Judge: Steven A. Ellis, Case: 21STCV11173, Date: 2024-09-24 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 21STCV11173 Hearing Date: September 24, 2024 Dept: 29
Ethridge v. City of
Los Angeles
21STCV11173
Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Defendant 940
Figueroa, LLC.
TENTATIVE
The hearing on Defendant’s motion for summary
judgment is CONTINUED.
Background
On March 23, 2021, Jeconiah Ethridge
(“Plaintiff”) filed a complaint against City of Los Angeles (“City”), County of
Los Angeles (“County”), Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (“LADWP”), Southern
California Edison (“Edison”), and Does 1 through 50, asserting causes of action
for premises liability and general negligence arising out of an incident on
April 17, 2020, in which, Plaintiff alleges, she stepped on an exposed pothole
or a broken or deteriorating sidewalk, tripped, fell, and was injured.
On January 20, 2022, County filed an answer.
In February and March 2022, the Court, at the
request of Plaintiff, dismissed all causes of action against County and Edison.
On February 22, 2022, City, for itself and
acting through and by LADWP, filed an answer. City also filed a cross-complaint
against Roes 1 through 10.
On March 11, 2022, Plaintiff amended the
complaint to name 940 Figueroa, LLC (“Figueroa”) as Doe 1.
On October 12, 2022, Figueroa filed an answer to
the complaint. The same day, Figueroa also filed a cross-complaint against Roes
1 through 100.
On December 4, 2023, Plaintiff amended the complaint
to name Pacific Bell Telephone Company (“Pacific Bell”) as Doe 2. The Court, at
the request of Plaintiff, dismissed all causes of action against Pacific Bell on
April 18, 2024.
On August 2 and September 6 and 10, 2024,
Plaintiff amended the complaint to name “Charter Communications and Frontier”
as Doe 3, to name “Frontier” as Doe 4, and to correct the name of Doe 3 to “Charter
Communications,”
As it relates to the matters before the Court
and set for hearing on September 24, Figueroa filed this motion for summary
judgment on May 14, 2024, with a hearing date scheduled for July 30. Plaintiff
filed an opposition on July 16, and Figueroa filed a reply on July 24. In the
aftermath of the cyber attack on the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the
hearing was continued to September 24.
Legal Standard
“The purpose of the law of summary judgment
is to provide courts with a mechanism to cut through the parties’ pleadings in
order to determine whether, despite their allegations, trial is in fact
necessary to resolve their dispute.” (Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co.
(2001) 25 Cal.4th 826, 843.) Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, subdivision (c),
“requires the trial judge to grant summary judgment if all the evidence
submitted, and ‘all inferences reasonably deducible from the evidence’ and
uncontradicted by other inferences or evidence, show that there is no triable
issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment
as a matter of law.” (Adler v. Manor Healthcare Corp. (1992) 7
Cal.App.4th 1110, 1119.) “The function of the pleadings in a motion for summary
judgment is to delimit the scope of the issues; the function of the affidavits
or declarations is to disclose whether there is any triable issue of fact
within the issues delimited by the pleadings.” (Juge v. County of Sacramento
(1993) 12 Cal.App.4th 59, 67, citing FPI Development, Inc. v. Nakashima
(1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 367, 381-382.)
As to each cause of action as framed by the
complaint, a defendant moving for summary judgment or summary adjudication must
satisfy the initial burden of proof by presenting facts to show “that one or
more elements of the cause of action ... cannot be established, or that there
is a complete defense to the cause of action.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd.
(p)(2); see also Aguilar, supra, 25 Cal.4th at pp. 850-851; Scalf
v. D. B. Log Homes, Inc. (2005) 128 Cal.App.4th 1510, 1520.) Once the
defendant has met that burden, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show that
a “triable issue of one or more material facts exists as to the cause of action
or a defense thereto.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd. (p)(2); see also Aguilar,
supra, 25 Cal.4th at pp. 850-851.)
