Case Number: PC051100    Hearing Date: July 22, 2014    Dept: 92

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – CENTRAL DISTRICT

EVER CARRANZA,
Plaintiff(s),
vs.

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, ET AL.,

Defendant(s).

CASE NO: PC051100

[TENTATIVE] ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT, LOS ANGELES COUNTY METROPOLITAN TRANSIT AUTHORITY’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT; GRANTING DEFENDANT, CITY OF LOS ANGELES’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Dept. 92
1:30 p.m. — #38
July 22, 2014

Defendant, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Motion for Summary Judgment is Denied. Defendant, City of Los Angeles’s Motion for Summary Judgment is Granted.

1. Background Facts
Plaintiff, Ever Carranza filed this action against Defendants, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Cou nty of Los Angeles, and Cesar Ivan Martinez for damages arising out of an accident that occurred when Plaintiff was walking across the street to the bus stop and was hit by a car driven by Martinez.

Plaintiff’s operative First Amended Complaint (attached as Exhibit A to the MSJ filed by the City) includes causes of action for dangerous condition of public property (against LACMTA, City, and County) and negligence/negligence per se (against Martinez).

2. Undisputed Facts
Most of the facts relating to the subject incident are not in dispute. Reviewing the facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, the essential facts are as follows:

The accident occurred on Christmas Eve. Plaintiff had been at his mother’s house and had consumed alcohol prior to the accident. Plaintiff left his mother’s house between 9:20 and 9:30 p.m. He wanted to catch the 10 p.m. bus. The closest bus stop was at the corner of Osborne Place and Glenoaks Blvd., and involved crossing Glenoaks Blvd. to access the stop. It was dark, and the streetlights were out at the intersection. There was no traffic signal and no marked crosswalk.

There were also bus stops where Osborne Place met Osborne Street and Montague Street (to the northwest and southeast, respectively); both of those intersections had traffic signals and marked crosswalks. Those intersections each involved walking over 1000 feet (1672 feet to one and 1464 feet to the other, over ¼ mile each) from the bus stop closest to Plaintiff.

3. Defendant, LACMTA’s Motion for Summary Judgment
The MTA moves for summary judgment, contending the bus stop was not a dangerous condition of public property as a matter of law. The parties rely solely on the holding in Bonnano v. Central Contra Costa Transit Authority (2003) 30 Cal.4th 139 in arguing for and against summary judgment. This court, therefore, has considered Bonnano at length in ruling on this motion.

As an initial note, Defendant seeks judicial notice of three different maps – the map of Glenoaks Blvd., and the maps for MTA routes 166 and 364. The RJN is granted.

As an additional note, Defendant filed evidentiary objections with its reply papers. The first objection is sustained; all other objections are overruled.

In Bonnano, the plaintiff was injured when she crossed a busy street to access her bus stop. There was a crosswalk where she crossed (adjacent to the stop), but automobiles often did not stop at the crosswalk. On the date in question, the cars in both directions stopped to allow the plaintiff to cross; however, another car rear-ended the stopped car, causing the stopped car to collide with the plaintiff and to cause her serious injuries. The jury found in favor of the plaintiff and against the transit provider. The Court of Appeals affirmed, as did the Supreme Court. The Court made note of the fact that the plaintiff in the case had two options in order to reach her bus stop – she could either cross at the dangerous intersection, or she could walk to the nearest traffic light-controlled intersection, cross there, and then backtrack down a stretch of highway that was equally dangerous – parts of the sidewalk along the highway were in a degraded condition, and at other times she would have been required to actually walk in the street, which was very busy. The Court held that neither of these options was tenable, and therefore the transit provider could be held liable for the dangerous condition on its property.

The MTA argues the facts of this case are distinguishable. The MTA argues that there were bus stops one block in either direction from the stop Plaintiff chose, and both of those stops were at traffic light-controlled intersections. The MTA argues Plaintiff had the option to walk to either of those intersections and cross safely, but instead chose to cross at the unmarked, unlit intersection.

Plaintiff argues the other two bus stops were not a legitimate choice. Plaintiff notes that each stop was over 1000 feet away (over ¼ mile) from the stop he chose, which was the closest one to his mother’s house. Plaintiff also notes that he would have been required to walk that quarter mile to either of the other bus stops, both in the dark, in order to cross.

Additionally, Plaintiff notes that the area of the road on the side of Glenoaks Blvd where the bus stop is located is uneven, potholed, and unpaved; he therefore concludes that people are not likely to be accessing the bus stop from the side of the street on which it is located, and are more likely to be accessing the stop from across the street.

Finally, Plaintiff provides evidence that there had been three prior accidents that occurred while pedestrians were attempting to cross Glenoaks Blvd. See Declaration of Ruzak, ¶23.

