Coronado v. Cobblestone Village Community Rentals, L.P

163 Cal.App.4th 831

77 Cal. Rptr. 3d 883

JOSEPH CORONADO, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. COBBLESTONE VILLAGE COMMUNITY RENTALS, L.P., et al., Defendants and Respondents.

No. F053239.

Court of Appeals of California, Fifth District.

June 4, 2008.

Oren & Oren, Inc., and Charles D. Oren for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Prindle, Decker & Amaro and Jack C. Nick for Defendants and Respondents.

OPINION

KANE, J.

Plaintiff Joseph Coronado, a disabled man who is wheelchair-bound, decided to rent a particular apartment at Cobblestone Village, a multi-unit complex owned and operated by defendants Cobblestone Village Community Rentals, L.P. and Equity Residential Properties Management Corporation.¹ A barrier to wheelchair access existed on the path outside the apartment. Specifically, the concrete sidewalk leading from plaintiff's apartment to the parking area ended in a raised curb with no access ramp for wheelchairs. Plaintiff was subsequently injured when his wheelchair toppled over while his wife tried to maneuver it off of the raised curb. Plaintiff sued defendants for violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Civ. Code, § 51)² and the Disabled Persons Act (§ 54 et seq.). After plaintiff's case was presented at trial, the trial court ruled that the above causes of action would not go to the jury because the statutory provisions were inapplicable to private residential apartments. Plaintiff appeals from that nonsuit order. We will affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Cobblestone Village is an apartment complex located in the City of Fresno along both sides of Fruit Avenue. It was constructed in 1982 to 1983 using exclusively private funds. No substantial structural modifications or additions that would require a building permit have occurred since the original construction. The complex is owned and/or managed by defendants.

The leasing office for Cobblestone Village is open to the general public and a wheelchair access ramp is provided at that location.³ The apartments and common areas around the apartments are reserved for use by tenants and guests of tenants only, although other persons might enter the complex since defendants' employees do not patrol the grounds. Vehicles are able to enter the apartment complex by means of a private driveway that connects with Fruit Avenue and winds through the interior of the complex.

Plaintiff is a quadriplegic. He has some use of his arms and can push his manual wheelchair to some extent, but a certain balance must always be maintained because he lacks upper torso control. He is able to get up a curb ramp in his wheelchair, but with no ramp a raised curb is an access barrier.

Cobblestone Village has apartment units that are fully accessible to disabled persons; however, such units were already rented at the time plaintiff and his wife, Krystal Coronado, were looking for an apartment. Plaintiff and his wife were shown apartment number 117 (the apartment) by one of the defendants' leasing agents. The apartment was not designed for disability access, but the interior was adequate for plaintiff's needs. There is a concrete path or sidewalk leading from the front door of the apartment to a common use parking area. This path or sidewalk ends at a raised curb next to plaintiff's assigned parking spot. When plaintiff observed the raised curb at the time he was first shown the apartment, he informed defendants' leasing agent that a wheelchair ramp would be needed. The agent indicated he would have to check with management, but he did not think it would be a problem.

At the time plaintiff and his wife moved into the apartment in October of 2002,⁴ a temporary wooden ramp had been placed in the parking lot at the location of the raised curb at the end of the path leading to the apartment. The wooden ramp was placed there at the instruction of defendants' apartment manager. It was constructed out of plywood and two-by-fours by defendants' maintenance employee, who also repaired or replaced it on at least one occasion.

Plaintiff asserted at trial that defendants made numerous promises to put in a concrete wheelchair ramp at the curb. Plaintiff, his wife and a paralegal testified that assurances were given by several of defendants' employees that a concrete ramp would in fact be built at defendants' expense. Plaintiff and his wife also testified that they were ready and willing at all times to pay the expense themselves of putting in the concrete ramp, and made this fact known to defendants.

Defendants' leasing agents who dealt with plaintiff and his wife denied ever promising a permanent concrete ramp. Linda Kelley, the apartment manager, testified that she told plaintiff and his wife that they had the option of putting in a permanent ramp at their own expense. According to Ms. Kelley, plaintiff and/or his wife never came forward and said "`Yes[, we] want to put a ramp in.'" Eventually the wooden ramp, which was put in as a temporary convenience only, had to be removed. Thus, defendants' position was that plaintiff simply failed to take advantage of the option of putting in a concrete ramp at plaintiff's expense.

