Court Opinion

ID: 9950801
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-14 20:03:02.786779+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:36:46.962960
License: Public Domain

Filed 3/14/24 Laverdure v. State of California CA2/7
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions
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 IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                      DIVISION SEVEN

  LOVIVE LAVERDURE,                                            B323593

           Plaintiff and Appellant,                            (Los Angeles County
                                                               Super. Ct. No. 18STCV04113)
           v.

  STATE OF CALIFORNIA,

           Defendant and Respondent.

      APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Ernest M. Hiroshige, Judge. Affirmed.
      Decker Law, James D. Decker and Griffin R. Schindler for
Plaintiff and Appellant.
      Holbrook, Montoya, Dadaian, Solares, DelRivo, Bowman,
Berkebile, Matthew E. Campbell and Paul M. Dipietro for
Defendant and Respondent.
                                ________________________
                       INTRODUCTION

      After he crashed his motorized scooter on the freeway,
Lovive Laverdure sued the State of California and the California
Department of Transportation (collectively, the State) under
Government Code section 835 for maintaining uneven pavement
that constituted a dangerous condition of public property.1
Laverdure appeals from the judgment entered after a jury
returned a verdict for the State, finding there was no dangerous
condition. He argues the trial court erred in refusing to give his
proposed special jury instruction that would have told the jury
the absence of accidents at a crash site is not dispositive of
whether a condition of property is dangerous. Because the trial
court did not err in refusing to give the proposed instruction, we
affirm.

      FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

       A.    Laverdure Crashes on the Freeway and Sues the State
       On November 27, 2017 Laverdure was merging from an
on-ramp into traffic on a freeway in Los Angeles. While traveling
in an auxiliary lane on the right side of the freeway, Laverdure
lost control of his Italian luxury motorized scooter (which the
parties sometimes refer to as a motorcycle) and crashed.
       Laverdure sued the State for premises liability and
dangerous condition of public property. Laverdure alleged
uneven pavement in his lane—for which there was no sign or
other measure of traffic control to warn motorists—caused the

1     Undesignated references are to the Government Code.

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crash. Laverdure alleged he suffered injuries and property
damage.

      B.    The Jury Finds in Favor of the State
      The case proceeded to a jury trial. The State presented
evidence about prior accidents, or rather the lack of them, at the
site where Laverdure’s crash occurred. Specifically, Kenneth
Young, a civil engineer with the Department of Transportation,
and Thomas Brannon, a former civil engineer with the
Department, testified about a database the State maintains to
track accidents on California highways. Young authenticated
records from this database that showed there had been no
accidents caused by uneven pavement at the site of the accident
in the three years before Laverdure’s accident. Both witnesses
acknowledged the database and records showed only accidents
that had been reported by the California Highway Patrol or
submitted by public complaint, and Young conceded the evidence
was in a sense “incomplete” because it did not contain unreported
accidents such as Laverdure’s.2

2     Before trial, Laverdure moved in limine to exclude evidence
about the lack of prior accidents at the crash site. During
argument on the motion, counsel for Laverdure claimed this
evidence was “inaccurate” because it did not include certain
accidents, including Laverdure’s, as well as a motorcycle crash
that occurred a few weeks later. The trial court denied the
motion, explaining the defense “may or may not believe it’s
accurate. But they’re entitled to produce their—as parts of their
defense to show they had no notice. But you are entitled to cross-
examine about why these two accidents didn’t show up in the
same program. And it goes to the weight that the jury gives to

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      After 15 days of trial, the court instructed the jury on
Laverdure’s dangerous condition cause of action. The court
instructed the jury with CACI No. 1100 that “Laverdure claims
that he was harmed by a dangerous condition of [the State’s]
property. To establish this claim, plaintiff must prove all of the
following: one, that the State . . . owned or controlled the
property; two, that the property was in a dangerous condition at
the time of the injury; three, that the dangerous condition created
a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury that
occurred; . . . four, that negligent or wrongful conduct of
defendant’s employees acting within the scope of their
employment created the dangerous condition; or five, that the
defendant had notice of the dangerous condition for a long
enough time to have protected against it; six, that plaintiff was
harmed; and seven, that the dangerous condition was a
substantial factor in causing Plaintiff’s harm.”
      The court also instructed the jury with CACI No. 1102 that
“a dangerous condition is a condition of public property that
creates a substantial risk of injury to members of the general
public when the property is used with reasonable care and in a
reasonably foreseeable manner. A condition that creates only a
minor risk of injury is not a dangerous condition.”
      Laverdure asked the court to give a special jury instruction
that stated: “Lack of accidents is not dispositive whether a
condition of property is dangerous or that it compels a finding of
non dangerousness absent other evidence. When an
unreasonable risk of danger exists, the owner bears a duty

this part of the defense in this case.” Laverdure does not
challenge this ruling.