Defendant argues that this case presents exactly the solution that was contemplated in Bonnano – bus stops at controlled intersections that provide safe alternatives. In Bonnano, however, the Court was discussing the possibility of MOVING the bus stop TO the controlled intersection, not simply adding a bus stop at a controlled intersection. In this case, similarly, the MTA could have chosen to only have two bus stops – at the two controlled intersections a quarter mile in each direction from the stop Plaintiff chose. The MTA, instead, chose to have three stops, one of which was across a dangerous and unmarked street.

As the Court noted in Bonnano, “the existence of a dangerous condition is ordinarily a question of fact–resolved here by the jury’s express finding that the bus stop was a dangerous condition of CCCTA’s property–but it can be decided as a matter of law if reasonable minds can come to only one conclusion.” Id. at 148. This court finds that the issue of whether the bus stop constitutes a dangerous condition of public property in light of its location is one on which reasonable minds can differ, and therefore summary judgment must be denied.

4. Defendant, City of Los Angeles’s Motion for Summary Judgment
a. Allegations of the FAC
Plaintiff’s operative FAC alleges the subject area was in a dangerous condition for a variety of reasons. Specifically, ¶¶19-22 allege:
19. Defendants, CITY OF LOS ANGELES, LOS ANGELES COUNTY METROPOLITAN
TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES and DOES 1 to 100, owned, managed, maintained, inspected, constructed, designed and controlled the aforementioned highway, and notwithstanding said duty despite the fact that defendants knew that the intersection was dangerous and had a substantial history of previous incidents of pedestrians being truck and killed and a history of near hits/misses of pedestrians, defendants allowed and continued to allow said streets to be in a state of disrepair by failing to provide adequate warnings and signs, failing to place any/sufficient traffic controls, failing to properly mark the subject crosswalk, and failing to provide properly working/functioning, street lighting/adequate street
—lighting/illumination at the intersection for the pedestrians; Defendants, and each of them, knew or should have known that not properly maintaining the streets and not providing properly working streetlights was inherently dangerous and would cause injuries and even deaths.
20. At all times herein mentioned, said properties were in a dangerous and defective condition, in that, among other things the streetlights that illuminate the subject intersection were not properly working/functioning and as a result exposed pedestrians and/or bus patrons to the risk of physical harm.
21. At all times herein mentioned, said properties were in a dangerous and defective condition, in that, among other things, they were located so as to expose bus patrons to the risk of physical harm.
22. Among other things, said bus stop was on the north side of Glenoaks Boulevard, and was designed and intended to serve patrons, including but not limited to plaintiff Ever Carranza, who was visiting his parents that live on the south side of Glenoaks Boulevard; therefor requiring all such patrons and prospective bus passengers to cross Glenoaks Boulevard to board Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses at the designated location.

b. Parties’ Arguments
The City moves for summary judgment, contending each of Plaintiff’s allegations concerning dangerous condition fails as a matter of law. Specifically, the City contends (a) failure to place sufficient traffic signals is not actionable; failure to properly mark a crosswalk is not actionable; failure to provide functioning street lights is not actionable; the location of the bus stop is a decision solely made by the MTA, and not by the City; the allegations concerning failure to consult with the MTA fail; the allegations concerning failure to provide adequate warnings and signs are not actionable; there is no duty to warn of a dangerous condition if no dangerous condition exists; Plaintiff’s own decision to cross the roadway caused his damages; the claims relating to the MTA were not disclosed on Plaintiff’s government tort claim and are not actionable.

Plaintiff opposes. Plaintiff concedes the failure to provide traffic signals, the unmarked crosswalk, and the failure to provide adequate lighting are not actionable in and of themselves; he contends, however, that they are actionable in this case due to exacerbating factors. Plaintiff also argues Defendant can be held liable for the location of the bus stop and the failure to consult with the MTA to ensure the stop was in a safe location. Plaintiff argues that the foregoing adequately establishes a dangerous condition, and therefore a duty to warn exists. Plaintiff argues this his own negligence, if any, is at most contributory and does not bar his claim. Similarly, Plaintiff contends Martinez’s negligence is also contributory, but does not bar his claims against the City.

c. Evidentiary Objections
The City filed evidentiary objections with its reply papers. The first objection to the Declaration of Ruzak is sustained. The objections to Exhibits B, C, D, G, H, and K are sustained. All other objections are overruled.

d. Traffic Signals, Marked Crosswalks, and Lights
The City adequately shows that it cannot be held liable for failure to place sufficient traffic signals (Gov Code §830.4, Mixon v. State of California (2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 124), failure to properly mark a crosswalk (Gov Code §830.8; Sun v. City of Oakland (2008) 166 Cal.App.4th 1177), and/or failure to provide working street lights (Antenor v. City of Los Angeles (1985) 174 Cal.App.3d 477, 483. Plaintiff concedes as much with respect to traffic signals and failure to properly mark the crosswalk, but argues that the City can be held liable if those failures combine with other individual factors to create a dangerous condition. Plaintiff fails, however, to explain those other factors; he seems to walk a circular argument, where the “other factors” are the other things for which Defendant is immune, as opposed to some fourth enumerable independent factor.

