Issakhani v. Shadow Glen Homeowners Ass'n, Inc.

63 Cal.App.5th 917

278 Cal.Rptr.3d 270

Anaeis ISSAKHANI, Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.SHADOW GLEN HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., Defendant and Respondent.

B301746

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

Filed April 30, 2021

As Modified May 27, 2021

Gusdorff Law and Janet Gusdorff, Westlake Village; Aghabegian & Associates and Alan Aghabegian, Glendale, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Horvitz & Levy, Daniel J. Gonzalez and Mitchell C. Tilner, Burbank, for Defendant and Respondent.

HOFFSTADT, J.

A pedestrian who decided to jaywalk across a five-lane highway at night was struck by a car. The pedestrian sued the owner of the condominium complex she was trying to visit for negligence and premises liability for having too few onsite parking spaces for guests. This appeal therefore presents the question: Does a landowner owe a duty of care to invitees to provide adequate onsite parking, either (1) under common law principles, or (2) by virtue of a 1978 city ordinance that rezoned the complex's specific parcel for multifamily dwellings and conditioned that rezoning on providing a specific number of guest parking spaces? We conclude that the answer to both questions is "no." We accordingly affirm the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the condominium complex.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Facts

After nightfall on June 10, 2014, Anaeis Issakhani (plaintiff) parked her car on the far side of a five-lane street. Rather than walk to the next marked crosswalk several hundred feet away, she jaywalked. She was struck by a car, and sustained a traumatic brain injury along with several skull fractures.

At the time she was struck, plaintiff was crossing the street to get to the Shadow Glen condominium complex where her friend lived. The complex has 170 onsite parking spaces, and they are marked as "Reserved" for residents or as "Visitor" for guests. Before parking on the street, plaintiff had tried to find a parking space on site; specifically, she followed another car through the complex's security gate and then drove around for two or three minutes before deciding there was no available space.

The Shadow Glen complex was built in 1979 as a 68-unit housing development in Sun Valley, California. Because the parcel was originally zoned for single and dual family housing, the complex's original developer applied to the City of Los Angeles (the City) to have the parcel rezoned as a multiple dwelling zone. As required by the City's municipal code, the developer's application was considered by the City's planning department, by a hearing examiner, by the City's planning commission, and ultimately by the Los Angeles City Council (City Council). Because the City's zoning map is set forth in a City ordinance, a City Council-enacted ordinance is required to rezone a parcel.

In enacting ordinance No. 151,411, the City Council granted the developer's application on five conditions¹ that the City deemed "necessary to protect the best interests of and assure a development more compatible with the surrounding neighborhood"—namely, that (1) "[n]o building located on the site ... exceed two stories or 25 feet in height," (2) "[a]ll open areas not used for buildings, driveways, parking areas, recreational facilities, or walks ... be attractively landscaped" and "equipped with automatic sprinklers," (3) "[a] 10-foot landscaped buffer setback ... be provided along [the five-lane street]," and populated with trees of a specified height and at a specified density, (4) "[a]ll lighting ... be directed onto the site ... to eliminate any glare to adjoining residential properties," and (5) "guest parking" be "provide[d]" "at a ratio of one-half space per dwelling unit in excess" of that otherwise required by the municipal code. Because the complex was to have 68 units, ordinance No. 151,411 requires 34 "guest parking" spaces.

After construction was completed, the City issued a Certificate of Occupancy that reflected 170 parking spaces, which was 13 spaces more than required by the municipal code and ordinance No. 151,411.

By the time of the accident, the complex still had 170 parking spaces but only six of them were marked as "Visitor" spaces.

II. Procedural History

On June 10, 2016, plaintiff sued the Shadow Glen Homeowners Association, Inc. (the Association), which is the current owner of the Shadow Glen complex. In the operative, second amended complaint, plaintiff asserts claims for negligence and premises liability. Both claims rest on the premise that the Association's failure to maintain the number of guest parking spaces mandated by ordinance No. 151,411 "created a foreseeable risk of harm for the Condominium's guests."

The Association moved for summary judgment. Following briefing and a hearing, the trial court granted summary judgment on the grounds that the Association owed plaintiff no duty under the common law or under ordinance No. 151,411.²

Following the entry of judgment, plaintiff filed this timely appeal.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff argues that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment for the Association. A defendant is entitled to summary judgment if it can "show that there is no triable issue as to any material fact." ( Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd. (c).)³ The defendant bears the initial burden of establishing that the plaintiff's cause of action has "no merit" by showing that the plaintiff cannot establish "[o]ne or more elements of [her] cause of action." (Id. , subds. (o) & (p)(2).) If this burden is met, the "burden shifts" to the plaintiff "to show that a triable issue of one or more material facts exists as to that cause of action ...." (Id. , subd. (p)(2); Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 826, 849, 107 Cal.Rptr.2d 841, 24 P.3d 493.)

