Woman Sues Over Wooden Cornhole Game Board In Dick's Sporting Goods On Joliet's Plainfield Road

JOLIET, IL — A customer at the Joliet Dick's Sporting Goods store at 2601A Plainfield Road has retained the Chicago-based Levinson and Stefani Injury Lawyers to sue the popular sporting goods business for bodily injury, pain and suffering, mental suffering, loss of earnings, medical expenses and disability or loss of normal life. This may be the first time you have ever read a civil lawsuit story involving a wooden cornhole board being the culprit.

Joliet Patch, the only professional news outlet that regularly reports on the civil lawsuits at the Will County Courthouse, discovered the new lawsuit filing on Thursday. The plaintiff is Pamela Martinez and Dick's Sporting Goods Store Number 1239 is the defendant.

According to the lawsuit, on June 9, 2024, Martinez was lawfully on the property of the Joliet business as an invitee, and she was in the exercise of ordinary care for her own safety.

"On the aforementioned time and date, while plaintiff Pamela Martinez was lawfully walking through the store upon the property, a wooden cornhole game board that had been displayed, stored, stacked and or placed upon elevated shelving suddenly and unexpectedly fell from the shelf and violently struck plaintiff on her head, thereby causing her to sustain serious bodily injuries," contends attorney Vanessa Gebkda of Levinson and Stefani Injury Lawyers.

The lawsuit accuses Dick's Sporting Goods of numerous acts of negligence such as having "failed to properly secure, stabilize and or safely store the wooden cornhole game board and or other merchandise displayed upon elevated shelving so as to prevent it from falling onto business invitees including plaintiff."

In addition to that, Dick's Sporting Goods is accused in the negligence lawsuit of having "failed to properly stack, arrange and or display merchandise in a safe manner" and having "failed to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition."

According to the four-page lawsuit, Martinez is seeking a monetary judgment from a Will County jury against the Joliet Dick's Sporting Goods store in excess of $50,000.