Court Opinion

ID: 9746065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:55:14.517803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:21.165928
License: Public Domain

EPSTEIN, J., Dissenting.
This is a wrongful death case, tried to a jury. It reaches us after defendants’ motion for nonsuit was granted at the close of plaintiffs’ case-in-chief. The motion was granted on the sole ground that, as a matter of law, decedent’s death was unforeseeable and, hence, defendants owed no duty to the decedent. The majority’s affirmance is based on that ground, and one other: that, as a matter of law, there was no causal nexus between the defendants’ acts (and failure to act) and the death.
As I shall explain, I believe the trial court and the majority err in their rationale and conclusion, and that plaintiffs were entitled to reach a jury. I respectfully dissent from my colleagues’ decision that they were not.
1. Standard for Nonsuit
It is fundamental that this case reaches us from the grant of a nonsuit motion. “A nonsuit in a jury case or a directed verdict may be granted only when disregarding conflicting evidence, giving to the plaintiffs’ evidence all the value to which it is legally entitled, and indulging every legitimate inference which may be drawn from the evidence in plaintiffs’ favor, it can be said that there is no evidence to support a jury verdict in their favor.” (Elmore v. American Motors Corp. (1969) 70 Cal.2d 578, 583 [75 Cal.Rptr. 652, 451 P.2d 84, 33 A.L.R.3d 406].) The motion must be denied “if there is any substantial evidence which, with the aid of all legitimate inferences favorable to the plaintiff’ tends to support a plaintiff’s verdict. It also must be rejected if there is a conflict in the evidence and some evidence tends to support plaintiff’s case, or when different conclusions can be reached from the evidence. If there is any doubt, the decision belongs to the jury, not to the court. (Golceffv. Sugarman (1950) 36 Cal.2d 152, 153 [222 P.2d 665].)
That standard informs appellate review. On appeal from a nonsuit judgment, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and draw all inferences that can reasonably be drawn in plaintiff’s favor. (Golceff v. Sugarman, supra, 36 Cal.2d at p. 153.) “Only if, after indulging every legitimate inference favorable to plaintiffs, we find that there is no evidence of sufficient substantiality to support a verdict in plaintiffs’ favor, can we uphold the judgment of nonsuit.” (Miller v. Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. (1973) 8 Cal.3d 689, 699 [106 Cal.Rptr. 1, 505 P.2d 193]; see *1215also Campbell v. General Motors Corp. (1982) 32 Cal.3d 112, 118 [184 Cal.Rptr. 891, 649 P.2d 224, 35 A.L.R.4th 1036] [court may not weigh evidence or consider witness credibility in ruling on nonsuit motion]; Carson v. Facilities Development Co. (1984) 36 Cal.3d 830, 839 [206 Cal.Rptr. 136, 686 P.2d 656] [all inferences and presumptions resolved in favor of plaintiff] ; Alpert v. Villa Romano Homeowners Assn. (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 1320, 1328 [96 Cal.Rptr.2d 364] [motion has effect of demurrer to the evidence].) “Because a grant of the motion serves to take a case from the jury’s consideration, courts traditionally have taken a very restrictive view of the circumstances under which nonsuit is proper.” (Campbell v. General Motors Corp., supra, 32 Cal.3d at p. 117.)
These are exacting standards. They are not satisfied in this case.
2. Evidence Presented and Not Presented During Plaintiffs’ Case-in-Chief
The majority’s opinion recounts evidence presented at trial, and there is no need to repeat what it says. Some important facts are omitted, however, especially from the “pertinent facts” portion of the opinion, in which the majority states that it summarizes the evidence “in the light most favorable to plaintiffs.” The summary presents some facts in a light that is something less than most favorable to the plaintiffs. I turn to a discussion of these facts and the omitted evidence.