A plaintiff or cross-complainant moving for
summary judgment or summary adjudication must satisfy the initial burden of
proof by presenting facts to show “that there is no defense to a cause of
action if that party has proved each element of the cause of action entitling
the party to judgment on the cause of action.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd.
(p)(1).) Once the plaintiff or cross-complainant has met that burden, the
burden shift to the defendant or cross-defendant to show that a “triable issue
of one or more material facts exists as to the cause of action or a defense
thereto.” (Ibid.)
The party opposing a motion for summary
judgment or summary adjudication may not simply “rely upon the allegations or
denials of its pleadings” but must instead “set forth the specific facts
showing that a triable issue of material fact exists.” (Code Civ. Proc., §
437c, subds. (p)(1) & (p)(2). To establish a triable issue of material
fact, the party opposing the motion must produce substantial responsive
evidence. (Sangster v. Paetkau (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 151, 166.)
Courts “liberally construe the evidence in
support of the party opposing summary judgment and resolve doubts concerning
the evidence in favor of that party.” (Dore v. Arnold Worldwide, Inc.
(2006) 39 Cal.4th 384, 389.)
Discussion
Plaintiff
asserts causes of action for premises liability and negligence against Figueroa,
alleging that she was injured when she stepped on an
exposed pothole or a broken or deteriorating sidewalk in front of 940
Figueroa Street in Los Angeles. (Complaint, GN-1.)
Figueroa
moves for summary judgment under the Sidewalk Accident Doctrine, arguing it did
not owe a duty to Plaintiff as it did not own or control the sidewalk.
The
basic elements of a cause of action for negligence are: (1) the existence of a
legal duty; (2) breach of that
duty; (3) causation; and (4) resulting damages. (Brown v. USA Taekwondo
(2021) 11 Cal.5th 204, 213; Kesner
v. Superior Court (2016) 1
Cal.5th 1132, 1158; Castellon v. U.S. Bancorp (2013) 220
Cal.App.4th 994, 998.) The existence and scope of duty are legal questions
for the court.¿¿(Brown, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 213; Annocki¿v.
Peterson Enterprises, LLC¿(2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 32, 36.)
The general rule
governing duty is set forth in Civil Code section 1714: “Everyone is responsible,
not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury
occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the
management of his or her property or person, except so far as the latter has,
willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or
herself.” (Civ. Code, § 1714, subd. (a).) This establishes what the California
Supreme Court has described as the “default rule” that every person has a legal
duty “to exercise, in his or her activities, reasonable care for the safety of
others.” (Brown, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 214.)
Those who own,
possess, or control property generally have a duty to exercise ordinary care in
managing the property to avoid exposing others to an unreasonable risk of harm.
(Annocki¿v.
Peterson Enterprises, LLC¿(2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 32, 37.) If
a dangerous condition exists, the property owner is “under a duty to exercise
ordinary care either to make the condition reasonably safe for their
[customers’] use or to give a warning adequate to enable them to avoid the
harm.” (Bridgman v. Safeway Stores, Inc. (1960) 53 Cal.2d 443, 446.)
The
law regarding the liability of landowners with regard to defects or dangerous
conditions on sidewalks abutting their property is well established in numerous
appellate cases. “Under
the common law, a landowner does not have any duty to repair abutting sidewalks
along a public street, and does not owe any duty to pedestrians injured as a
result of a defect in the sidewalks.” (Jordan v. City of Sacramento
(2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 1487, 1490 (citing Schaefer v. Lenahan (1944) 63
Cal.App.2d 324, 325).) By statute, specifically Streets and Highways Code
section 5610, abutting property owners have an obligation to repair defects in
the sidewalk, regardless of whether they created the defects. (See Jones v.
