Today’s unanimous Supreme Court opinion in Cordova v. City of Los Angeles is the first one authored by Justice Leondra Kruger, who joined the court in January. The court makes it easier for plaintiffs to sue public entities for dangerous property conditions when injuries are caused in part by a third person’s negligence.
In Cordova, a negligent driver of one car caused another car to crash into a tree on the median of a city street. The plaintiffs — the parents of three people killed in the car that crashed — sued the city, alleging the tree’s placement was too close to the street, but the superior court granted summary judgment because the placement did not cause the negligent driving of the first car. The Court of Appeal, Second District, Division One, affirmed, but the Supreme Court reverses. The court holds that the plaintiffs “must show that a dangerous condition of property — that is, a condition that creates a substantial risk of injury to the public — proximately caused the fatal injuries their decedents suffered,” but they need not prove “that the allegedly dangerous condition also caused the third party conduct that precipitated the accident.”
The court approves of the reasoning of a 2010 Third District Court of Appeal decision and a 2012 Sixth District decision.