Plaintiff argues that the City can be held liable for failure to adequately light the area, citing Antenor, supra, at 483. The Court in Antenor stated only the following on this issue:
The general rule is stated in 39 American Jurisprudence Second, Highways, Streets and Bridges, section 405 at pages 803-804:”In the absence of a statutory or charter provision to the contrary, it is generally held that a municipality is under no duty to light its streets even though it is given the power to do so, and hence, that its failure to light them is not actionable negligence, and will not render it liable in damages to a traveler who is injured solely by reason thereof. [Fn. omitted.] A duty to light, and the consequent liability for failure to do so, may, however, arise from some peculiar condition rendering lighting necessary in order to make the streets safe for travel. [Fn. omitted.]”

Antenor failed to explain what those circumstances would be. Plaintiff argues that the placement of a bus stop on the other side of the street is one such circumstance. In reply, Defendant relies on Mixon v. Pacific Gas & Electric (2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 124 to further support its position that failure to properly light is not actionable. In Mixon, the court explained:
A public entity is under no duty to light its streets. (Antenor v. City of Los Angeles (1985) 174 Cal.App.3d 477, 483 [220 Cal. Rptr. 181] (Antenor).) “ ‘In the absence of a statutory or charter provision to the contrary, it is generally held that a municipality is under no duty to light its streets even though it is given the power to do so, and hence, that its failure to light them is not actionable negligence, and will not render it liable in damages to a traveler who is injured solely by reason thereof.’ ” (Ibid.; see 40 Am.Jur.2d Highways, § 425, p. 126.) A duty to light, “and the consequent liability for failure to do so,” may arise only if there is “some peculiar condition rendering lighting necessary in order to make the streets safe for travel.” (Antenor, supra, at p. 483.) In other words, a prior dangerous condition may require street lighting or other means to lessen the danger but the absence of street lighting is itself not a dangerous condition.

Plaintiff also argues that the City may not have a duty to adequately light, but once the City chooses to do so, the City must ensure the lights remain functional. Notably, the lights at issue in this case were out at the time of the accident, so this is not a case where the lights had not been installed in the first instance. Plaintiff cites a variety of cases holding that failure to maintain traffic signs and signals, subways, stop signs, etc., is actionable. These cases essentially hold that, even though there is no mandatory duty to create these things, once they are created and the public relies on them, there is a duty to maintain them in good condition. Plaintiff fails how to show how one could “rely on” a light, in the same way that one “relies on” a traffic signal or stop sign. Notably, one could readily see the lack of a light at any given moment.

e. Location of Bus Stop
Plaintiff’s arguments in connection with each of the foregoing essentially boil down to one argument – that the location of the bus stop was a “peculiar condition” that gave rise to a heightened duty to ensure proper lighting, traffic signals, and/or a crosswalk. Defendant argues, in moving papers, that it had no responsibility for the choice of the location of the bus stop, as this choice was solely made by the MTA. The City argues that its property was not in a dangerous condition, and it cannot be held liable for the condition of the bus stop, for which the MTA was responsible. The City argues that, to the extent Plaintiff relies on the argument that the City is liable for failure to consult with the MTA, there is no statutory basis for this argument, and therefore it runs afoul of the requirement that all liability against a public entity be grounded in statute.

Plaintiff, in opposition, relies on Bonnano, supra, which was discussed in connection with the MTA’s motion. Plaintiff argues that, per Bonnano, the City can be held liable for the placement of the bus stop. In Bonnano, the Court noted that the transit authority was obligated to confer with the County about placement of the bus stop, because the County owned the right-of-way along the road where the bus stop was located. In contrast, the City herein establishes, “bus stops are not under the jurisdiction of the City of Los Angeles. They are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the MTA per the California Public Utilities Commission. MTA can place a bus stop any place it wants to. It is not required to get approval from the City.”

Plaintiff fails to dispute this fact, and fails to show how the City could possibly be liable for the placement of the bus stop. If the City is not liable for the placement of the bus stop, Plaintiff fails to show how the bus stop could be a complicating factor that would give rise to a duty to light the area, provide a traffic signal, and/or provide a crosswalk, when those duties do not otherwise exist.

f. Other issues
The other issues on the motion involve failure to warn and contributory negligence. Those issues do not come into play unless and until the City is liable for a dangerous condition of public property. The City adequately showed that it is not liable for the lack of lights, the lack of a traffic signal, or the lack of a crosswalk. The City also adequately showed that it is not responsible for determining where the bus stops are placed; that responsibility lies solely with the MTA. Plaintiff failed to raise triable issues of material fact in this regard, and therefore the motion for summary judgment is granted.

Dated this 22nd day of July, 2014

Hon. Elia Weinbach
Judge of the Superior Court