Terrible First Date Ends In Lawsuit

By Jim Bochnowski in News on May 5, 2015 2:15PM



Logan SquareFlickr user Paul Callan

Everyone has a worst first date story. But yours probably has nothing on what happened to Jessica Martinez.

Last September, Martinez, 29, was on a "tacos and drinks" date in Logan Square—as all great Chicago love stories begin—when she and her date decided to take a walk down Milwaukee Avenue. As they were walking, the man got his nerve up to kiss Martinez. While kissing they leaned against the glass of a vacant store window across the street from the Logan Square Theatre when disaster struck.

The glass shattered and, while the man escaped without injury, Martinez suffered a gash down her left arm.

As she explains, “It was unreal how fast it unfolded. One minute I’m excited, feeling butterflies and the next minute I’m bleeding all over the street.”

The man fashioned a tourniquet out of his shirt and waited with his poor date until an ambulance arrived at the scene.

Martinez subsequently filed a lawsuit against M. Fishman and Company, the owner of the building, alleging negligence in that the company never properly fixed the cracked windows during a renovation of the building. According to her attorney, Lisa Ciharan, "There is a reasonable expectation of safety in our daily lives that windows and buildings will be secure, or that chairs will be sturdy. The owner of this property failed in his responsibility to ensure safety to the pedestrians in this Chicago neighborhood.”

We reached out to M. Fishman, who told us that it is company policy not to offer statements on legal issues such as these. However, this is not the first time they've been in the news. In January of 2014, a group of concerned citizens protested M. Fishman, complaining that, after the company acquired their building, rental prices immediately skyrocketed, leaving tenants at risk of eviction.

Unfortunately, the young couple's blossoming romance may have ended with this incident. Martinez described the man as a "friend," but did note that they still regularly talk about the accident.

“We keep in touch and discuss the scar, how it’s looking, exchange pictures of what it looks like,” she said.

[Sun-Times]