Judge: Lisa R. Jaskol, Case: 22STCV28054, Date: 2025-01-27 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 22STCV28054 Hearing Date: January 27, 2025 Dept: 28
Having considered the moving, opposition, and reply papers, the Court rules as follows.
BACKGROUND
A. Prior proceedings
On August 29, 2022, Plaintiff Katherine Brown (“Plaintiff”) filed this action against Defendants Archdiocese of Los Angeles, St. Christopher Church, and Does 1-100 for general negligence and premises liability.
On September 20, 2022, Defendants Saint Christopher Catholic Church and The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles, erroneously sued and served as Archdiocese of Los Angeles (“Defendants”), filed an answer.
On May 7, 2024, Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment and alternative motion for summary adjudication. The motion was set for hearing on December 24, 2024. On December 10, 2024, Plaintiff filed an opposition. On December 17, 2024, Defendants filed a reply. The Court continued the hearing to January 27, 2025.
PARTIES’ REQUESTS
Defendants ask the Court to grant summary judgment or, in the alternative, summary adjudication.
Plaintiff asks the Court to deny the motion.
LEGAL STANDARD
A. Summary judgment and summary adjudication
“‘[F]rom commencement to conclusion, the party moving for summary judgment bears the burden of persuasion that there is no triable issue of material fact and that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’” (LAOSD Asbestos Cases (2023) 87 Cal.App.5th 949, 945, quoting Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 826, 850 (Aguilar)) “[T]he party moving for summary judgment bears an initial burden of production to make a prima facie showing of the nonexistence of any triable issue of material fact; if he carries his burden of production, he causes a shift, and the opposing party is then subjected to a burden of production of his own to make a prima facie showing of the existence of a triable issue of material fact.” (Aguilar, supra, 25 Cal.4th at p. 850.)
When the moving party is a defendant, it must show that the plaintiff cannot establish at least one element of the cause of action. (Aguilar, supra, 25 Cal.4th at p. 853.) “The defendant has shown that the plaintiff cannot establish at least one element of the cause of action by showing that the plaintiff does not possess, and cannot reasonably obtain, needed evidence.” (Id. at p. 854.) The defendant must “present evidence, and not simply point out that the plaintiff does not possess, and cannot reasonably obtain, needed evidence.” (Ibid.) Thus, “the defendant must ‘support[ ]’ the ‘motion’ with evidence including ‘affidavits, declarations, admissions, answers to interrogatories, depositions, and matters of which judicial notice’ must or may ‘be taken.’ [Citation.] The defendant may, but need not, present evidence that conclusively negates an element of the plaintiff’s cause of action. The defendant may also present evidence that the plaintiff does not possess, and cannot reasonably obtain, needed evidence—as through admissions by the plaintiff following extensive discovery to the effect that he has discovered nothing.” (Id. at p. 855, original emphasis.)
“Supporting and opposing affidavits or declarations . . . shall set forth admissible evidence.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd. (d).) “Matters which would be excluded under the rules of evidence if proffered by a witness in a trial as hearsay, conclusions or impermissible opinions, must be disregarded in supporting affidavits.” (Hayman v. Block (1986) 176 Cal.App.3d 629, 639.)
In ruling on the motion, the court must consider all the evidence and all the inferences reasonably drawn from it and must view such evidence and inferences in the light most favorable to the opposing party. (Aguilar, supra, 25 Cal.4th at p. 843.)
B. Premises liability and negligence
“The elements of a negligence claim and a premises liability claim are the same: a legal duty of care, breach of that duty, and proximate cause resulting in injury.” (Kesner v. Superior Court (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1132, 1158.)
“Because the owner is not the insurer of the visitor's personal safety [citation], the owner's actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition is a key to establishing its liability. Although the owner's lack of knowledge is not a defense, ‘[t]o impose liability for injuries suffered by an invitee due to [a] defective condition of the premises, the owner or occupier “must have either actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition or have been able by the exercise of ordinary care to discover the condition, which if known to him, he should realize as involving an unreasonable risk to invitees on his premises....” ’ ” (Ortega v. Kmart Corp. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1200, 1206 (Ortega).)