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to protect against the first occurrence, and cannot withhold
precautionary measures until after the danger has come to
fruition in an injury-causing accident.” The court refused to give
the instruction because it was argumentative and taken from
appellate opinions reviewing rulings on motions for summary
judgment, not jury instructions.
       In closing argument, counsel for Laverdure characterized
the State’s database and records of prior accidents at the crash
site as “irrelevant to this case” because the evidence showed only
reported accidents. In addition, counsel argued “the accident
records have nothing to do with the fact we believe on the basis of
the evidence that [the State] simply failed to maintain the
auxiliary lane in a safe condition.” Counsel for the State argued
the lack of prior accidents showed there was no dangerous
condition. In rebuttal, counsel for Laverdure again described the
absence-of-accidents evidence as “[t]otally irrelevant” because it
only included records of reported accidents.
       The jury found there was no dangerous condition and
returned a verdict for the State. Laverdure timely appealed from
the ensuing judgment, arguing only the trial court erred in
refusing to give his proposed special jury instruction.

                         DISCUSSION

      A.    Applicable Law and Standard of Review
      “A party is entitled upon request to correct,
nonargumentative instructions on every theory of the case
advanced by him which is supported by substantial evidence.”
(Soule v. General Motors Corp. (1994) 8 Cal.4th 548, 572.)
“A court may refuse a proposed instruction that incorrectly states

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the law or is argumentative, misleading, or incomplete.”
(Caldera v. Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (2018)
25 Cal.App.5th 31, 44.) A court may also “refuse to give an
instruction requested by a party when the legal point is covered
adequately by the instructions that are given.” (Arato v. Avedon
(1993) 5 Cal.4th 1172, 1189, fn. 11.) A “trial court in a civil case
has ‘“no duty to instruct on its own motion”’ [citation] and no duty
to revise incorrect instructions.” (Drink Tank Ventures LLC v.
Real Soda in Real Bottles, Ltd. (2021) 71 Cal.App.5th 528, 544.)
We independently review the refusal to give a proposed
instruction, “‘“viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to
the appellant.”’” (Ilczyszyn v. Southwest Airlines Co. (2022)
80 Cal.App.5th 577, 608.)

      B.     The Trial Court Did Not Err in Refusing Laverdure’s
             Proposed Special Jury Instruction
      Laverdure argues the trial court erred in refusing to give
his proposed instruction because it constituted “a clear and
accurate statement of the law” that was “copied almost verbatim”
from published California cases. Whether a party copies or
constructs an instruction, verbatim or otherwise, from an
appellate opinion, however, is not the standard. “‘“The
admonition has been frequently stated that it is dangerous to
frame an instruction upon isolated extracts from the opinions of
the court.”’” (Bevis v. Terrace View Partners, LP (2019)
33 Cal.App.5th 230, 254; see Pantoja v. Anton (2011)
198 Cal.App.4th 87, 130 [even an “accurate statement of the law”
drawn directly from an appellate opinion can be “misleading”
under the circumstances of a particular case]; Sloan v. Stearns
(1955) 137 Cal.App.2d 289, 300 [“‘it is a dangerous practice, and

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one not to be followed, to take excerpts from opinions of the
courts of last resort and indiscriminately change them into
instructions to juries’”].) This is because “judicial opinions are
not written as jury instructions, are notoriously unreliable as
such, and may have a confusing effect upon a jury.” (Morales v.
22nd Dist. Agricultural Assn. (2016) 1 Cal.App.5th 504, 526.)
       As discussed, Laverdure asked the court to give this
instruction: “Lack of accidents is not dispositive whether a
condition of property is dangerous or that it compels a finding of
non dangerousness absent other evidence. When an
unreasonable risk of danger exists, the owner bears a duty to
protect against the first occurrence, and cannot withhold
precautionary measures until after the danger has come to
fruition in an injury-causing accident.” Laverdure based this
proposed instruction on language in Lane v. City of Sacramento
(2010) 183 Cal.App.4th 1337 (Lane) and Robison v. Six Flags
Theme Parks Inc. (1998) 64 Cal.App.4th 1294 (Robison). The first
sentence of his proposed instruction was a modification of
language in Lane, and the second sentence was directly from
Robison. (See Lane, at p. 1346; Robison, at p. 1305.) The courts
in Lane and Robison, however, did not review or propose
language for jury instructions. The courts in both cases were
reviewing orders granting motions for summary judgment based
on an absence of prior accidents at the site where the accidents in
those cases occurred. (Lane, at p. 1342; Robison, at p. 1297.)
       In Lane the plaintiff’s car struck a concrete center divider
on a city street. (Lane, supra, 183 Cal.App.4th at p. 1339.) The
city moved for summary judgment, arguing (among other things)
the center divider was not a dangerous condition because there
were no other similar accidents there in the previous seven years.

