Berg v. Allied Security Inc. Chicago 1.    An overview of the case (provide a detailed case review) 

    In this case, Joan Berg, the plaintiff, filed the personal injury case against Allied security, the defendants.  The Cook County circuit court, in 1996 September the 4th, ruled in favor of the defendants. After thirty days Joan Berg sought authority to amend the complaint and the circuit court, on 15th October, denied her the reconsideration. The amendment Leave was also denied on 21st November. The plaintiff filed an appeal on the 26th of November 1996 (Rathje 1). In their arguments, the defendants noted that the appeal time was bad even though the plaintiff filed it less than one week following the decision from the circuit court. According to the defendants, the plaintiff’s motion had no post-judgment qualification as a motion under the civil procedure code section 2-1203. According to the defendants, the thirty days taken before the appeal was filed, was not occasioned by the pending motion under consideration in the circuit court. For this reason, according to the defendants, the appellate court had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal by Joan Berg. 

    The jurisdictional challenge was thwarted by the appellate court and the appeal was heard on its merits. The court opined that material facts were present in the case and that the judgment given was not proper. This meant that the appellate court dismissed the judgment of the circuit court and the circuit court case was remanded for current proceedings (Rathje 1). The defendants sought to appeal this decision and the court granted the wish. The defendants continued with their argument that the motion filed in the appellate court by the plaintiff was untimely. The circumstances in question led the appellate court to determine that the timing of the appeal notice from the plaintiff was indeed proper under reasonable Rule 303 interpretation. In Justice Rathje’s view, it would have been unjustifiable to deny the plaintiff right to access the appellate court. 

Details of the Case

    Joan Berg, on 27th March 1992, was attacked by unknown assailants in a parking lot that formed part of an office compound. The employer of Joan Berg alongside other tenants had their location in the office compound buildings. The commercial offices belonged to Podolsky. During the time of the attack, Joan Berg was coming back to work after picking some Pizzas for her work colleagues (Gallagher 1). She was going for the 2 PM to 12 AM work shift. In the process of stepping from the car, Joan Berg received a blow on the back of her head. The blow came from a man who was standing above her holding a metal bar in his hand. The assailant pushed Joan back into her car through the car’s front seat and continued to blow strikes on her repeatedly. Joan reacted by hooting her car and this prompted the attacker to flee (Gallagher 1).

    There had not been any attack incidents in that parking lot in recent history. However, there had been around 20 cases relating to damage of cars in the parking lot. At one point a woman had been groped on the buttock in the same parking lot. With regard to the security of the office complex Podolsky and the employer of Joan Berg had a lease that stated the following. The landlord had rights to install, maintain and operate the security system of the building with closed circuit monitoring television covering every person leaving and entering the building. The rights allowed Podolsky to install the monitoring system. Further, Podolsky hired Allied Inc. to offer the 24/7 security. The contractual agreement (service agreement for the security guard) between Allied Inc. and Podolsky stated the following: That the contractor, Allied Inc., was to avail security...

Further, Podolsky and Allied Inc. had agreed that the security firm would avail security personnel and the hours of duty would be agreed upon mutually between Podolsky, the client, and Allied Inc., the contractor. In case the client altered the quantity of coverage or time of security service as originally stated in their agreement, then the contractor would have the right to renegotiate the existing contract since the duties of the contracted personnel would be substantially changed (Gallagher 1). 
    In the contractual agreement between Podolsky and Allied Inc., the contractor was required to comply with all the regulations, rules, ordinances, and statutes. The agreement also allowed the client to request additional services as long as the services requested are in conformity with the role played by the firm. Any personnel working remained the property of Allied Inc., the contractor. The equipping, training, directing, supervising, along with uniforms, recruitment and dismissal of security personnel was under the premise of Allied Inc. (This was an emphasized part of the contract). According to the details of the contract the defendants, Podolsky and Allied, made decisions jointly on what duties were to be performed (Gallagher 1). Orders issued to the security guards by Allied entails the definition of their primary functions as follows: Ensure that the unauthorized people are kept from the property in order to alleviate the risks of assault, vandalism, and theft. Further, the security guards were to offer assistance in controlling access to the property by granting employees and visitors controlled access (Gallagher 1).

    The security guards were also expected to ensure they alleviate risks of property damage from fire, flooding, equipment failure etc. The responsibilities given to the security guards were to be achieved through maintenance of high visibility level, proper handling of possible situations such as unsecured doors, failure of equipment and unauthorized visitors, continuous attentiveness and adequate events reporting for activities such as fire hazards and loitering etc., request for assistance in case of any specified situations (This was also emphasized). Further orders from Allied to the security guards clarified that the personnel were not police officials and that they were not expected to act as such. Their role was to detect incidents and prevent them when and if possible. Their role was security-related and limited to the office complex building belonging to Podolsky (Gallagher 1). 

    Podolsky made it clear to the office complex tenants (Including Joan Berg’s employer) that he would provide adequate security all the time. This included parking lot patrols. It was Podolsky who made the decision on the number of security guards that Allied Inc. provided. In the beginning, only 2 security guards were deployed (Gallagher 1). One of them was situated at the building’s security desk while the other one was allocated the role of roaming around the compound. At some point, another security tower was installed and another rover added. Podolsky had at some point replaced some employees of Allied Inc. who were not qualified for the position of security desk. Over and above, retaining services from Allied Podolsky had installed twenty other security cameras around the entire office complex. The cameras were interconnected on 4 monitors. The security desk guard was in full control of the view that was appearing on each of the 4 security cameras at any point. Owing to the nature of the several responsibilities that went with his position, the security desk guard had only 30 minutes to concentrate on the monitors. 

    Of the four security cameras, one was…