In Tillinghast v. Los Angeles Unified School Dist., published May 5, 2025, the Second District Court of Appeal, Division 8 affirmed the judgment in favor of the plaintiff. The plaintiff's decedent, a middle-school student, passed away in PE class, after jogging, of sudden cardiac arrest. He had an unsuspected heart defect. When the decedent collapsed, teachers began performing CPR and called 911. The teacher on the 911 call was trained to use a defibrillator. The 911 operator asked the teacher if the school had a defibrillator. The teacher had worked at the school for more than a decade, but did not know that the school had an AED-type defibrillator in its main office. A cardiac arrest victim's chance of survival decreases by 7-10% each minute that passes without defibrillation. The defendant school district promulgated a defibrillator policy and bulletin in 2012. The policy stated that AEDs will be maintained on the premises of selected schools and other locations in the district. The school principal, who started at this school in 2012, did not know of the defibrillator bulletin. Had he known of it, he would have told the teachers about the school's AED. The plaintiff sued the principal and the school district for negligence under Government Code sections 820, 815.2, and 815.6. At trial, the plaintiff's strategy focused on the district's liability, rather than the principal's. The district's policy was to admit mistakes were made, but that the there was no causation because the decedent's abnormal heart caused his death and defibrillation would not have made a difference. During the trial, the parties agreed on a version of CACI 423, the jury instruction about mandatory duty. The jury found the district negligent, but the principal not liable. On appeal, the district contended that the trial court erred by giving CACI 423. It also argued that insufficient evidence supported the verdict.
The appellate court ruled that the district had forfeited its objections to CACI 423, by acquiescing to it without requesting any additional instructions. The insufficient evidence argument could not succeed, because the district conceded in its opening statement and closing argument that it had made mistakes. The stipulated verdict form did not ask the jury to distinguish between negligence based on breach of a statutory duty and negligence based on any other theory.
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