In spring of 2003, for reasons that are not entirely clear,⁵ the wooden ramp was removed by defendant Equity Residential Properties Management Corporation. On June 18, 2003, plaintiff's wife was helping plaintiff get down the curb to the parking area in his wheelchair. In the process, the wheelchair tipped over and plaintiff and his wife were injured.

Plaintiff's complaint was filed on February 17, 2005. A first amended complaint set forth the following causes of action: (1) premises liability, (2) constructive eviction, (3) violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act (§51), (4) violation of the Disabled Persons Act (§ 54.1), and (5) injunctive relief under the Disabled Persons Act (§ 55.1).

On the eighth day of trial and shortly before it would be time to instruct the jury, the trial court ruled on its own motion that the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the Disabled Persons Act were inapplicable in the circumstances of this case and therefore the statutory causes of action would not go to the jury.⁶ As explained by the trial court from the bench, even though the defendants' leasing office was a public accommodation (and hence subject to the disability access provisions), that fact did not convert the entirety of the apartment complex—including residential areas—into a public accommodation for purposes of the relevant statutes. The minute order stated as follows: "The Court determines, given the law, the research the Court has conducted and the authorities that have been provided for the Court's consideration ... it does not appear, given the law, nor does there appear to be any facts that would cause an interpretation of the law that would cause or allow the plaintiff's causes of action under any of the disabled persons statutes or discriminatory behavior statutes to go to the jury.... [A]nd so, I do not intend to give instructions that pertain to those statutes, [¶]... [¶] The Court advises the parties a determination has been made that the corporate entity or partnership of Cobblestone Village is a business, they maintain a business office on the premises and the office is located on the opposite side of the street from the plaintiff's unit in a different section of the apartment complex. The business office is a public accommodation, but the private apartments are not public accommodations within the meaning of any of the statutes cited."

After the conclusion of the trial, the jury returned a defense verdict on the premises liability and constructive eviction causes of action. Judgment in favor of defendants was entered on July 13, 2007. Plaintiff timely appealed from the trial court's order of dismissal or nonsuit of the causes of action under the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the Disabled Persons Act.

DISCUSSION

I. Standard of Review

Plaintiff appeals from the equivalent of a "nonsuit" order entered after the presentation of plaintiff's evidence. (Code Civ. Proc., § 581c.) Thus, we review whether the trial court was correct in concluding that the evidence, when viewed most favorably toward plaintiff's case, afforded no basis for a cause of action under either the Unruh Civil Rights Act or Disabled Persons Act as a matter of law. (See Pinero v. Specialty Restaurants Corp. (2005) 130 Cal.App.4th 635, 639 [30 Cal.Rptr.3d 348].) "We will not sustain the judgment `"unless interpreting the evidence most favorably to plaintiff's case and most strongly against the defendant and resolving all presumptions, inferences and doubts in favor of the plaintiff a judgment for the defendant is required as a matter of law."` [Citation.]" (Nally v. Grace Community Church (1988) 47 Cal.3d 278, 291 [253 Cal.Rptr. 97, 763 P.2d 948].)

The substance of plaintiff's appeal is that the trial court erred because defendants had a statutory duty to install a wheelchair ramp at the location of the raised curb so that plaintiff would have access on the only path of travel between the apartment and the parking area (and beyond). The interpretation and application of statutes present a question of law that we review de novo. (Sutco Construction Co. v. Modesto High School Dist. (1989) 208 Cal.App.3d 1220, 1228 [256 Cal.Rptr. 671]; 9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (4th ed. 1997) Appeal, § 317, p. 355.) Similarly, the issue of whether a statutory scheme such as the Unruh Civil Rights Act is applicable in a particular context is a question of law that is reviewed de novo. (Warfield v. Peninsula Golf & Country Club (1995) 10 Cal.4th 594, 607, fn. 7 [42 Cal.Rptr.2d 50, 896 P.2d 776] [question of whether private club was business enterprise under statute was one of law].)

(1)We consider questions of statutory interpretation in accordance with well-established principles of statutory construction. "[C]ourts must begin with the language of a given statute as the purest expression of legislative intent." (...