After the Ajanel group harassed the women of the Alvarez group, it was Carlos Alvarez who confronted them. He and Victor Ajanel (the person who had done the offensive videotaping) were screaming at each other. Ajanel called Alvarez “a stupid Salvadorian” while he (Victor) came from Guatemala and could do whatever he wanted. “Salvadorians were nothing” according to him. After the two groups returned to the restaurant from their physical encounter in the parking lot, and after Mauricio Ajanel further insulted the Alvarez women, Carlos not only punched him in the face; he gave him a bloody nose. As one witness put it, “he had his nose busted and he was bleeding.”
It was then that the Ajanel group left. While there was evidence that on leaving they said, “We’ll see you later,” there also was evidence that their departing statement was more ominous: they “would be coming back.” It is the latter version that we must accept for purposes of this review.
After the Ajanéis left and the Alvarez group returned to their table, Carlos said not only that he wanted to leave, but why he wanted to do so. The reason was that “he didn’t feel safe.” He repeated his desire to leave to a *1216restaurant employee, who told him (as the majority opinion accurately relates) that everything was going to be taken care of, that there was no problem, and that everything was going to be fine. The food service arrangement at Shakey’s apparently was one in which the customer places an order and is called to a counter when the food is ready to be picked up. The restaurant employee who had just assured Carlos, in essence, that it was safe to stay, picked up the food and took it to the Alvarez table. The Alvarez party then stayed.
Los Angeles Police Department Officers Roussett and Bender responded to the 911 call that restaurant employee Guerrero had placed when things began to escalate during the initial Alvarez confrontation. Only four minutes elapsed from the time they pulled into the restaurant parking lot until they left. Officer Roussett talked to Guerrero, who acted as spokesperson for the restaurant. Their conversation lasted only one minute. While there was some evidence that Officer Bender was at the Alvarez table, there also was evidence that he was not and that he never spoke to anyone in the Alvarez party. There was evidence that one of the members of the Alvarez group tried to get the officers’ attention, but was unsuccessful. As one of the witnesses put it, “they [the officers] went in, talked to the manager and that was it.”
In his brief conversation with Officer Roussett, Guerrero told him that the fight had “dispersed” and, as the majority opinion recounts, that it was okay for them to leave. According to Officer Roussett, Guerrero did not tell him that the Alvarez group was still at the restaurant. And, as everyone acknowledges, he told them nothing about the Ajanéis’ stated intention to return.
The majority characterizes the testimony of police Captain Ronald Sanchez to be that, even if police had been told of the Ajanéis’ statement that they would return, “the police, consistent with their stated policy, would neither have remained on the premises nor advised the Alvarez group to leave” because the statement about coming back “would not qualify as a threat requiring police intervention.” (Maj. opn„ ante, at p. 1211.) That is not what the officer said.
•Captain Sanchez, then a lieutenant, was in charge of the detail that investigated the crime scene after Carlos Alvarez was killed. He was questioned as an expert on direct examination by plaintiffs’ counsel, and on cross-examination. These questions focused on what Los Angeles police officers do when there is a threat to another person. According to Captain Sanchez, “if we become aware that there’s a threat on an individual, then the Department has an obligation to warn the individual.”
*1217Several questions were asked of Captain Sanchez about how the department handles terrorist threats, and he answered other more general questions in terms of the terrorist threat situation. It is clear from his testimony that, in referring to terrorist threats, he was referring to the crime known by that name: Penal Code section 422. As Captain Sanchez understood it, a contingent threat does not qualify as a terrorist threat. He offered an example: “[I]f you don’t do this, I’m going to hurt you or I’m going to kill you” is a contingent statement and not sufficient to generate a crime report and other police action. (Actually, even a contingent threat may qualify under the statute, depending on the circumstances; see People v. Bolin (1998) 18 Cal.4th 297, 338 [75 Cal.Rptr.2d 412, 956 P.2d 374].) Captain Sanchez spoke of circumstances in which the department would assign a protective detail to the threatened person, and said that if officers thought the threat was immediate, they would do more than walk the person to his car. “If we think that somebody is coming back in a few minutes to do a crime, then we would protect that individual until we could get them to leave the location.” And again, if police had “specific, verifiable information that someone is en route to harm somebody, then ... we would ... do everything within our course and power at that time, to get that person away from the scene.” Specifically, “if there was a threat made that somebody was going to come back and do great bodily harm” to a person, police would approach the person and suggest that he leave, and if he agreed, they would help him to get out of harm’s way unless he refused such assistance.
