The Supreme Court, both
state and the federal, is not usually unanimous, but in the recent California
Supreme Court decision in Vasilenko v.
Grace Family Church, the court unanimously ruled that a landowner does not have a duty to
assist invitees in crossing a public street, when the landowner does no more
than maintain a parking lot that requires invitees to cross the street to
access the landowner's premises, so long as the street's dangers are not
obscured or magnified by some condition of the landowner's premises or by some
action taken by the landowner.
Plaintiff Vasilenko
contended that the Church owed him a duty of care to assist him in safely
crossing the public street, and that the Church was negligent in failing to do
so, causing him to be injured. The
Church argued that it had no control over the public street, and therefore, did
not owe Vasilenko a duty to prevent his injury under the principle that
landowners have no duty to protect others from dangers on abutting streets
unless the landowner created the dangers.
The Church did not
control the public street, and it did not create the dangers on the street. But
the Church, by locating its parking lot on the other side of the street and
directing Vasilenko to park there, foreseeably increased the likelihood that
Vasilenko would cross the street at that location and thereby encounter harm.
However, the Court
concluded that a landowner does not have a duty to assist invitees in crossing
a public street when the landowner does no more than site and maintain a
parking lot that requires invitees to cross the street to access the
landowner’s premises, so long as the street’s dangers are not obscured or
magnified by some condition of the landowner’s premises or by some action taken
by the landowner. Because Vasilenko did not allege that the Church did anything
other than maintain a parking lot on the other side of that street, the Court
found that the Church did not owe him a duty to prevent his injury.
A plaintiff in a negligence
suit must demonstrate a legal duty to use due care, a breach of such legal
duty, and the breach as the proximate or legal cause of the resulting injury. California Civil Code section 1714(a), establishes
the general duty of each person to exercise, in his or her activities,
reasonable care for the safety of others. Courts invoke the concept of duty to
limit the otherwise potentially infinite liability which would follow from
every negligent act.
In determining whether
policy considerations weigh in favor of finding a duty is owed, Courts have
applied a complicated analysis of the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff,
the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of
the connection between the defendant’s conduct and the injury suffered, the
moral blame attached to the defendant’s conduct, the policy of preventing future
harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the
community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for
breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk
involved. The issue is not whether these factors (the Rowland factors) support
an exception to the general duty of reasonable care on the facts of the particular
case, but whether carving out an entire category of cases from that general
duty rule is justified by clear considerations of policy.
In Vasilenko, because the general duty to take ordinary care in the
conduct of one’s activities applies to choosing the location of a parking lot
for one’s invitees and to training one’s employees, the issue was stated as
whether a categorical exception to that general rule should be made exempting
those who own, possess, or control premises abutting a public street from
liability to invitees for placing a parking lot in a location that requires
invitees to cross the public street.
Two of the Rowland factors
— foreseeability and certainty — weighed in favor of finding a duty, while four
— closeness, preventing future harm, burden, and moral blame — weighed against
duty, with the insurance factor weighing in neither direction. In assessing
duty, the Courts do not merely count up the factors on either side.
In Vasilenko, the policy of preventing
future harm loomed particularly large. In light of the limited steps a
landowner can take to reduce the risk to its invitees, especially when compared
to the ability of invitees and drivers to prevent injury, and in light of the
possibility that imposing any duty will discourage the landowner from
designating options for parking, the Supreme Court held that a landowner who
does no more than site and maintain a parking lot that requires invitees to
cross a public street to reach the landowner’s premises does not owe a duty to
protect those invitees from the obvious dangers of the public street.
This decision is a good
illustration of the type of analysis that a Court will apply to determine if a legal
duty exists, and whether the defendant breached the duty, and whether the
breach was the proximate or legal cause of the resulting injury.
