In Guernsey v. City of Salinas, published December 17, 2018, the Sixth District Court of Appeal reversed a judgment based on jury verdict in a pedestrian v. auto case. A crosswalk on city property that runs across a driveway to a shopping center had faded, allegedly due to failure to maintain. Next to the crosswalk was a strip of pink stamped concrete on private property that also ran across the driveway. The stop sign for exiting drivers was on the pink strip instead of at the crosswalk. Bushes next to the driveway limited drivers' vision. The bushes were on private property. The city had the power to order them trimmed, but did not. An exiting driver hit the plaintiff pedestrian, seriously injuring him. The plaintiff was in the crosswalk. The driver considered the pink strip to be a crosswalk, and knew that there possibly had been a crosswalk where the faded lines were. At the city's request, the court instructed the jury: " “Plaintiffs have not alleged that the design of the Driveway created a dangerous condition. Instead, Plaintiffs have alleged that it was the City’s failure to maintain the crosswalk lines and the bushes that created a dangerous condition. [¶] To find that the Driveway presented a dangerous condition, you cannot rely on characteristics of the Driveway itself (e.g., the placement of the stop sign, the left turn pocket, and the presence of the pink cement). Although you can consider those elements of the Driveway when weighing whether or not the faded crosswalk lines and bushes created a dangerous condition, you cannot rely on those design elements of the intersection to find that a dangerous condition existed.” The court also instructed the jury that city property could be in a dangerous condition if adjacent property conditions, such as the pink strip or the stop sign location, exposed users of city property to a substantial risk of injury in conjuction with adjacent property. The jury found the driver and pedestrian at fault, but not the city. The jury wrote on the verdict form that the city should paint the crosswalk. The plaintiff contended that the trial court erred in giving the "design of the driveway" instruction.
The appellate court ruled the instruction was erroneous. The city contended that the design was subject to design immunity. The plaintiff based the case on the failure to maintain the sidewalk. The instruction went beyond informing the jury that the case was not based on the design. It extended to conditions that were not on city property, and so could not be the subject of design immunity. Telling the jury it could not "rely on" the elements of the driveway including the pink strip and bushes was legally incorrect, and conflicted with the instruction that it could consider conditions on adjacent property. The conflict was hopelessly confusing. The evidence, as well as the jurors' handwritten notation on the verdict form, showed that the error was prejudicial.
Comments