In Garcia v. American Golf Corp., published May 3, 2017, the Second District Court of Appeal, Division 2 reversed summary judgment granted to a city in a personal injury lawsuit brought by a child hit by a golf ball and his mother. The mother was pushing the child in a stroller on a city-owned walkway that was adjacent to a private golf course. The trial court ruled that the city was immune from dangerous-condition liability under Government Code section 831.4, the recreational trail immunity.
The appellate court disagreed. The dangerous condition of the walkway did not stem from any defect in the walkway, but rather the design of the golf course, which took measures to prevent balls from flying out of the course that proved insufficient. The cases applying section 831.4 immunity to conditions of adjacent property involve natural conditions next to the trail, or integral parts of the trail. Here, the golf course was not an integral part of the trail. The reason for the trail immunity is to encourage municipalities to open up their land to recreation without facing liability for doing so. Here, the liability results from the proximity of the walkway to a revenue producing private facility, which can afford to deal with liability and provides the city with revenue so that it too can address liability. The appellate court also rejected design immunity, because the dangerous condition was design of adjacent private property rather than public property; and the argument that the city adequately warned of golf balls, because there was no evidence the city created the warning signs present and there was a triable issue of fact on whether the signs were adequate. It also rejected an assumption of risk argument: a passerby did not assume the risk of being hit by a golf ball under either primary or secondary assumption of the risk.
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