DISCUSSION
A. The complaint
The complaint alleges the following:
On or about September 2, 2020, Plaintiff was attending an outdoor funeral at St. Christopher Church Glendora, located at 629 South Avenue in West Covina, California. Defendants negligently owned, maintained, installed, and secured the benches provided by St. Christopher Church and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for funeral attendees. When a fellow parishioner stood up and away from the benches, the bench on which Plaintiff was sitting flipped up due to failure to properly secure the bench. As a result, Plaintiff fell and suffered injury.
B. Undisputed facts
Plaintiff alleges that she was injured on September 2, 2020 at Defendant Saint Christopher Catholic Church (the “Church”) in West Covina, California. Plaintiff went to the Church to attend an outdoor funeral mass for the husband of a friend. The mass was not arranged by the Church and no employee of the Church was present during the funeral mass. The funeral mass was held at the Church because the decedent’s family’s own church lacked an outdoor area to hold a funeral mass during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Church had an outdoor area which, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, St. Christopher’s parish school used for lunches, assemblies, and parent events. The school kept picnic tables in the lunch area which students and teachers used during lunch and parents used during special school events.
After the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, beginning around June 2020, St. Christopher began using the school’s lunch area to celebrate outdoor masses. During these outdoor masses, the picnic tables in the lunch area were used for seating.
On September 2, 2020, after arriving at the Church, Plaintiff testified she and the two other people accompanying her were directed by some unknown person to sit at a picnic table. Plaintiff alleges this unknown person told her that no one would be sitting on the other side of the table. She and her companions interpreted this to mean they should all sit on the same side of the picnic table. They all sat down simultaneously and the picnic table tipped onto its side. Plaintiff alleges she fell to the ground and suffered injuries.
The Church’s parish school had been using the tables for many years and there were no reported incidents of students, teachers, or parents tipping over the picnic tables. The Church had been using the tables for only a few months before the incident for seating at outdoor masses and no incidents had occurred during that time.
C. Defendants have carried their initial burden of
showing lack of actual or constructive notice of the alleged danger
“During the time the picnic tables were used by St. Christopher for seating during outdoor masses [approximately June 2020 to December 2022], there was never any problem with any of the tables tipping over. I never received any reports, complaints, or other information about any of the picnic tables tipping over during an outdoor mass organized and celebrated by our Church. [¶] The only incident I am aware of where someone reported that one of the picnic tables had tipped over was the incident involving [Plaintiff].” (Le dec. ¶¶ 7-8.)
Defendants also have provided a declaration from Lucia Saborio, principal at the Church’s parish school since August 2016 and a teacher since August 2014. Saborio states that since she became a teacher at the school in August 2014, she is not aware of any occasion on which one of the picnic tables was tipped over by students or teachers. Except for the incident involving Plaintiff, Saborio is not aware of any occasion on which any student, teacher, or anyone else tipped over or claimed to have tipped over one of the picnic tables, or claimed to have suffered an injury as a result of using the picnic tables, in the school’s lunch and assembly area. (Saborio dec. ¶¶ 6, 8.)
Based on these declarations, Defendants have carried their initial burden of proving they lacked actual or constructive notice that the picnic tables constituted a dangerous condition, shifting the burden to Plaintiff.
D. Plaintiff has not raised a triable issue of fact regarding actual or constructive notice
Plaintiff argues that notice “is disputed because the declarations of Father Ben Le and Lucia Saborio do not indicate that there has never been a prior incident with one of their park benches. Rather, their declarations simply indicate that while they have been working at St. Christopher’s Catholic Church there have been no known incidents.” (Opposition p. 6.)
The declarations of Father Ben Le and Lucia Saborio showed that they were not aware of similar accidents taking place during the period between August 2014 and Plaintiff’s September 2, 2020 accident. Plaintiff does not deny that Father Ben Le and Lucia Saborio were in a position to know if prior similar accidents had occurred during this period. Their declarations stating they did not know of such accidents carried Defendants’ initial summary judgment burden.
Plaintiff
has presented no controverting evidence showing that Defendants knew or
should have known that the picnic tables were dangerous. Because Plaintiff has not raised a triable
issue of fact regarding notice, the Court grants Defendants’ motion for summary
judgment.
CONCLUSION
The Court GRANTS the motion for summary judgment or, in the alternative, summary adjudication filed by Defendants Saint Christopher Catholic Church and The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles.
Moving parties are ordered to give notice of this ruling.
Moving parties are ordered to file the proof of service of this ruling with the Court within five days.