rest of your citizenry.