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(Id. at pp. 1341, 1345.) The court in Lane reversed an order
granting the city’s motion, concluding the city had not met its
initial burden on summary judgment. (Id. at p. 1344.) The court
stated the city’s motion had several “fatal” flaws, including that,
while “the absence of other similar accidents is ‘relevant to the
determination of whether a condition is dangerous,’” the city had
cited “no authority for the proposition that the absence of other
similar accidents is dispositive of whether a condition is
dangerous, or that[3] it compels a finding of nondangerousness
absent other evidence.” (Id. at p. 1346.)
       But the Lane court’s statement that the absence of similar
accidents did not entitle the defendant to summary judgment
does not mean it is proper to instruct a jury (as Laverdure asked
the trial court to do) that a lack of accidents is not dispositive of
whether property is dangerous or compels a finding that property
is not dangerous absent other evidence. The previous sentence in
the court’s opinion in Lane, which (for obvious reasons Laverdure
did not ask the trial court to give (because it supported the
State’s case)) is that the absence of accidents is relevant. Thus,
the portion of the Lane opinion Laverdure relied on actually
stated the lack of accidents was relevant, but not dispositive.
Had Laverdure asked for that instruction, the court may have
given it. But the court did not err in refusing to give the
instruction Laverdure did ask for.
       The plaintiff in Robison, supra, 64 Cal.App.4th 1294 was
injured at a picnic area of an amusement park when a runaway
car from the parking lot crashed into the plaintiff’s picnic table.

3    The unmatched “that” in Laverdure’s proposed instruction
comes from his failure to include the beginning of the sentence,
which states the “city cites no authority for the proposition that.”

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(Id. at p. 1297.) The amusement park moved for summary
judgment on the theory it did not have a duty to protect the
plaintiff “from such an accident because the accident was
unforeseeable, primarily because no similar incident had
previously occurred.” (Id. at p. 1296.) The court in Robison
reversed an order granting the amusement part’s motion,
concluding that, “even though no similar incident had previously
occurred, the danger was apparent in view of the configuration of
the parking lot and picnic area” and that the park “thus had a
duty to take reasonable measures to protect [the plaintiff] against
such an accident notwithstanding the absence of prior similar
incidents.” (Ibid.) The court stated: “When an unreasonable risk
of danger exists, the landowner bears a duty to protect against
the first occurrence, and cannot withhold precautionary measures
until after the danger has come to fruition in an injury-causing
accident. [Citation.] Thus the lack of prior similar incidents was
not a proper basis for summary judgment.” (Id. at p. 1305.) The
second sentence of Laverdure’s proposed instruction was based on
the first sentence of this portion of the opinion.
       But Robison, like Lane, was a summary judgment case,
where the court held the absence of similar accidents did not
entitle the defendant to summary judgment. Indeed, in the
second sentence of the excerpt of the Robison opinion, which
Laverdure did not include in his proposed instruction, the court
stated that the reason for the first sentence, which Laverdure
asked the court to give, was to explain why the defendant was not
entitled to summary judgment. Without that context, the
language of Laverdure’s instruction was misleading. (See
Solgaard v. Guy F. Atkinson Co. (1971) 6 Cal.3d 361, 370 [court
need not give a misleading instruction]; Zannini v. Liker (2022)

                                9
74 Cal.App.5th 610, 623 [same].) Moreover, the court in Robison
was not considering whether a trial court should instruct a jury
on when a landowner has a duty to protect a plaintiff from injury
or when a landowner must take precautionary measures.
Robison involved the issue of duty, which is a question of law for
the court, not the jury. (See Cabral v. Ralphs Grocery Co. (2011)
51 Cal.4th 764, 770; Dix v. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (2020)
56 Cal.App.5th 590, 605.)
       Laverdure’s proposed instruction was also misleading
because it conflicted with other instructions the court gave the
jury. For example, as stated, the trial court instructed the jury
on the essential factual elements of Laverdure’s dangerous
condition cause of action with CACI No. 1100. The instruction
included a statement Laverdure had to prove that “negligent or
wrongful conduct of defendant’s employees acting within the
scope of their employment created the dangerous condition” or
that “the defendant had notice of the dangerous condition for a
long enough time to have protected against it.” Had the trial
court also given Laverdure’s proposed instruction that the State
had “a duty to protect against the first occurrence, and cannot
withhold precautionary measures until after the danger has come
to fruition in an injury-causing accident,” the jury may have
misunderstood or been confused about the elements Laverdure
had to prove. CACI No. 1100, which tracks the language of
section 835, does not say the State has a duty to protect against
the first occurrence.
       Nor is the language from Robison about “an unreasonable
risk of danger” (Robison, supra, 64 Cal.App.4th at p. 1305)
consistent with CACI No. 1102, which the trial court used to
instruct the jury on the definition of a dangerous condition.

