Judge: Virginia Keeny, Case: 24STCV15180, Date: 2025-03-21 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 24STCV15180    Hearing Date: March 21, 2025    Dept: 45

JOYCE V. TAKASHIMA, ET AL.

DEMURRER to plaintiff’s complaint

Date of Hearing:        March 21, 2025                     Trial Date:       None set.  

Department:              45                                            Case No.:        24STCV15180

Moving Party:            Defendants Yume Takashima and John and Mary, LLC

Responding Party:     Plaintiff Craig T. Joyce  

Meet and Confer:      Pearse Decl., ¶ 2

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Craig T. Joyce filed this action against defendants Yume Takashima (“Takashima”), Hostel 8th and Ardmore Los Angeles, and Does 1 to 20 on June 18, 2024, later naming defendant John and Mary, LLC (“the LLC”) as Doe 1. Plaintiff asserts claims for (1) premises liability and (2) negligence. The operative facts of the complaint read as follows:

“Plaintiff was a paying guest at Defendants’ place of business, when he was assaulted by another tenant who wanted to sexually abuse the Plaintiff. When Plaintiff would not comply, Defendant began to physically assault him by repeatedly striking him on the head and face with a closed fist. Defendant [sic] failed to maintain a safe environment, screen their tenants, and provide adequate security, all contributing to the attack.”

(Compl., ¶¶ L-1.)

Under the heading of negligence, Plaintiff similarly alleges:

“Plaintiff was a paying guest at Defendants’ hostel. Defendants so negligently, carelessly and recklessly maintained, controlled and managed their business as to allow a violent, dangerous and mentally disturbed individual to become a tenant in the hostel. Defendant failed to warn or protect its other guests from this dangerous tenant. Plaintiff, while a paying guest at the hostel, was physically attacked by said dangerous tenant, and suffered severe bodily injuries and mental distress due to said attack.”

(Id., ¶¶ GN-1.)

Plaintiff alleges this attack (“the Incident”) took place on November 15, 2023, at 861 S. Ardmore Ave., Los Angeles 90005. (Id., ¶ GN-1.)

Takashima and the LLC (“Defendants”) demurred to both causes of action in the complaint on January 6, 2025. They argue both causes of action fail for misjoinder because “Yume Takashima is an improper party”, and that Plaintiff fails to allege sufficient facts to constitute either cause of action.

Plaintiff filed his opposition on February 7, 2025. On March 13, 2025, Defendants replied.

[Tentative] Ruling

The demurrer is sustained with thirty (30) days’ leave to amend. Defendants to give notice.

ANALYSIS

Misjoinder

Defendants are not misjoined. For a demurrer for misjoinder to be sustained, the impropriety must appear on the face of the complaint, and the joinder of the parties itself must impose some prejudice on the objecting defendant. (Cf. Royal Surplus Lines Ins. Co., Inc. v. Ranger Ins. Co. (2002) 100 Cal.App.4th 193, 203-204; see also 5 Witkin, Cal. Proc. 6th Pleading, § 972 (2024) [“the defendant is entitled to a favorable ruling only when he or she can show some prejudice suffered or some interests affected by the misjoinder”].) Defendants have not identified any such prejudice, nor does any appear on the face of the complaint.

Failure to State a Claim

Plaintiff has failed to state a claim against either defendant. Premises liability and negligence share the same elements: duty, breach, causation, and harm. (Friedman v. Merck & Co., (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th 454, 463; Castellon v. U.S. Bancorp., (2013) 220 Cal.App.4th 994, 998.)

“As a general rule one has no duty to control the conduct of another, and no duty to warn those who may be endangered by such conduct. . . . A duty may arise, however, where ‘(a) a special relation exists between the actor and the third person which imposes a duty upon the actor to control the third person's conduct, or (b) a special relation exists between the actor and the other which gives the other a right to protection.’ . . . Among the commonly recognized special relationships are that between a common carrier and its passengers, that between an innkeeper and his or her guests, and that between a possessor of land and members of the public who enter in response to the landowner's invitation. . . . .”

(Peterson v. San Francisco Community College Dist. (1984) 36 Cal.3d 799, 806, emphasis added, internal citations omitted.)

The duty an innkeeper owes to protect its guests, however, is not automatic; it requires a showing that the danger be foreseeable, based on factors laid out in Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 112-113. (Isaacs v. Huntington Memorial Hospital (1985) 38 Cal.3d 112, 123-125, as modified by Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center (1993) 6 Cal.4th 666.)

Here, Plaintiff has pled no facts that indicate that any Rowland factor is satisfied, such that either defendant owed him a duty to protect him from assault by a third party, even if that third party was also a guest at the hotel. Plaintiff’s allegations that Defendants failed to maintain a safe environment, screen their tenants, or provide adequate security do not demonstrate the Incident was foreseeable; their duty to do any of these things depends on the foreseeability of the Incident itself.

(The Court also notes that the complaint suffers from some ambiguity. There is some confusion about whether the defendants jointly own or operate the hostel, or whether Takashima is a member of the LLC, which does so. More problematically, paragraph L-1 also refers to Plaintiff’s assailant as “Defendant”, raising the possibility that one of the defendants is also the third-party assailant.)

The demurrer is sustained with thirty days’ leave to amend.