Judge: Michael C. Kelley, Case: 19AVCV00610, Date: 2022-08-04 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 19AVCV00610 Hearing Date: August 4, 2022 Dept: A15
Background
This personal injury case arises from allegations by Plaintiff Maria E. Gonzalez that Defendant County of Los Angeles is liable for injuries she sustained in a car accident that occurred on a public roadway.
Plaintiff alleges that on July 27, 2018, at approximately 4:00 A.M., she was driving westbound on East Avenue T, approaching its intersection with 101 Street East in the City of Littlerock. As she approached a railroad bridge overpass, she drove over loose gravel and lost control of her vehicle. Her car careened off the side of the road, down a 28-foot embankment, and landed on the railroad tracks. She was severely injured.
Defendant County of Los Angeles acknowledges it had been conducting a construction project on that roadway, during which it essentially added a new layer of asphalt to the pavement. The project, which Defendant refers to as the “chip seal project,” began on July 10, 2018 and ended on August 2, 2018. It required multiple days of roadway closures, including a portion of the day before Plaintiff’s accident. The road was open to the public at the time of Plaintiff’s accident.
Plaintiff filed her Complaint against Defendant County of Los Angeles and State of California Department of Transportation on August 19, 2019. She alleges two causes of action for (1) vicarious liability and (2) dangerous condition of public property.
Defendant County of Los Angeles filed its Answer on September 24, 2019. State of California Department of Transportation filed an answer on October 3, 2019, and was dismissed from this action on November 20, 2019. County of Los Angeles is the only remaining defendant.
Defendant County of Los Angeles (“Defendant”) filed a Motion for Summary Judgment on October 26, 2021, which the Court denied on April 22, 2022.
Plaintiff filed the instant Motion for Leave to Amend Complaint. Defendant filed a timely opposition. Plaintiff filed a timely reply.
Analysis
Leave to Amend – A party may file an amended complaint once without the court’s leave if she files it before a demurrer or motion to strike is filed; or, if a demurrer or motion to strike has already been filed, if she serves the amended complaint no later than the date the opposition to the demurrer or motion to strike was due. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 472, subd. (a) & 430.40, subd. (b).) A party may also file an amended complaint after the date for filing an opposition to the demurrer or motion to strike, upon stipulation of the parties. (Id., § 472, subd. (a).)
Outside those circumstances, a party must obtain the court’s leave to amend a complaint. (Code Civ. Proc., § 473, subd. (a)(1).) The court may grant leave, in its discretion, “upon any terms as may be just,” if it finds that permitting the amendment would be “in furtherance of justice,” and that the adverse party was noticed. (Ibid; see also Code Civ. Proc., § 576.) The court may grant leave to amend at any stage of the proceeding, even “after commencement of trial.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 576; see Hirsa v. Superior Court (1981) 118 Cal.App.3d 486, 488-489.)
“Ordinarily, courts should ‘exercise liberality’ in permitting amendments at any stage of the proceeding. [Citations.]” (Hulsey v. Koehler (1990) 218 Cal.App.3d 1150, 1159.) This principle is “in keeping with the fundamental policy of our courts that cases should be decided on their merits.” (Hirsa v. Super. Ct., supra, 118 Cal.App.3d at 490.) Recognizing that plaintiffs should not assert causes of action for which they lack probable cause, courts adhere to the ethos that, “[i]f discovery and investigation develop factual grounds justifying a timely amendment to a pleading, leave to amend must be liberally granted.” (Mabie v. Hyatt (1998) 61 Cal.App.4th 581, 596.)
“The policy favoring amendment is so strong that it is a rare case in which denial of leave to amend can be justified.” (Howard v. County of San Diego (2010) 184 Cal.App.4th 1422, 1428.) In fact, if a denial of leave to amend deprives a party of “the right to assert a meritorious cause of action or a meritorious defense, it is not only error but an abuse of discretion.” (Morgan v. Superior Court of Cal. In and For Los Angeles County (1959) 172 Cal.App.2d 527, 530.)
One of the few exceptions to this rule is when the proposed amendments are barred as a matter of law. (Yee v. Mobilehome Park Rental Review Bd. (City of Escondido) (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 1409, 1429.) However, it must appear “to a certainty that no relief could possibly be granted under the amended pleading.” (Robinson & Wilson, Inc. v. Stone (1973) 35 Cal.App.3d 396, 413.)
Here, Plaintiff moves for leave to file an amended complaint on the grounds that such leave would be in the interests of justice and judicial efficiency. Her proposed amendment would reflect changes in the counsel of record, remove references to dismissed party California State Department of Transportation, and “provide clarification regarding the totality of the factual circumstances of the dangerous condition on public property” at the heart of this suit. (Pl.’s Mot. Leave Amend Compl. at 2.) Specifically, Plaintiff wishes to add the factual allegation that the dangerous condition of public property consisted of not just the loose gravel—which she alleged in the original complaint--but also a lack of guardrails between the roadway and the embankment. (Id. at Ex. 1.)