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Rather than referring to “an unreasonable risk of danger,”
CACI No. 1102, which tracks the language of section 830,
subdivision (a), defines a dangerous condition as one that “creates
a substantial risk of injury to members of the general public
when the property [or adjacent property] is used with reasonable
care and in a reasonably foreseeable manner.” Had the court
given Laverdure’s proposed instruction, the jury would have
received different instructions on risk of danger and injury. (See
Olive v. General Nutrition Centers, Inc. (2018) 30 Cal.App.5th
804, 814-815 [trial court properly refused a special instruction
where the instruction was “unnecessary and misleading” and the
CACI pattern instruction “adequately explained the applicable
law”]; Regalado v. Callaghan (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 582, 595 [trial
court properly refused special instructions where the CACI
pattern instruction adequately covered the applicable law and
the special instructions, drawn from cases, “had the potential of
misleading the jury and did not provide a clear statement of the
law”]; Joyce v. Simi Valley Unified School Dist. (2003)
110 Cal.App.4th 292, 302 [trial court is “not required to give
argumentative and conflicting instructions”]; Cal. Rules of Court,
rule 2.1050(f) [“Use of the Judicial Council instructions is
strongly encouraged.”]; cf. Henderson v. Harnischfeger Corp.
(1974) 12 Cal.3d 663, 671-672 [trial court erred in giving
“contradictory and irreconcilable” instructions because the jury
was “likely to be confused and misled by the conflicting
statements”]; Ruiz Nunez v. FCA US LLC (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th
385, 396 [trial court erred in giving a special instruction that was
incomplete, misleading, and did not comport with the law, rather
than the applicable CACI pattern instruction].)

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       Laverdure argues his instruction “supplemented” and
“clarifie[d],” not “supplanted” or “change[d],” the other jury
instructions the trial court gave. Not necessarily. As discussed,
the instruction may have misled or confused the jury about what
elements Laverdure had to prove. But in any event, a court need
not give a requested instruction “when the legal point is covered
adequately by the instructions that are given.” (Arato v. Avedon,
supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 1189, fn. 11; see Jackson v. AEG Live, LLC
(2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 1156, 1187 [“The trial court’s ‘duty to
instruct the jury is discharged if its instructions embrace all
points of law necessary to a decision.’”].)
       Finally, Laverdure’s proposed instruction was
argumentative. The instruction isolated a particular type of
evidence and sought to minimize its potential effect by describing
the evidence as “not dispositive.” That was another reason for
not giving the instruction. “‘An instruction that goes too
elaborately into the particular facts relied on by one of the parties
is an argumentative instruction. An instruction should state
rules of law generally, rather than elaborate matters of evidence.
[Citation.] Any attempt to stress, overemphasize, or unduly
make prominent selected portions of the evidence is in violation
of the rule that instructions should not focus the jury’s attention
on particular items of evidence.’” (Morgan v. J-M Manufacturing
Co., Inc. (2021) 60 Cal.App.5th 1078, 1088; see Veronese v.
Lucasfilm Ltd. (2012) 212 Cal.App.4th 1, 24-26 [a proposed
instruction that a particular concern is “‘not a defense’” was
potentially misleading because the concern was not irrelevant].)
Laverdure argues emphasizing the evidence of prior accidents, as
his proposed instruction did, was necessary to “temper” the
“heavy influence” the State placed on the issue and evidence at

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trial. But, as the trial court correctly ruled, “tempering” is
something attorneys do in closing argument, not something
courts do in giving jury instructions. (See Ghezavat v. Harris
(2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 555, 558-559 [“‘“[i]nstructions should state
rules of law in general terms and should not be calculated to
amount to an argument to the jury in the guise of a statement of
law”’”].)

                         DISPOSITION

     The judgment is affirmed. The State is to recover its costs
on appeal.

                                     SEGAL, Acting P. J.

We concur:

                  FEUER, J.

                  MARTINEZ, J.

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