Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-10-57008/USCOURTS-ca9-10-57008-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MICHAEL VERDUGO, brother of

Decedent; ROSEMARY VERDUGO,

mother, successor and heir of Mary

Ann Verdugo, Decedent,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

TARGET CORPORATION, a Minnesota

corporation,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 10-57008

D.C. No.

2:10-cv-06930-

ODW-AJW

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Otis D. Wright II, District Judge, Presiding

Argued May 7, 2012

Submitted October 28, 2014

Pasadena, California

Filed October 28, 2014

Before: Harry Pregerson, Susan P. Graber,

and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam Opinion;

Separate Opinion by Judge Pregerson

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2 VERDUGO V. TARGET CORP.

SUMMARY*

California Law

After the California Supreme Court answered a question

that was certified by the panel, the panel affirmed the district

court’s dismissal of a case, and held that Target Corporation,

a commercial property owner, had no common law duty to

provide an Automatic External Defibrillator in its stores for

use in a medical emergency.

Judge Pregerson wrote separately to express his hope that

Target will recognize its moral obligation to make Automatic

External Defibrillators available for use in a medical

emergency, and that the California legislature will take a hard

look at the issue.

COUNSEL

David Griffith Eisenstein, David G. Eisenstein Law Offices,

Carlsbad, California; Robert A. Roth, Tarkington, O’Neill,

Barrack & Chong, Berkeley, California, for PlaintiffsAppellants.

Ryan Moore Craig and Benjamin R. Trachtman, Trachtman

& Trachtman, Mission Viejo, California; Donald Manwell

Falk and Richard Caldarone, Mayer Brown LLP, Palo Alto,

California, for Defendant-Appellee.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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VERDUGO V. TARGET CORP. 3

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Mary Ann Verdugo was shopping with her mother and

brother in a Pico Rivera, California, Target when she

experienced sudden cardiac arrest. There was no Automatic

External Defibrillator (“AED”) in the store, and by the time

paramedics arrived, Verdugo had died. Verdugo’s family

sued Target, alleging that as a commercial property owner,

Target had a common law duty to maintain an AED onsite. 

Ruling that Target had no such duty, the district court

dismissed the Verdugos’ claim. The Verdugos appealed to

this court.

We determined that California law did not clearly answer

the question whether Target was required to have AEDs in its

stores and viewed “the California Supreme Court [as] better

positioned to address [this] major question[] of California tort

law than this court.” Verdugo v. Target Corp., 704 F.3d

1044, 1046 (9th Cir. 2012). Accordingly, we certified a

question to the California Supreme Court pursuant to Rule

8.548 of the California Rules of Court. Id. at 1045. That

court construed the certified question as follows: “[W]hether,

under California law, the common law duty of reasonable

care that defendant Target Corporation (Target) owes to its

business customers includes an obligation to obtain and make

available on its business premises an automated (or

automatic) external defribrillator (AED) for use in a medical

emergency.” Verdugo v. Target Corp., 59 Cal. 4th 312, 316

(2014).

The California Supreme Court has answered the restated

certified question as follows: “[U]nder California law,

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4 VERDUGO V. TARGET CORP.

Target’s common law duty of care to its customers does not

include a duty to acquire and make available an AED for use

in a medical emergency.” Id. at 317. A copy of the

California Supreme Court’s opinion is attached as an

appendix to this opinion. We said that we would follow the

California Supreme Court’s guidance, 704 F.3d at 1050, and

we do. The district court’s ruling that Target had no common

law duty to provide an AED in its store is consistent with the

California Supreme Court’s answer to the certified question,

and so we AFFIRM.

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge, writing separately:

The California Supreme Court has spoken. This decision

holds that “under California law, Target’s common law duty

of care to its customers does not include a duty to acquire and

make available an AED for use in a medical emergency.” 

Verdugo v. Target Corp., 59 Cal. 4th 312, 317 (2014). And

so, in this diversity case, that holding controls. But that

decision troubles me. Therefore, I write separately hoping

that big box stores like Target will, at the very least,

recognize their moral obligation to make AEDs available for

use in a medical emergency. Should that not come to pass, I

hope that our California Legislature takes a hard look at this

issue and considers a statutory standard of care that will

protect consumers by requiring big box stores to make lifesaving AEDs available.

Stores like Target have a “special relationship” with their

business invitees. This special relationship creates an

affirmative duty that requires a business to provide first aid to

invitees who become ill or injured on the premises, and “to

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VERDUGO V. TARGET CORP. 5

care for them until they can be cared for by others.” 

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A. I believe that AEDs

should be considered first aid. They are crucial to the

survival of sudden cardiac arrest victims. They are

inexpensive, nearly foolproof, and are necessary when, as

happened here, paramedics cannot reach a victim in time to

save the person’s life. I believe that AEDs should be as

common as first aid kits, and that big box stores like Target

should be required to make them available to their customers

who suffer sudden cardiac arrest.

