Brown v. City of Fruit Heights

2023 UT App 39, 529 P.3d 361
CourtCourt of Appeals of Utah
DecidedApril 13, 2023
Docket20210100-CA
StatusPublished

This text of 2023 UT App 39 (Brown v. City of Fruit Heights) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brown v. City of Fruit Heights, 2023 UT App 39, 529 P.3d 361 (Utah Ct. App. 2023).

Opinion

2023 UT App 39

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

SHELLY BROWN, Appellant, v. CITY OF FRUIT HEIGHTS, Appellee.

Opinion No. 20210100-CA Filed April 13, 2023

Second District Court, Farmington Department The Honorable David J. Williams No. 190700975

Leonard E. McGee and Peter R. Mifflin, Attorneys for Appellant Matthew D. Church, Jeremy M. Seeley, and David L. Church, Attorneys for Appellee

JUDGE JOHN D. LUTHY authored this Opinion, in which JUDGES GREGORY K. ORME and RYAN M. HARRIS concurred.

LUTHY, Judge:

¶1 Shelly Brown appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the City of Fruit Heights in her slip-and-fall case. She alleges that she was seriously injured when she slipped and fell on black ice in a City-owned park-and-ride lot and that the City negligently created the dangerous condition and negligently failed to prevent, remedy, or warn her about it.

¶2 The City moved for summary judgment, asserting that Brown had failed to present evidence that the City created the black ice or had actual or constructive knowledge of the black ice. The district court agreed and granted the motion. Brown v. Fruit Heights

¶3 On appeal, Brown contends that she presented evidence to support her claims that the City created the dangerous condition and had both actual and constructive knowledge of it, and that the district court impermissibly weighed evidence and made factual findings in ruling on the City’s motion. We disagree and affirm.

BACKGROUND 1

¶4 At about 7 a.m. on December 27, 2017, just as she had done nearly every workday for more than four years, Brown parked in a City-owned park-and-ride lot, planning to catch a Utah Transit Authority bus at a stop along the sidewalk next to the lot. No snow was falling that morning, but there had been a snowstorm on Christmas Day, two days earlier.

¶5 Portions of the lot had been plowed since the storm. “[T]he areas where [cars] drove[,] . . . in between . . . the sections where cars parked[,] [were] generally cleared.” But “there was [still] snow under all the vehicles.” This was not new. An “ongoing problem [was] that the plows were out after cars had already parked,” and “[n]obody ever went back and cleared [the] snow that was left under the vehicles.” As a result, “[c]ars pulling out of the stalls would carry snow with them in their tires and redeposit it on those areas that had already been plowed.” “So they just basically were redepositing snow back in those middle areas where [cars] drive and where [people] walk.”

1. “In reviewing a district court’s grant of summary judgment, we view the facts and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and recite the facts accordingly.” MacFarlane v. Applebee’s Rest., 2016 UT App 158, n.1, 378 P.3d 1286 (cleaned up). Our quotations of the evidentiary record are from Brown’s deposition testimony.

20210100-CA 2 2023 UT App 39 Brown v. Fruit Heights

¶6 When Brown exited her car that morning, she “slipped a little bit as [she] put [her] foot out.” She then saw “the remnants [of snow] that [were] left over after the snowstorm on [Christmas Day]” as well as “what looked like . . . a lot of ice or black ice in the parking lot.”

¶7 As had happened at other times, Brown became “concerned about [the] ice.” When that happened, Brown would “typically try to follow [a] snow path, hoping that there[] [was] not ice hidden underneath.” That morning, “[t]here was only one [such] path for [her] to follow,” and she began “walking along the snow.” Eventually, “when [she] stepped off of the snow onto what [she] thought was safe pavement,” she slipped on some black ice and “went down,” sustaining serious injuries.

¶8 Brown sued the City, alleging multiple theories of negligence: that the City negligently created the dangerous condition, that the City negligently failed to prevent the dangerous condition, and that the City negligently failed to remedy or warn against the dangerous condition.

¶9 During fact discovery, Brown was the only person deposed, and neither party produced documentary evidence regarding the City’s alleged breach of its duty of care. 2

¶10 In her deposition, Brown testified that nearly two years before this incident, she had on one occasion emailed the City to express concern about “the [icy] condition of the sidewalk” adjacent to the park-and-ride lot. But she acknowledged that she had never contacted the City “about the condition of the parking lot itself,” including “after the snow event on the 25th.”

2. Brown produced “[p]hotos of [the] scene,” but neither party relied on those photos below, and those photos are not part of the record on appeal.

20210100-CA 3 2023 UT App 39 Brown v. Fruit Heights

¶11 Regarding the City plowing the lot after the storm on Christmas Day, Brown testified that she “assum[ed] it was not plowed until the 26th . . . because there was snow under all of the vehicles” when she arrived on the 27th and, she reasoned, “had someone plowed it on the 25th, then there would have been no cars there and they would have been able to plow it completely.”

¶12 Brown also testified that she did not see any salt in the parking lot on December 27th or on any other day. Finally, she gave this opinion testimony: “The problem that created the icy conditions was [that] during the day the snow that was left under the vehicles would melt and then freeze overnight. And then not having any salt applied additionally added risk to someone slipping and falling.”

¶13 Brown produced no evidence of the temperatures during the morning of her fall or during the days and nights preceding her fall. Nor did she produce evidence of the temperature or time required to create the ice on which she fell. She also presented no evidence as to how salt would have affected the time or temperature required to create that ice.

¶14 After the close of fact discovery, the City moved for summary judgment, arguing that Brown’s negligence claim failed because she had not presented evidence that the City breached its duty of care—specifically, that she had presented no evidence that the City created the dangerous condition, no evidence that the City had actual knowledge of the dangerous condition, and no evidence that the City had constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition. Brown opposed the motion, arguing that she had presented evidence to support each of these allegations.

¶15 The district court agreed with the City and granted the motion. Brown now appeals.

20210100-CA 4 2023 UT App 39 Brown v. Fruit Heights

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶16 Brown contends that in granting summary judgment the district court impermissibly weighed evidence and made factual findings. She also argues that she presented evidence to support her claim that the City created the black ice that caused her fall and her claim that the City had actual and constructive knowledge of the black ice. 3 “We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment for correctness and view all facts and fair inferences drawn from the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Edwards v. Utah’s Johnny Appleseed Inc., 2018 UT App 43, ¶ 11, 420 P.3d 68 (cleaned up).

ANALYSIS

I. The District Court Did Not Impermissibly Weigh Evidence or Make Factual Findings.

¶17 Brown asserts that the district court impermissibly weighed evidence and made factual findings when it ruled on the City’s motion for summary judgment. She is correct that “[a] trial court is not authorized to weigh facts in deciding a summary judgment motion, [and] is only to determine whether a dispute of material fact exists.” Pigs Gun Club, Inc. v. Sanpete County, 2002 UT 17, ¶ 24, 42 P.3d 379.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2023 UT App 39, 529 P.3d 361, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-city-of-fruit-heights-utahctapp-2023.