Killer Fire in High-Rise Spotlights Risk for Consumers and Tenants

When a fire broke out in a 12th-floor Chicago apartment, the couple living in the home fled, but not before propping open their front door so a family pet could also escape. That decision probably cost 32-year-old Shantel McCoy her life on Jan.8.

In the time after the fire department had been called but before other residents were aware of the fire, McCoy entered the building and made a fatal mistake: SHE got into the elevator and headed to her own 12th floor apartment. When the elevator doors opened, she was blasted with 1,500-degree temperatures, smoke and poinsonous gas. She died almost instantly.

The tragedy led to a wrongful death lawsuit against the building management and is a cautionary tale for consumers who buy or lease space in a high-ebuilding.

Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed

Less than two weeks after McCoy’s death, her mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the building management. The family’s lawyer told the local media they also intend to name as defendants the residents of the unit where the fire initially broke out.

“We don’t have their names, but I assure you as soon as we do they are going to be named as defendants in this case,” attorney Joseph R. Curcio told the Chicago Sun-Times. Curcio is representing the McCoy family.

The lawsuit charges that the building’s management failed to warn McCoy of the fire and allowed her to use the elevator even though it was unsafe to do so. The amended lawsuit will probably also claim the residents who propped open the door of their apartment were also negligent, and should have known that decision endangered others.

Strengthening Fire Safety Codes

McCoy’s senseless death sparked headlines because the building lacked up-to-date fire safety equipment, such as sprinklers in the common areas or fire alarms that communicated with the elevators, sending them to the building’s lobby and keeping them there.

Chicago toughened its fire safety ordinance in 2004—a year after six people were killed in an office building fire. Among the new law’s requirements: By Jan. 1, 2012, about 700 high-rise residential buildings (all built before 1975) must meet tougher fire safety measures.

The law doesn’t specifically require buildings to be retrofit with sprinklers. Instead, it details a number of safety measures buildings can take, all designed to prevent fires from starting and spreading, help communicate with residents if a fire breaks out, and provide occupants with safe means of escaping a building in the event of an emergency. Buildings are scored on the measures they’ve implemented, and to be in compliance with the law must meet minimum score thresholds in three categories. The city estimated that the cost to comply would be between $750 and $2,300 per unit in a residential building.

Building owners and managers loudly protested the new law. It’s expensive and time-consuming to implement, they said. Permits and red-tape slow down the process. In December 2011, the Chicago City Council bowed to the pressure. The deadline to implement was pushed back to 2015. And eight days after the original deadline, Shantel McCoy was dead.

“Home Rule” Supersedes State Laws

To further complicate the matter, the state of Illinois has even more stringent fire safety laws than the city of Chicago. But under a sometimes controversial policy known as “home rule,” the state allows towns with a population of at least 25,000 to govern themselves, even if the laws enforced within the city are weaker than state laws.

In the United States, every state but Alabama, Delaware, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming allows some form of home rule.

Under 2002 Illinois laws, high-rise buildings are required to have sprinklers. Using the Illinois state fire code, McCoy’s building was cited for 19 fire code violations. But because of the city’s home rule authority, the state probably won’t be able to force the building into compliance.

According to a Chicago Tribune database, McCoy’s building at 3130 N. Lake Shore Drive in Chicago was apparently inspected in October 2010, found to be out of compliance with the new fire safety codes and required to submit a new plan. There’s no indication the building was inspected again in the 14 months between the original inspection and December 2011, when the city decided to push back the deadline to comply.

Ensuring Your Own Safety in High-Rise Buildings

Anyone who’s spent significant time in high-rise buildings knows they present some safety challenges. Unlike a single-family home — which usually has several entrances and exits, plus windows through which residents can escape — high-rise buildings have more limited escape routes. An individual unit may have just one exit and the entire building may have just a couple of fire escapes. If an escape route is blocked, people inside may be trapped.

Stories like McCoy’s underscore the potential dangers of living or working in a high-rise building. And sometimes the shortcomings in a building’s fire safety equipment may not be obvious. So how can tenants and condo owners verify their building’s compliance with local fire codes?

Many major cities maintain online databases of building permit applications, inspection results and crime reports. These databases are usually searchable by address, so you can research when a building was last inspected and how it fared.

If your town doesn’t maintain online inspection reports, you may have to go to city hall for more information. You may want to hire a local real estate attorney to do this for you, since a lawyer will know who to talk to, be familiar with local laws and have experience reading inspection reports.

But it’s not always an easy process.

“Any person interested in purchasing or leasing real estate is hard-pressed to become completely educated about its condition,” says attorney K. Thomas Stevens of Stevens & Associates in Chicago. “While it’s true that resources exist (such as the new Chicago online building violation search), such is the minimum standard—not a substitute for a full inquiry. The [Chicago] database only shows the results of inspections.

“Buildings are sleepers,” Stevens goes on to say. “There always lurking violations. It’s a question of how many are found through periodic inspections. It is also a question of practicalities; to be truly apprised regarding code compliance you would need to retain an architect, an engineer and an attorney.”

If your municipality doesn’t maintain an online database or you can’t afford to hire experts, another option is to go to the nearest fire department and police department. Assuming they aren’t busy, ask about the building’s reputation. Do the police and fire departments get many calls? Often, problematic buildings will stand out in the minds of department officials. As a free service, many police and fire departments offer home safety audits. A fire fighter and/or police officer will tour your home, point out potential problems and offer advice on how you can keep yourself and your family safe.