Defendant opposes this motion on the grounds that the addition of the allegations regarding the lack of guardrails would exceed the representations Plaintiff made in her government claim, and is therefore barred as a matter of law.
Whether the amendment exceeds Plaintiff’s government claim--The Government Claims Act requires potential plaintiffs to present an administrative claim before filing a civil action against a public entity. (Gov. Code, § 945.4.) Under Government Code section 910, the claim must include: the name and address of the claimant; the address of the recipient(s); the date, place, and other circumstances of the occurrence or transaction which gave rise to the claim; a general description of the damage incurred, “so far as it may be known at the time of presentation of the claim”; and the name(s) of the public employee(s) who caused the injury. (Gov. Code, § 910.)
“It is not the purpose of the claims statutes to prevent surprise. Rather, the purpose of these statutes is to provide the public entity sufficient information to enable it to adequately investigate claims and to settle them, if appropriate, without the expense of litigation.” (City of San Jose v. Superior Court (1974) 12 Cal.3d 447, 455.)
Therefore, “claims are not required to be technically perfect. The claim need only substantially comply with all of the statutory requirements.” (Perez v. Golden Empire Transit Dist. (2012) 209 Cal.App.4th 1228, 1234.) “Where there has been an attempt to comply but the compliance is defective, the court must ask whether sufficient information is disclosed on the face of the filed claim to reasonably enable the public entity to make an adequate investigation of the merits of the claim to settle it without expensive litigation.” (Dilts v. Cantua Elementary School Dist. (1987) 189 Cal.App.3d 27, 33.)
Our Supreme Court has held that a sufficiently informative claim:
need not specify each particular act or omission later proven to have caused the injury. [Citation.] A complaint's fuller exposition of the factual basis beyond that given in the claim is not fatal, so long as the complaint is not based on an “entirely different set of facts.” [Citation.] Only where there has been a “complete shift in allegations, usually involving an effort to premise civil liability on acts or omissions committed at different times or by different persons than those described in the claim,” have courts generally found the complaint barred. [Citation.] Where the complaint merely elaborates or adds further detail to a claim, but is predicated on the same fundamental actions or failures to act by the defendants, courts have generally found the claim fairly reflects the facts pled in the complaint. [Citation.]
(Stockett v. Assn. of Cal. Water Agencies J. Powers Ins. Auth., supra, 34 Cal.4th 447.)
For example, the plaintiff in Stockett v. Assn. of Cal. Water Agencies J. Powers Ins. Auth., supra, 34 Cal.4th 447 presented a government claim alleging wrongful termination in violation of public policy. The Supreme Court held this was sufficient, even though the plaintiff “did not specifically assert his termination violated the public policies favoring free speech and opposition to public employee conflicts of interest” because “these theories do not represent additional causes of action and hence need not be separately presented.” (Ibid.)
On the other hand, in Fall River v. Superior Court (1988) 206 Cal.App.3d 431:
the plaintiff was injured at school when a steel door struck his head. His notice of claim stated the injury was caused by the school's negligent maintenance of the door, but his complaint additionally alleged the school had negligently failed to supervise students engaged in horseplay. [Citation.] The court held the factual divergence between claim and complaint was too great; the complaint alleged liability “on an entirely different factual basis than what was set forth in the tort claim.”
(Stockett v. Assn. of Cal. Water Agencies J. Powers Ins. Auth., supra, 34 Cal.4th at 448, quoting Fall River v. Superior Court, supra, 206 Cal.App.3d. at 587.)
Similarly, in Donahue v. State of California (1986) 178 Cal.App.3d 795, the Court of Appeal held that a plaintiff’s government claim was insufficient because it failed to “set forth the factual basis for recovery alleged in the complaint; defendant could not have discovered such defect until plaintiff filed his complaint.” (Donahue v. State of California, supra, 178 Cal.App.3d at 805.) This was because the plaintiff’s claim did not assert the same theory of liability as what he eventually pleaded in his complaint:
In the present case plaintiff's written claim asserts that defendant was negligent in permitting an uninsured motorist to take a driving test, whereas the complaint alleges that defendant was negligent in failing to instruct, direct and control the motorist in his driving examination. The act of permitting an uninsured motorist to take a driving test is not the factual equivalent of the failure to control or direct the motorist in the course of his examination.
(Id. at 804.)
Here, Plaintiff’s original complaint accused Defendant of allowing “loose gravel to accumulate on the ROADWAY, creating a dangerous condition for vehicles traveling on the ROADWAY (hereinafter the ‘DANGEROUS CONDITION’).” (Compl. at p. 4.) Nowhere in this complaint did Plaintiff mention the lack of guardrails.
She now seeks to amend her complaint to state, “The ROADWAY was in a dangerous condition at the time of the INCIDENT for vehicles traveling on the ROADWAY because of the presence of loose gravel and/or the lack of a guardrail off the south edge of E Avenue T, among other things (hereinafter the ‘DANGEROUS CONDITION’).” (Pl.’s Mot. Leave Amend Compl. at Ex. 1.)
