Opinion ID: 2108083
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appellee Sufficiently Established the Standard of Care

Text: DCHA argues that Mr. Coaker did not sufficiently articulate the standard of care because he did not describe a standard followed by comparable governmental entities or some standard nationally recognized by housing authorities funded by HUD. DCHA asserts, in other words, that appellee should have been required to present expert testimony that pertained to the maintenance and replacement of municipally owned elevators. [10] We decline to require plaintiffs to establish such a particularized standard of care. From time to time we have said that an expert must clearly relate the standard of care to the practices in fact generally followed by other comparable governmental facilities or to some standard nationally recognized by such units. Clark v. District of Columbia, 708 A.2d 632, 635 (D.C.1997). But these cases involved functions that were quintessentially governmental. See, e.g., Evans-Reid, 930 A.2d at 936 (police use of deadly force while conducting investigatory traffic stop); District of Columbia v. Arnold & Porter, 756 A.2d 427, 434 (D.C.2000) (operation and maintenance of a municipal water main system); Clark, 708 A.2d at 635 (case involving juvenile who committed suicide while in custody of District of Columbia at juvenile center). Here, DCHA has not persuaded us that elevators in public housing facilities should be treated differently from elevators in privately-owned apartment buildings. In the District of Columbia the applicable standard for determining whether an owner or occupier of land has exercised the proper level of care to a person lawfully upon his premises is reasonable care under all of the circumstances. Sandoe v. Lefta Associates, 559 A.2d 732, 738 (D.C.1988). Viewed, as it should be, in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, see Snyder v. George Washington University, 890 A.2d 237, 245 (D.C. 2006), Mr. Coaker's testimony was adequate to establish the applicable standard of care.