Deeter (1984) 152 Cal.App.3d 798, 803.) Nonetheless, the so-called
“Sidewalk Accident Doctrine” provides that abutting property owners have no
duty to members of the public in tort law, and are not liable to members of the
public, unless the property owner created the defect or exercised dominion or
control over the abutting sidewalk. (Lopez v. City of Los Angeles (2020)
55 Cal.App.5th 244, 255; Jordan, supra, 148 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1490-91
[Section 5610 “imposes a duty of repair on the abutting property owners for
defects in sidewalks, regardless of who created the defects, but does not of
itself create tort liability to injured pedestrians or a duty to indemnify
municipalities, except where a property owner created the defect or exercised
dominion or control over the abutting sidewalk”]; see also Contreras v.
Anderson (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 188, 196; Jones, supra, 152
Cal.App.3d at pp. 802-803.)
Thus, for more than 150 years the general rule has been that “in
the absence of a statute, a landowner is under no duty to maintain in a safe
condition a public street or sidewalk abutting his property.” (Lopez, supra,
55 Cal.App.5th at p. 255.) “[A] person’s ownership or occupancy of property,
without more, is insufficient to impose a duty to maintain abutting, publicly
owned property. (Id. at p. 256; see also Isaacs v.
Huntington Memorial Hospital (1985) 38 Cal.3d 112, 134 [“A defendant
cannot be held liable for the defective or dangerous condition of property
which it did not own, possess, or control.”]; Williams v. Foster (1989) 216
Cal.App.3d 510, 521 [“we are unwilling to find the duty to maintain the
sidewalk established by section 5610 is owed to members of the public in the
absence of clear and unambiguous legislative language, especially in view of
the long-standing judicial determination that abutters ordinarily have no such
duty”].)
This general
rule of no duty has an important exception: when the abutting property owner
has “exercised control” over the otherwise public property. (Lopez, supra,
55 Cal.App.5th at p. 255.) For this exception to apply, the abutting owner must
take some affirmative action regarding the public property, such as when the
abutting owner has created the hazard or asserted “dominion and control over
the … publicly owned property by effectively treating the property as its own.”
(Id. at p. 256.)
Here, Figueroa presents
the declaration of Val Muraoka, director of Asset Management for Robhana Management,
Inc., Figueroa’s authorized agent. Muraoka states Figueroa did not own, lease,
occupy, or control the sidewalk. (Muraoka Decl., ¶ 2.) Further, Muraoka further
testifies that Figueroa did not alter, repair, or create the defect in the
sidewalk. (Id., ¶¶ 4-5.)
In opposition,
Plaintiff (among other things) requests a continuance so that Plaintiff may
depose Muraoka “to the extent the Court believes the burden has shifted to
Plaintiff and is inclined to grant the motion.” (Opp. at p. 10.)
But that’s not how it works.
Plaintiff cannot ask for a continuance only if she is losing. Either Plaintiff is requesting a continuance
or she is not. Here, the Court construes the statements in her opposition as a
request for a continuance.
Code
of Civil Procedure section 437c, subdivision (h), contains an express statutory
provision for a continuance of a summary judgment motion hearing. That
subdivision provides, in pertinent part:
“If it appears from the affidavits submitted in opposition to a motion
for summary judgment or summary adjudication, or both, that facts essential to
justify opposition may exist but cannot, for reasons stated, be presented, the
court shall deny the motion, order a continuance to permit affidavits to be
obtained or discovery to be had, or make any other order as may be just.”
The Court has reviewed the evidence
submitted by Plaintiff, including the declaration of counsel, and finds that
the requirements for a statutory continuance under section 437c, subdivision
(h), are satisfied. The hearing is continued so that Plaintiff may schedule and
take the deposition of Muraoka, a witness critical to this motion.
Conclusion
The Court CONTINUES the hearing on the motion
for summary judgment filed by 940 Figueroa, LLC, to a date available for the
Court in December 2024 or January 2025.
Plaintiff may file a supplemental or amended opposition
(including evidence), and moving party may file a supplemental or amended
reply, on the schedule set forth in Code of Civil Procedure section 437c for
oppositions and replies, with reference to the new hearing date.