Defendant argues this amendment should be denied because her amended complaint would exceed the claim Plaintiff presented to Defendant. Indeed, Plaintiff’s government claim never mentions the lack of guardrails. It merely states, in relevant part, “As Ms. Gonzalez approached the bridge overpass above 101st street, loose gravel on the roadway caused Ms. Gonzalez’s car to fish-tail, and she lost control of her vehicle. Her car careened off the south edge of the roadway, falling down a steep embankment, crashing onto the railroad tracks below. [¶] . . . There were either insufficient signage or no signage warning drivers of the loose gravel on the roadway.” (Def.’s Opp’n Mot. Leave Amend Compl. at Ex. 1.)
Plaintiff argues she is entitled to amend her complaint, and the sufficiency of her amended complaint should be tested on demurrer, not on a motion for leave to amend. The Court disagrees. The Court may deny leave to amend when there would be no relief available under the proposed amendment. Thus, whether Plaintiff’s cause of action exceeds her government claim is material to this motion, because Plaintiff cannot prevail on a cause of action that she did not present a government claim for.
To be clear, Plaintiff is not amending her complaint to add a new cause of action. But her amendment does change the original allegations of what constituted the dangerous condition from that which she described in her claim. The question then is whether this amendment merely elaborates on Plaintiff’s government claim, or whether it creates new allegations that cannot be supported by the original claim.
Whether Plaintiff can allege that the lack of guardrails constituted a dangerous condition--In her Reply, Plaintiff argues her case is identical to Blair v. Superior Court (1990) 218 Cal.App.3d 221, in which the Court of Appeal held that an amended complaint did not exceed the government claim because both were “predicated on the same fundamental facts . . . .” (Id., 226.) The defendant argued that the plaintiff’s amended complaint must be stricken, because he had asserted in his government claim that the dangerous condition was the ice on the highway; but the amended complaint alleged that the dangerous condition included a lack of guardrails.
The Court of Appeal disagreed with the defendant’s interpretation of the claim and the complaint. The plaintiff’s claim had stated that the injury was caused by “‘Negligent maintenance and construction of highway surface. Failure to sand and care for highway for safetyness of automobile transportation.’” (Blair v. Super. Ct., supra, 218 Cal.App.3d at 223.) The amended complaint alleged that the highway:
“was in a dangerous and defective condition for a number of reasons including, but not limited to, the following: ice had accumulated on the roadway under circumstances where there was no warning and where no precautions or remedies had been taken therefor, although Defendant CAL TRANS had actual notice of the accumulation of ice in time to take adequate precautions; and, in addition, at that point, the roadway crosses a stream over a culvert or bridge requiring guard rails where there was no guard rail . . . .”
(Id., 224.) The Court of Appeal held that “the claim and the complaint in this action are premised on essentially the same foundation, that because of its negligent construction or maintenance, the highway at the scene of the accident constituted a dangerous condition of public property.” (Id., 226.) It therefore reversed the trial court’s decision to strike the references to the lack of guardrails.
Here, Plaintiff’s amendment does not necessarily diverge from the facts in her government claim. Her claim alleges that, after driving over the loose gravel, she lost control of her car, which then “careened off the south edge of the roadway, falling down a steep embankment[.]” The lack of guardrails is implicit in this description: she did not state that her car plowed through any guardrails. That she was able to “careen” off the edge of the roadway implies that there were no barriers to stop her.
Then, she stated in her claim that Defendant was responsible for her injury because it “failed to maintain the roadway in a reasonable safe condition.” (Def.’s Opp’n Mot. Leave Amend at Ex. 1.) Her claim did not specify why the roadway was in an unsafe condition, but does make clear that the roadway itself was in dangerous condition, and the negligent conduct was Defendant’s failure to keep it in a safe condition. There is no reason that failure could not include a failure to erect guardrails; this does not contradict the narrative in her claim.
It may be true, as Defendant argues, that failing to erect guardrails is a different type of omission from failing to properly remove or warn of loose gravel created by a construction project. The decision to forego a guardrail was likely made years before the chip seal project came about, by a wholly different department.
But the lack of guardrails on that stretch of roadway is relevant to why the roadway was dangerous. As the Court intended to explain in its summary judgment ruling, the lack of guardrails could be a factor that exacerbated the danger created by the loose gravel. (Min. Ord., dated Apr. 22, 2022 at 8.) This is because a factfinder may consider the cumulative effects of “allegedly dangerous features” when determining the existence of a dangerous condition. (Id. at 7, quoting Cerna v. City of Oakland, supra, 161 Cal.App.4th at 1352.) The lack of guardrail is a relevant feature of the loose gravel’s surroundings, and was therefore relevant to Defendant’s alleged negligence in permitting the loose gravel to accumulate.
Therefore, the Court finds Plaintiff’s proposed amendment does not assert a new dangerous condition and does not exceed the scope of her government claim. The proposed amendment merely specifies an ancillary fact that was implied in the original description of the accident. The nature of the alleged dangerous condition remains the same: Defendant is accused of failing to maintain the roadway in a safe condition. This includes the presence of loose gravel, but also the features and fixtures, or lack thereof, of the roadway itself.
Conclusion
Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to Amend Complaint is GRANTED.