Plaintiff's claims for negligence and premises liability have the same elements—namely, (1) "a legal duty of care," (2) "breach of that duty," and (3) "proximate cause resulting in injury." ( Kesner v. Superior Court (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1132, 1158, 210 Cal.Rptr.3d 283, 384 P.3d 283 ( Kesner ).) Thus, if the Association does not owe plaintiff a duty of care, it is entitled to summary judgment.

We independently decide whether summary judgment is appropriate and whether a duty of care exists. ( Jacks v. City of Santa Barbara (2017) 3 Cal.5th 248, 273, 219 Cal.Rptr.3d 859, 397 P.3d 210 [summary judgment]; Quelimane Co. v. Stewart Title Guaranty Co. (1998) 19 Cal.4th 26, 57, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 709, 960 P.2d 513 [duty of care].) We accordingly owe no deference to the trial court's rulings or reasoning. ( Burgueno v. Regents of University of California (2015) 243 Cal.App.4th 1052, 1057, 197 Cal.Rptr.3d 44.)

I. Analysis of Duty of Care

A duty of care exists when one person has a legal obligation to prevent harm to another person, such that breach of that obligation can give rise to liability. ( Brown v. USA Taekwondo (2021) 11 Cal.5th 204, 209, 276 Cal.Rptr.3d 434, 483 P.3d 159 ( Brown ); Paz v. State of California (2000) 22 Cal.4th 550, 559, 93 Cal.Rptr.2d 703, 994 P.2d 975 ( Paz ); Coffee v. McDonnell-Douglas Corp. (1972) 8 Cal.3d 551, 559, fn. 8, 105 Cal.Rptr. 358, 503 P.2d 1366 ; Annocki v. Peterson Enterprises, LLC (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 32, 37, 180 Cal.Rptr.3d 474 ( Annocki ).) Whether a duty of care exists is not a matter of plucking some immutable truth from the ether; instead, the existence of a particular duty of care reflects a determination that the " ‘ "sum total" ’ " of " ‘ "considerations of [public] policy [should] lead the law to say that the particular plaintiff is entitled to protection." ’ " ( Paz , at p. 559, 93 Cal.Rptr.2d 703, 994 P.2d 975.; Cabral v. Ralphs Grocery Co. (2011) 51 Cal.4th 764, 771, 122 Cal.Rptr.3d 313, 248 P.3d 1170 ( Cabral ); Scott v. Chevron U.S.A. (1992) 5 Cal.App.4th 510, 515, 6 Cal.Rptr.2d 810.)

In determining whether public policy warrants the creation of a duty of care, courts can look to the public policy (1) found in the common law ( Cal. Serv. Station Etc. Ass'n. v. Am. Home Assur. Co. (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 1166, 1175, 73 Cal.Rptr.2d 182 ( Cal. Serv. Station ) ["The courts have always had the responsibility to define negligence duties ..."]), and (2) embodied in statutes, regulations, and the like. ( Vesely v. Sager (1971) 5 Cal.3d 153, 164, 95 Cal.Rptr. 623, 486 P.2d 151 ( Vesely ) ["A duty of care ... may ... be found in a legislative enactment"], overruled on other grounds as stated in Ennabe v. Manosa (2014) 58 Cal.4th 697, 707, 168 Cal.Rptr.3d 440, 319 P.3d 201 ; J'Aire Corp. v. Gregory (1979) 24 Cal.3d 799, 803, 157 Cal.Rptr. 407, 598 P.2d 60 ["A duty of care may arise through statute ..."].)

A. Common law-based duty

An owner of land has a common law duty "to maintain land in [its] possession and control in a reasonably safe condition" "as to avoid exposing others to an unreasonable risk of injury." ( Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center (1993) 6 Cal.4th 666, 674, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137, 863 P.2d 207, overruled on other grounds as stated in Reid v. Google, Inc. (2010) 50 Cal.4th 512, 527, 113 Cal.Rptr.3d 327, 235 P.3d 988 ; Barnes v. Black (1999) 71 Cal.App.4th 1473, 1478, 84 Cal.Rptr.2d 634 ( Barnes ); Alcaraz v. Vece (1997) 14 Cal.4th 1149, 1156, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 448, 929 P.2d 1239 ; see generally Civ. Code, § 1714, subd. (a) [codifying this common law duty].) Because plaintiff alleges that she was struck by a car in the street due to the Association's failure to provide enough onsite parking for guests, the question in this case becomes: Does the landowner's common law duty of care entail protecting an invitee against injuries incurred off site due to an alleged deficiency on the landowner's property?⁴

It certainly can . The landowner's " ‘duty of care encompasses a duty to avoid exposing persons to risks of injury that occur off site if the landowner's property is maintained in such a manner as to expose persons to an unreasonable risk of injury off[ ]site .’ " ( Kesner , supra , 1 Cal.5th at p. 1159, 210 Cal.Rptr.3d 283...