Captain Sanchez testified that officers are expected to exercise common sense in these cases.
The final question asked of Captain Sanchez on direct examination was this: “Now, from a situation that involved two groups fighting between each other, and after the fight was over, one person that got angered said something like, ‘I’ll see you later,’ or ‘we’ll see who laughs last.’ Would that be considered by you to be a terrorist threat?” (Italics added.) Understandably, the answer to this question was “no.”
The final and convoluted question to Captain Sanchez on cross-examination asked him to assume “a fight occurred at the Shakey’s on the evening of May 11th, between two groups. The Los Angeles Police Department was called near the end of that fight occurring; that one member of the group— one of the groups was hit in the face or nose and was bleeding; that some people might have heard this person say words like, ‘I’ll see you later.’ Or words to that effect; that when the police arrived, at the Shakey’s, there was no fight in the parking lot, no evidence of a fight, that, is to say, everything looked like it was normal at the Shakey’s. . . . ftD . . . And the police *1218came, spoke to a restaurant employee and also spoke to the group that was one of the groups involved in the original fight . . . .” With all of those assumptions crammed into the officer’s recollection, counsel finally arrived at the question: “Based upon those facts, did the Los Angeles Police Department officers act reasonably in coming to the restaurant and talking to a restaurant employee and members of a group that was involved in the fight, to learn about what had occurred?” The answer, of course, was “Yes.”
It is notable that Captain Sanchez was not asked whether the officers should have done more than was supposed in the question. Captain Sanchez was only asked whether talking to the manager and speaking to one of the groups involved in the fight was reasonable in order to find out what happened. Of course, it was reasonable.
This is not evidence that, had the officers been informed of what happened, and particularly of the threat of the Ajanel group to come back, they would have simply left the premises without suggesting to the Alvarez group (assuming they knew that group was still there) that it leave. As I shall discuss, it is reasonable to infer that,, using common sense, as Captain Sanchez testified officers are expected to do, they would have warned the Alvarez party to leave.
Captain Sanchez was not the only officer to testify as an expert. Officer Roussett also testified to police practices. The questions, asked by plaintiffs’ counsel, went to what he would have done if he had been informed that “one of the persons involved in the group fight indicated his intention to come back to the restaurant, possibly with a weapon, to do harm to another person that he had been fighting with previously.” He answered that he would have called for backup, taken a crime report, and advised the victim to leave. The problem with this question is that there was no evidence that Guerrero had heard that anyone in the Ajanel group had said he was going to return with a weapon. Nevertheless, the answer indicates the commonsense attitude of police officers when informed of imminent danger to a citizen: they would at least warn the citizens to get out of harm’s way. There was no such warning in this case.
3. Foreseeability
The trial judge focused on foreseeability, relying principally on the Supreme Court’s decision in Sharon P. v. Arman, Ltd. (1999) 21 Cal.4th 1181 (91 Cal.Rptr.2d 35, 989 P.2d 121]. He accepted that the state of the evidence showed that the assailant had been given a bloody nose in a fight with Carlos Alvarez, that the Ajanel party had left vowing to come back, and that the *1219responding officers had not been told of that stated intent. In the trial court’s view, even assuming the omission played a role in the ultimate result, it “does not, in these circumstances, bridge the breathtaking gulf in legal nexus between pushing, shoving and a bloody nose on the one hand and coldblooded murder on the other.” Because of the lack of foreseeability, the court reasoned, the harm was not within the scope of legal duty owed by defendants to plaintiffs. The majority accepts that analysis.