About 360,000 Americans are treated by emergency

medical services for sudden cardiac arrest before reaching a

hospital. See Verdugo, 59 Cal. 4th at 319. “Less than 10

percent of those victims survive.” Id. Victims of sudden

cardiac arrest collapse and quicklylose consciousness—often

without warning. Sudden cardiac arrest is treatable, but time

is of the essence when the life of a sudden cardiac arrest

victim is in the balance: “every minute that passes before

returning the heart to a normal rhythm decreases the chance

of survival by 10 percent.” See Cardiac Arrest Survival Act

of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-505, § 402(5), 114 Stat. 2314

(2000).

There is good reason for big box stores like Target to be

equipped with AEDs: they save lives. The high percentage of

death due to sudden cardiac arrest can be reduced by the

quick use of a defibrillator. When “CPR and AEDs are used

within three to five minutes from the onset of collapse, the

survival rate of a sudden cardiac arrest victim is as high as 50

to 70 percent.” Automatic External Defibrillators: Hearing

on S.B. 1436 Before the S. Comm. on Health, 2011–2012

Reg. Sess. 1–2 (Cal. 2012). Yet, big box stores like Target

are currently not required by the State of California to have

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6 VERDUGO V. TARGET CORP.

available thse life-saving devices for their patrons. But big

box stores are not prevented from making a voluntary choice

to do so.

Not only is the use of an AED the most effective way to

reduce death due to sudden cardiac arrest, but AEDs are also

relatively inexpensive. Target used to sell Phillips HeartStart

AEDs on its website for about $1,200. Although Target has

removed the product from its website, these devices can still

be obtained for similarly inexpensive prices elsewhere. See

e.g., http://www.heartsmart.com/philips-heartstart-onsite-aedpackage-p/bus-pkg-onsite.htm (selling the PhillipsHeartStart

AED for $1,199) (last visited Oct. 16, 2014);

http://phss.redcross.org/aedoffers/ (offering several different

brands of defibrillators) (last visited Oct. 16, 2014).

Moreover, modern AEDs are nearly foolproof even

without training. One study in Circulation, the American

Heart Association journal, showed that untrained sixth

graders safely and properly used AEDs and took only slightly

longer than emergency-trained personnel to deliver the

defibrillator shock. See John W. Gundry et al., Comparison

of Naive Sixth-Grade Children with Trained Professionals in

the Use of an Automated External Defibrillator, 100

Circulation 1703 (1999). Because little training is involved,

and many of the devices provide audio step-by-step

instructions, it would not be difficult for big box stores to

provide the minimum training required to qualify for

immunity from liability under California law. See Cal.

Health & Safety Code § 1797.196.

Big box stores in particular should be required to equip

their stores with AEDs. The sheer size of these stores

increases the time for paramedics to reach a sudden cardiac

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VERDUGO V. TARGET CORP. 7

arrest victim, making quick access to an AED of paramount

importance. Mary Ann Verdugo died in the Pico Rivera

Target store in part because the paramedics could not get to

her inside the store in time to administer an AED. It is

obvious why paramedics would have a hard time getting

to the Target location and navigating inside the store within

the five minute time window—the average size of a Target

store is 135,000 square feet. See Press Release,

Target Corporation, Target to Open TargetExpress SmallFormat Store in San Diego (Sept. 18, 2014), available

at http://pressroom.target.com/news/target-to-opentargetexpress-small-format-store-in-san-diego (last visited

Oct. 16, 2014). Thus, if another customer suffers sudden

cardiac arrest in a big box store like Target, the probability of

her survival falls significantly if there is no access to a

defibrillator in the store.

Many states, including California, have examined this

issue and developed public policies promoting AED use,

including expanding civil immunity to businesses that have

installed AEDs and meet certain statutory requirements. See

Kevin M. Rodkey, Medical Technology Meets the Maryland

General Assembly: A Case Study in Handling Advances in

Automated External Defibrillator Technology, 12 J. Health

Care L. & Pol’y 81 (2009). However, California’s immunity

statute does not require businesses to install and maintain

AEDs, despite all the reasons why AEDs are crucial first aid

equipment for sudden cardiac arrest victims.

Yet at least one state—Oregon—has enacted a statute that

requires big box stores to have an AED. The Oregon statute

provides that a “place of public assembly,” meaning “a single

building that has 50,000 square feet or more of indoor floor

space and where . . . [t]he public congregates for purposes

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8 VERDUGO V. TARGET CORP.

such as . . . shopping, . . . [and a]t least 50 individuals

congregate on a normal business day” is required to “have on

the premises at least one [AED].” ORS § 431.690. Upon

enacting the law, one Oregon State Senator called AEDs “the

fire extinguishers of the 21st century—the sooner more are

available in public places, the more lives we can save.” News

Release, Senate Majority Office, Expanded Access to

Defibrillators Wins Senate Support, Oregon State Legislature

(OR Legis. News Rel., 4/28/2009).

If Oregon can require businesses such as big box stores to

provide this minimally burdensome, yet life-saving

equipment, so too can California, a leader in consumer

protection. I implore the California Legislature to consider

this issue. I also hope that Target and other big box retailers

will uphold their moral obligation to ensure the health and

safety of their customers by voluntarily installing AEDs in

their stores.

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VERDUGO V. TARGET CORP. 9

APPENDIX

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