Vasilenko v. Grace Family Church

404 P.3d 1196, 224 Cal. Rptr. 3d 846, 3 Cal. 5th 1077
California Supreme Court·Decided November 13, 2017·No. S235412·Published·Cited by 106 cases

Opinion

Even if Bonanno can inform the duty question here, our discussion of Seaber and Schwartz in that case makes clear that the key consideration in Bonanno -the mobile nature of the bus stop-is not present in this case. We explained that the bus stop in Bonanno easily could have been moved to a less dangerous location, an option not available to the hotel in Seaber .

*1094( Bonanno , supra , 30 Cal.4th at p. 152, 132 Cal.Rptr.2d 341, 65 P.3d 807.) We found that the bus stop was more like the bakery truck belonging to the defendant street vendor in Schwartz , who owed a duty to a child patron injured while crossing the street to reach the truck. Because the vendor could choose where it did business, we reasoned, it could choose the avenues of approach to the truck. (See Schwartz , supra , 67 Cal.2d at pp. 242-243 & fn. 10, 60 Cal.Rptr. 510, 430 P.2d 68.) In this regard, the bus stop in Bonanno was also like the phone booth at issue in Bigbee , where we said in dicta that a telephone company likely owed a duty to patrons to exercise reasonable care in deciding where to place its phone booths on a public street. ( Bigbee , supra , 34 Cal.3d at p. 55, fn. 8, 192 Cal.Rptr. 857, 665 P.2d 947.) But we did not examine the point in any depth; the primary question in Bigbee was whether the plaintiff's injuries in that case were unforeseeable as a matter of law. ( Id . at p. 56, 192 Cal.Rptr. 857, 665 P.2d 947.)

Vasilenko argues that Bonanno , Schwartz , and Bigbee are applicable because the Church could effectively "move" the swim school lot by directing invitees to the business plaza lot. But that is not how we understood the mobility of the bus stop in Bonanno , the bakery truck in Schwartz , or the phone booth in Bigbee . The bus stop, bakery truck, and phone booth could have been relocated to any number of unequivocally safer locations with little burden on the defendant. (See Bonanno , supra , 30 Cal.4th at p. 152, 132 Cal.Rptr.2d 341, 65 P.3d 807 [moving the bus stop one block to a location next to a controlled crosswalk "imposed no undue burden" on the public agency]; Schwartz , supra , 67 Cal.2d at p. 243, 60 Cal.Rptr. 510, 430 P.2d 68 [the bakery truck could have legally parked on the other side of the street, where the plaintiff came from]; Noon v. Knavel (1975) 234 Pa.Super. 198, 339 A.2d 545, 550-551 [phone booths can be moved to other, safer locations], cited in Bigbee , supra , 34 Cal.3d at p. 59, 192 Cal.Rptr. 857, 665 P.2d 947.) Because the defendants could readily control which parts of the public streets were adjacent to their premises, we found they had a duty to exercise reasonable care in exercising that control. (See Seaber , supra , 1 Cal.App.4th at pp. 489-490, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 405 [discussing the "elastic concept of business premises" of mobile street vendors].) Parking lots, by contrast, cannot be moved so easily, and the burden of identifying alternatives and assessing the multitude of variables affecting their relative safety is not insubstantial.

*859Bonanno , Schwartz , and Bigbee are thus distinguishable from cases involving premises with fixed locations and landowners with no **1207control over the relevant part of the public street.

D.

The parties have cited cases from other jurisdictions that have considered the issue before us, and we find that our holding is consistent with the weight of those authorities. In Davis v. Westwood Group (1995) 420 Mass. 739, 652 N.E.2d 567 ( Davis ), for instance, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the defendant racetrack had no duty to protect invitees crossing a public street between its parking lot and the racetrack. ( *1095Id. at p. 570.) The court reasoned that imposing a duty would "significantly expand the scope of a landowner or possessor's duties with respect to adjacent public roads, and would make the line which cuts off landowner liability 'nearly impossible to draw.' [Citation.]" ( Id. at p.

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Vasilenko v. Grace Family Church, 404 P.3d 1196, 224 Cal. Rptr. 3d 846, 3 Cal. 5th 1077 (Cal. 2017).

404 P.3d 1196 (Vasilenko v. Grace Family Church) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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