{"id":5394,"date":"2015-07-09T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T15:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/injury.robertkreisman.com\/?p=5394"},"modified":"2015-07-08T17:46:45","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T22:46:45","slug":"illinois-appellate-court-finds-that-release-document-does-not-shield-gym-from-liability-in-injury-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/illinois-appellate-court-finds-that-release-document-does-not-shield-gym-from-liability-in-injury-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Appellate Court Finds That Release Document Does Not Shield Gym From Liability in Injury Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The plaintiff Michael Hawkins signed a release when he purchased a gym membership from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xsportfitness.com\/\">X-Sport Fitness<\/a>, which is owned by Capital Fitness Inc. The release document did not expressly cover the unusual hazard of falling mirrors, which occurred at the Chicago facility when a 3-foot by 8-foot mirror fell from a wall protrusion and struck Hawkins on the head while he was performing arm curls at X-Sport\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Logan_Square,_Chicago\">Logan Square<\/a> facility. It was alleged that the mirror fell on Hawkins because X-Sport\u2019s employees chose not to properly secure it.<\/p>\n<p>The release document that was signed by Hawkins stated in all capital letters that Hawkins accepted \u201call risks of injury from using the gym\u2019s equipment and facility&#8221;; agreed to hold the company and its affiliates harmless from any injury caused by negligent acts and omissions \u201carising out of or in any way related to the member\u2019s presence and\/or use of the facility\u201d; and released all claims for personal injury that might be caused by improper maintenance of any \u201cexercise equipment or facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the basis of that release and its language, the trial judge granted Capital Fitness\u2019s motion for summary judgment in its favor. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.illinoiscourts.gov\/AppellateCourt\/\">Illinois Appellate Court<\/a> reversed stating that \u201cBecause an exculpatory clause is strictly construed against the party it benefits, the clause must identify the range of dangers for which risk of injury is being assumed.\u201d The court added, \u201cWe are unable to hold, as a matter of law, that a falling mirror is a danger within the scope of the exculpatory clause.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/illinois-appellate-court-finds-that-release-document-does-not-shield-gym-from-liability-in-injury-case\/#more-5394\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The plaintiff Michael Hawkins signed a release when he purchased a gym membership from X-Sport Fitness, which is owned by Capital Fitness Inc. The release document did not expressly cover the unusual hazard of falling mirrors, which occurred at the Chicago facility when a 3-foot by 8-foot mirror fell from a wall protrusion and struck [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":795,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[86,22,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concussions","category-illinois-civil-procedure","category-premises-liability"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Illinois Appellate Court Finds That Release Document Does Not Shield Gym From Liability in Injury Case &#8212; Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The plaintiff Michael Hawkins signed a release when he purchased a gym membership from X-Sport Fitness, which is owned by Capital Fitness Inc. The release\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/illinois-appellate-court-finds-that-release-document-does-not-shield-gym-from-liability-in-injury-case\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Illinois Appellate Court Finds That Release Document Does Not Shield Gym From Liability in Injury Case &#8212; Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The plaintiff Michael Hawkins signed a release when he purchased a gym membership from X-Sport Fitness, which is owned by Capital Fitness Inc. The release\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Robert Kreisman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Illinois Appellate Court Finds That Release Document Does Not Shield Gym From Liability in Injury Case &#8212; Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog","description":"The plaintiff Michael Hawkins signed a release when he purchased a gym membership from X-Sport Fitness, which is owned by Capital Fitness Inc. 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The release","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Robert Kreisman","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/illinois-appellate-court-finds-that-release-document-does-not-shield-gym-from-liability-in-injury-case\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/illinois-appellate-court-finds-that-release-document-does-not-shield-gym-from-liability-in-injury-case\/"},"author":{"name":"Robert Kreisman","@id":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/#\/schema\/person\/5e5596abf7be77fdabc788f0a78f042b"},"headline":"Illinois Appellate Court Finds That Release Document Does Not Shield Gym From Liability in Injury Case","datePublished":"2015-07-09T15:00:56+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/illinois-appellate-court-finds-that-release-document-does-not-shield-gym-from-liability-in-injury-case\/"},"wordCount":683,"articleSection":["Concussions","Illinois Civil Procedure","Premises Liability"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/illinois-appellate-court-finds-that-release-document-does-not-shield-gym-from-liability-in-injury-case\/","url":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/illinois-appellate-court-finds-that-release-document-does-not-shield-gym-from-liability-in-injury-case\/","name":"Illinois Appellate Court Finds That Release Document Does Not Shield Gym From Liability in Injury Case &#8212; Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-07-09T15:00:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/#\/schema\/person\/5e5596abf7be77fdabc788f0a78f042b"},"description":"The plaintiff Michael Hawkins signed a release when he purchased a gym membership from X-Sport Fitness, which is owned by Capital Fitness Inc. 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