California Accident Attorneys Blog
Property owners owe a duty of care to people who are lawfully present on their premises to prevent injuries from existing hazards by correcting them if they know or should know about the dangers. This duty does not extend to public streets that abut the properties, however. In a recent case, the California Supreme Court examined whether or not a property owner who owned a parking lot across the street from the primary property owed a duty of care to help people to cross the street in order to prevent injuries.
Issue: Whether a property owner owes a duty of care to invitees to prevent injury when they cross over a public street from a privately owned parking lot to the owner’s premises
Grace Family Church is located in Sacramento County in an unincorporated area along a five-lane street named Marconi Street. There was an intersection that was located between 50 to 100 feet east of the church that did not have a marked crosswalk. There were not any other crosswalks across the street in the vicinity. The church used a private swim school’s parking lot as an overflow lot by agreement with the swim school.
When visitors to the properties of others are injured in California, they may be able to recover damages by holding the property owners liable in a premises liability lawsuit. However, it is important for people to note that just because they might be injured by a dangerous condition that exists on the property does not necessarily mean that they will be able to recover damages. In Jacobs v. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage Company,2d Civil No. B277832, the court found that victims who are injured in accidents that are unforeseeable are not able to hold the defendants liable under a theory of premises liability.
The tragic Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, California resulted in the deaths of 36 people. The warehouse had been illegally converted into living and working spaces for artists, and the victims of the fire died during a music concert that was being held in the building. The fire demonstrates the problems that can happen when buildings are used for purposes for which they were not intended. Unfortunately, the high real estate prices and rents in cities such as San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles has contributed to people using these spaces to work and live even though the buildings are not intended for doing so. Experienced personal injury attorneys may hold the landowners liable by filing lawsuits against them, helping to deter the negligent conduct even when code enforcement may be difficult.
A recent California case involving a woman who was injured when she tripped over an unattended ladder in Target demonstrates both the business’s knowledge requirement as well as its duty to remove hazards, keeping the premises reasonably safe. In the case, an 83-year-old woman tripped over the ladder, fracturing her hip.
A recent construction site accident wrongful death Los Angeles County case and jury verdict illustrate several important topics, including cases in which several parties share liability in causing workplace accidents, workers’ compensation and the liability of third parties in workplace accidents. The case (Rosa Gonzalez, et.al. v. Atlas Construction Supply – L.A. Superior Court Case No. BC 507755) involved a man who was killed while working on a construction site in 2011.
A recent case in California demonstrates how the extent and cause of a plaintiff’s injuries may be disputed even when liability itself is not in dispute. In the case, Plent v. Anheuser-Busch, LLC, Los Angeles Superior Court / 
On October 20, 2011, a young California man, who was employed as a union carpenter for Ghilotti Construction, fell and injured his back while working on a bridge. The incident occurred as the result of a piece of uncapped rebar snagging the worker’s pant leg and causing him to fall. He was wearing a 50 pound utility belt at the time of the fall, and his leg remained about two feet in the air, both of which exacerbated the injury he sustained.