Duty of Care

Lyft driver suffered an unprovoked knife attack by a passenger, who, he later discovered that the passenger had a criminal history.  Held, Lyft does not owe its drivers a duty of care to run criminal background checks on passengers it offers to its drivers.  It would be too burdensome to run such checks on all passengers.  And the rare random… Read More

Unless it has actual knowledge of a vendor's employee's propensity to engage in such conduct, a regional center administering services for developmentally disabled persons does not owe a duty of care to the "consumer" of those services to protect the consumer from the vendor's employee's sexual assault and hence cannot be held liable for such an assault.  Even though the… Read More

In Kesner v. Superior Court (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1132, the Supreme Court held that an employer owes a duty of care to only the members of the employee's household to avoid secondary exposure to asbestos.  This decision holds that the same household limitation does not restrict a manufacturer's strict liability for design defects or failures to warn regarding its asbestos-containing… Read More

A regional center for the developmentally disabled does not owe a duty of care to employees of residential facilities to which the regional center assigns mentally or developmentally disabled individuals for residence to protect the employees from injury by the assigned disabled persons.  Generally, there is no duty to protect against harm by third parties absent a special relationship.  The… Read More

Plaintiff wandered drunk into a parking garage owned by defendant and engaged in "horseplay," ending up sitting on a 43 inch tall perimeter wall on an upper story of the garage, from which she fell to the ground, severely injuring herself.  Plaintiff claimed that the defendant had hired a security service to, among other things, find and stop horseplay, as… Read More

Following Delgado v. Trax Bar & Grill (2005) 36 Cal.4th 224, this case holds that bar owners owe their patrons a special duty of care to assist their customers who become ill or need medical attention, to warn of known dangers and, in circumstances in which a warning alone is insufficient, . . . to take other reasonable and appropriate… Read More

Michael Jackson's corporations owed a duty of care to protect minors from Jackson's sexual predation even though the corporations were wholly owned and controlled by Jackson.  A corporation that facilitates the sexual abuse of children by one of its employees is not excused from an affirmative duty to protect those children merely because it is solely owned by the perpetrator… Read More

Under Education Code 44808, a school district is generally not liable for injuries students receive while not on school property.  There is an exception to that immunity, however, when the district has undertaken to provide students transportation to and from school and the student is injured while he is or should be under the immediate and direct supervision of a… Read More

While the Rowland factors' foreseeability factors weigh in favor of imposing a duty of care on employers to take safety measures to prevent employees from contracting COVID-19 and transmitting the disease to family members and others, the public policy factors weigh against finding such a duty of care and they outweigh the foreseeability factors.  Recognizing liability would create staggering risk… Read More

A fan who was injured in an altercation that took place among persons attending an LA Rams football game properly lost his suit against the Rams and their crowd management services agent because he failed to raise, on summary judgment, a triable issue of fact as to whether the defendants' failure to act in the manners he claimed breached their… Read More

Tenant locked himself out of his apartment.  Landlord did not have an on-premises manager or a 24-hour call line, or any other means for tenant to reenter his apartment, so he climbed to the roof and tried to jump down to his balcony.  He missed and suffered significant injuries.  The trial court erred in holding that the landlord owed him… Read More

Lessee of a condominium unit owed an invitee to a political gathering in the condo unit no duty of care to prevent her injury from the allegedly dangerous condition of a walkway through the condominium complex to the lessee's unit.  The lessee did not own, possess or exercise control over the walkway.  The lessee did not assume a duty of… Read More

A bicyclist was killed when he collided with a truck making a right turn in a section of a city street that lacked a marked bicycle lane, unlike most of the rest of the street which had a bike lane marking.  The city established the three elements of its design immunity defense under Gov. Code 830.6.  The city had approved… Read More

Plaintiff tripped over the rear wheel of a Bird electric scooter that the user had parked with its rear wheel protruding into a public sidewalk.  The City of Los Angeles was not liable for failing to enforce conditions of its license which allowed Bird to operate in the city since the city exercised discretion in determining whether to enforce the… Read More

A lawyer has a duty to a nonclient third party only if the client’s intent to benefit that third party (in the way the third party asserts in their malpractice claim) is “clear,” “certain” and “undisputed.”  Signs of the client's intent do not meet that high standard if there is ground for dispute as to whom the client wished to… Read More

Distinguishing Hernandez v. KWPH Enterprises (2004) 116 Cal.App.4th 170, this decision holds that the ambulance EMTs transporting plaintiff from one psychiatric hospital to another owed her a duty of care to prevent her from harming herself.  Hernandez involved a patient who voluntarily asked to be transported to a hospital but then freaked out after she arrived there.  In this case,… Read More

The police owe a duty of care in employing deadly force.  However, that duty applies only where it is the police's use of force that kills or injures the plaintiff, not where, as in this case, the police's use of force triggers another person to engage in violence that kills or injures the plaintiff.  Here, the police fired at an… Read More

(A school district did not owe students a duty of care to prevent a teacher's husband from entering the classroom and killing her in front of her students, thus causing the students emotional distress.  The husband's violent criminal behavior was not reasonably foreseeable, as he had previously visited his wife at the school without incident.  Also, protecting against this sort… Read More

Defendant did not owe a duty of care to plaintiff to protect him from falling from a steeply slanted roof covered with broken, slippery clay roof tiles.  The roof's danger was open and obvious.  It was not foreseeable that plaintiff, who was neither required nor invited to climb on the roof, would confront that obvious danger.  He did so while… Read More

The trial court erred in granting defendant school district summary judgment.  Plaintiff, a student at the district's high school was stabbed by third person when following after school sports practice, she briefly visited a Starbucks and then returned to the high school to recover her books from her school locker.  The brief diversion to Starbucks did not interrupt the school's… Read More