Judge: Ronald F. Frank, Case: 20STCV26610, Date: 2023-02-02 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 20STCV26610    Hearing Date: February 2, 2023    Dept: 8

Tentative Ruling¿ 

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HEARING DATE:                 Jan, 2023¿ 

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CASE NUMBER:                  20STCV26610

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CASE NAME:                        Ray Sonnet v. Westside Residence Hall, Inc., et al 

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MOVING PARTY:                Defendant and Cross-Defendant, Westside Residence Hall, Inc. and Cantwell-Anderson, Inc.

RESPONDING PARTY:       Plaintiff, Ray Sonnet  

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TRIAL DATE:                        May 3, 2023¿ 

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MOTION:¿                              (1) Motion for Summary Judgment

¿ Tentative Rulings:                 (1)  The Motion is GRANTED.  After considering the moving party’s supplemental reply, which places Mr. Spruill’s deposition testimony in a fuller context, the Court finds there is no triable issue of fact.   

Even taking into account the testimony of Mr. Spruill on pp. 55-56 of his deposition that pickup rollers being out of adjustment could cause a jolt of the elevator as Plaintiff testified occurred on the day of the incident, Defendant has negated an essential element of plaintiff’s case.  That element is that defendant knew, or through the exercise of reasonable care should have known, of a condition with the elevator that created an unreasonable risk of the elevator jolting either suddenly upward or suddenly downward as Plaintiff testified to having occurred here.  (See CACI 1003, element 2.)  As noted by the California Supreme Court in Ortega v. Kmart Corp. (2001) 26 Cal.4^th 1200, 1206, “the owner’s actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition is a key to establishing its liability.”   Defendant is not held to the strict liability standard of a manufacturer of an allegedly defective product; rather, premises liability and negligence cases require plaintiff to prove the defendants’ negligence in the ownership, care, or maintenance of its property.  Here, there is no evidence from which a trier of fact could find that the moving defendants had any prior notice that the elevator might jolt or abruptly move up or down, or that the moving defendants created such a condition.  While Defendant did have notice of other conditions of the pertinent elevator car and doors, the Court finds the evidence of an elevator becoming stuck between floors or having its doors fail to open is not prior notice or knowledge of the claimed failure that caused Plaintiff’s injuries here. 

Defendant has made the requisite affirmative showing that it made reasonable inspections of the premises including an inspection through its outside elevator maintenance company just days before the plaintiff’s incident, and that said inspections did not reveal or discover an unsafe condition or defect with the elevator or its components.  Plaintiff’s opposition papers do not create a triable issue of fact as to actual or constructive notice of whatever condition it is that may have caused the elevator to jolt suddenly on the day of the incident.  A generalized notice of the fact that the elevator system was old, or would benefit from upgrading, or was subject to non-injurious operational problems, is not sufficient.  Plaintiff has not identified a claimed condition or cause of the jolting on the day of the incident even as of this point in the litigation, which is a further indication that the moving defendant did not have notice actual or constructive of that condition or cause.