Landowners Normally Have No Duty To Persons Crossing The Street

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.