Court Opinion

ID: 9719483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:54:09.477436+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:07.662073
License: Public Domain

WIENER, J.,
Dissenting.—My disagreement with the majority is at two levels. The first is the analytic process through which they reach their conclusion. The second is the conclusion itself. I am far more concerned with the former than the latter. The judicial determination of tort liability should rest on objective principles, principles which I believe are absent in the majority opinion. I would be far less concerned if the majority had simply said that Cal Western acted reasonably or that its negligence was not the legal cause of Donnell’s injuries (see Lopez v. McDonald’s (1987) 193 Cal.App.3d 495 [238 Cal.Rptr. 436]). To say, however, that Cal Western had no duty to Donnell ignores both well-established precedent and the undisputed facts.
The importance of our difference of opinion cannot be overstated. Judicial rejection of the fundamental principle expressed in Civil Code section 1714 that all persons are responsible for injuries caused by their negligence requires an evaluation of a number of policy considerations. (Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 112 [70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561, 32 A.L.R.3d 496].) These factors include “the foreseeability of harm to the *727plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant’s conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant’s conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.” (Id. at p. 113.)
In an effort to avoid the application of these well-recognized factors the majority offer a semantic explanation stating that “Cal Western merely had the ability to influence or affect the condition of the City’s property.” (Maj. opn. p. 722, italics added.) By definition there is no meaningful difference between “influence” and “affect” and the concept of control.1
The reason the majority do not rely on the policy considerations described in Rowland v. Christian should be obvious. Every factor guiding judicial resolution of this issue favors a finding of duty in this case.
The assault on Donnell was foreseeable in light of the known incidence of crime in the area including a recent assault on a law school employee a few feet from where Donnell was attacked. Donnell suffered harm in the form of stab wounds, surgery, pain and suffering, medical bills and lost wages as a result of the attack. “That a mugger thrives in dark public places is a matter of common knowledge.” (Slapin v. Los Angeles International Airport (1976) 65 Cal.App.3d 484, 488 [135 Cal.Rptr. 296].) It is therefore reasonable to conclude there was a connection between Cal Western’s failure to provide the requested lighting and the harm suffered by Donnell. The policy of preventing future harm would be served by imposing liability on Cal Western. The economic burden of installing exterior lighting on the Third Avenue side of the law school building was minimal; testimony also indicated video monitors could be installed at a modest price. There is little question insurance is commonly available for the type of injury suffered by Donnell. With respect to the question of moral blame, it is perhaps an indictment of our litigation-minded society that a law school repeatedly rejected its employees’ and students’ requests for increased lighting and other security measures in the face of known risk of criminal assault because of nominal expense and the danger the school would be assuming liability if lights were installed.
Control is only one part—a small part—of the duty analysis required in the determination of premises liability. Obviously control can play a more *728significant role in cases where implicit in the absence of control is the notion that people can not be expected to take action where they are, in fact, powerless. In other words, we could not expect Cal Western to fix the sidewalk adjacent to buildings two blocks away from the law school entrance even though students routinely use those sidewalks. “Control” in that situation is nothing more than a conclusionary way of saying that we do not impose impossible burdens on people. Here Cal Western makes no claim it is powerless to improve the lighting. It did, in fact, install the requested lighting shortly after the assault on Donnell.
Lack of control may also be relevant to the duty analysis in those cases in which the costs associated with making the premises tort-proof are prohibitive. If the only way to improve the safety of students here was to install an expensive radar device complete with electronic sensors, the cost might well outweigh the benefits to be served by such a device and the extension of tort liability might involve an increase in the cost of legal education with its resultant effect on society. However, Cal Western does not say exterior lighting was too expensive. At most a finding of no control eliminates one of several factors to be considered in establishing duty in the first place.
Here the majority’s failure to explain its implied conclusion no duty was owed gives little assistance to those legitimately concerned with how the respective societal costs are objectively balanced in the decisional process. If anything, the failure to sharply define and examine the significant policy considerations which may underlie the majority’s conclusion increases the popular perception that tort liability—or limitation thereof—is based on nothing more than the individual subjective responses of judges that tort liability should be expanded or decreased. This is why the California Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned lower courts about the confusing and misleading nature of the duty analysis. “The assertion that liability must ... be denied because defendant bears no ‘duty’ to plaintiff ‘begs the essential question—whether the plaintiff’s interests are entitled to legal protection against the defendant’s conduct. . . . [Duty] is a shorthand statement of a conclusion, rather than an aid to analysis in itself. . . . [I]t should be recognized that “duty” is not sacrosanct in itself, but only an expression of the sum total of those considerations of policy which lead the law to say that the particular plaintiff is entitled to protection.’ ” (Dillon v. Legg (1968) 68 Cal.2d 728, 734 [69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912, 29 A.L.R.3d 1316], quoting Prosser, Law of Torts (3d ed. 1964) at pp. 332-333.)
The majority opinion also ignores the facts of this case. Here Cal Western not only controlled the means of installing lighting over the approaches to the law school by virtue of its ownership of the building, but had, in fact, *729exercised control over the approaches through lighting and other means in the past. The law school is situated in a large building which occupies an entire city block. The building is bordered on three sides by the city sidewalks along Third Avenue on the west, Fourth Avenue on the east, and Cedar Street on the south. The north side of the building abuts a freeway right-of-way. Cal Western illuminated the law school entrance with small floodlights attached to the building. There were also two gas lamp poles on the Cedar Street sidewalk in front of the school which the business manager testified were owned and maintained by Cal Western. The back of the building was sealed off with security gates to discourage transients. The west side where Donnell was attacked was the darkest side of the building. As noted, Cal Western exercised its limited right of control over that portion of the approach to the law school by installing lighting shortly after the January 1984 attack “to increase visibility out there at night.”
Cal Western also exercised its limited right of control over the sidewalks approaching the law school by instructing security personnel as early as 1978 to escort persons to their cars after dark on request because of the nature of the neighborhood. “If it was a student that had a parking place, then they would go to the parking lot. If it was a student that had parked on the street, then they would have to go to the car.” Dean Avery observed the security personnel kept the front door of the law school in view when providing the escort service. The guard stayed on the Cedar Street sidewalk “watching the woman go out to her car and get in and drive away and then coming back to the building.” The majority assertion Cal Western did not assume responsibility for or exercise at least limited control over the approaches to the law school building, including the city-owned sidewalk where Donnell was injured, is factually incorrect.
Based on the foregoing I would reverse the judgment.
Appellants’ petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied July 28, 1988.

 “Control” means “[t]o exercise authority or dominating influence over; direct; regulate.” (The American Heritage Diet, of the English Language (New College ed. 1981) p. 290.) “Influence” is “[t]o have power over; affect.” (Id. at p. 674.)