California Sidewalk Defects and Trip & Fall Accidents

Appeals Court Rules on Sidewalk Trip and Fall Case

• Plaintiff tripped over a raised slab of public sidewalk, breaking his wrist.

• The sidewalk had two defects caused by tree roots pushing it up.

• The first defect was elevated about 1.75 inches above its neighboring panel.

• The second defect was approximately 20 feet beyond the first defect, creating a "weird sort of downslope and upslope" between the two.

• Plaintiff was familiar with both defects, having jogged over the sidewalk 300 times in the previous two years.

• Plaintiff's human factors expert testified that the proximity of the two defects increased the fall risk for joggers.

• The expert also opined that the layer of pine needles at the base of the first defect made it difficult to judge the contrast of where the defect starts and ends.

• Plaintiff sued the City for general negligence and for maintaining a dangerous condition on public property in violation of Government Code section 835.

• The trial court granted the City a judgment of nonsuit on the negligence cause of action, but denied the City's motions on the section 835 cause of action.

• The jury returned a special verdict in plaintiff's favor, finding that the sidewalk was in a dangerous condition at the time of the incident and awarded plaintiff nearly $90,000 in damages.

• The City appealed, arguing that the sidewalk condition was too trivial to constitute a dangerous condition under section 835.

• The appeals court disagreed and held that the question of dangerousness was properly left to the jury for a factual determination, using a holistic, multi-factor analysis.Assessing the Triviality of Sidewalk Defects in California

• A height differential of one and three-quarter inches at slightly left of center of the ridge is not considered trivial as a matter of law in California.

• Photographs in evidence support the inference that the raised sidewalk slab of the first defect angles slightly upward, meaning a fact-finder could conclude that the height differential was even greater at the right end of the first defect.

• The first defect is nearly double the one-inch threshold where courts generally grow reluctant to find the defect not dangerous as a matter of law.

• No firmly fixed “arbitrary measurement in inches below which a defect is trivial as a matter of law and above which it becomes a question of fact whether or not the defect is dangerous” exists.

• When assessing the triviality of sidewalk defects, courts should not rely solely on the size of the defect, although the defect’s size “may be one of the most relevant factors” to the court’s decision.

• A court should determine whether there existed any circumstances surrounding the accident, which might have rendered the defect more dangerous than its mere abstract depth would indicate.

• In California, there is no firmly fixed “one and one-half-inch threshold” for sidewalk defects deemed trivial as a matter of law.

• The more accurate encapsulation is that “when the size of the depression begins to stretch beyond one inch the courts have been reluctant to find that the defect is not dangerous as a matter of law.”

• In most cases, a court will discourage judging a defect purely by tape measure, and a defect under one inch high will not be considered trivial as a matter of law if circumstances surrounding the accident rendered the defect more dangerous than its mere abstract depth would indicate.

• Holistic multi-factor framework should be adopted for assessing triviality, rather than the “two-step” framework espoused by other Courts of Appeal.

• The minimum one- and three-quarter-inch height differential of a sidewalk defect weighs heavily against finding the sidewalk condition trivial as a matter of law.

• The height of a sidewalk defect is one of the many circumstances to be considered when assessing triviality, and it remains the “ ‘most important’ ” of the dangerous condition factors.