In essence, the trial court and the majority focus on whether a murder was foreseeable from what happened in the restaurant. That is not the proper focus. The court’s task in analyzing the foreseeability aspect of duty “is not to decide whether a particular plaintiff’s injury was reasonably foreseeable in light of a particular defendant’s conduct, but rather to evaluate more generally whether the category of negligent conduct at issue is sufficiently likely to result in the kind of harm experienced that liability may appropriately be imposed on the negligent party.” (Ballard v. Uribe (1986) 41 Cal.3d 564, 572, fn. 6 [224 Cal.Rptr. 664, 715 P.2d 624]; see also Brewer v. Teano (1995) 40 Cal.App.4th 1024, 1030 [47 Cal.Rptr.2d 348]; Sharon P. v. Arman, Ltd., supra, 21 Cal.4th at pp. 1205, 1206 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).) That question involves a number of factors not discussed by the trial court or treated by the majority.1
Instead, their focus seems to be on what a trier of fact might reasonably foresee in the context of the circumstances of this case. That is a jury question unless the plaintiffs’ evidence is so weak that no reasonable jury could conclude that violent physical harm was in the offing from what had transpired.
Before treating that question, some discussion is necessary about the cases cited by the majority with respect to the duty of a land possessor to a business invitee with respect to the risk of a criminal act by a third party. The majority discusses Sharon P. as well as one other Supreme Court case, Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center (1993) 6 Cal.4th 666 [25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137, 863 P.2d 207], and a Court of Appeal decision, Nicole M. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. (1999) 76 Cal.App.4th 1238 [90 Cal.Rptr.2d 922]. All *1220of these cases recognize that a premises possessor owes a duty of care to business invitees; their situation is not the same as a stranger who chooses not to come to the aid of a stranger in peril.
Thus, in Ann M. the court recognized the duty of landowners to maintain property under their possession and control in a reasonably safe condition, a duty that includes the obligation to take reasonable steps to secure common areas agáinst foreseeable criminal acts that are likely to occur absent such precautionary measures. The court cited Civil Code section 1714 and a classic case, Frances T. v. Village Green Owners Assn. (1986) 42 Cal.3d 490, 499 [229 Cal.Rptr. 456, 723 P.2d 573, 59 A.L.R.4th 447], for this proposition. (Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center, supra, 6 Cal.4th at p. 674.) Sharon P. includes a similar analysis. (Sharon P. v. Arman, Ltd., supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 1189.) But the court held that a duty to take affirmative action to control wrongful acts of a third party will be imposed only where those acts can be reasonably anticipated. (Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center, supra, at p. 676; Sharon P. v. Arman, Ltd., supra, at p. 1189.) Neither case held that a premises possessor owes no duty to an employee or a customer to guard against possible criminal' activity by third parties. A balancing is required, of the burden of taking steps to guard against such activity and the likely efficacy of steps that can be taken, compared to the likelihood that the criminal activity will occur. (Ann M., supra, at p. 678.) “[A]bsent any prior similar incidents or other indications of a reasonably foreseeable risk of violent criminal assaults” at the particular location, the court concluded, “we cannot conclude defendants were required to secure the area against such crime.” (Sharon P., supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 1199; see also Kentucky Fried Chicken of Cal., Inc. v. Superior Court (1997) 14 Cal.4th 814 [59 Cal.Rptr.2d 756, 927 P.2d 1260] and Rest.2d Torts, § 344 [general duty of possessors of premises open to the public; com. f, explaining that premises possessor is not an insurer of visitor safety].)
Like Ann M. and Sharon P., the Nicole M. case involved a sexual assault on the defendant’s premises. Since there had been no previous similar attacks at the business location, the premises possessor could not have reasonably anticipated the crime and was under no duty to prevent it.
In each of these cases, the court was concerned with the foreseeability of criminal conduct by an unknown and unknowable possible assailant. That is in sharp contrast with this case. The identity of the assailant in this case was precisely known. It is as though, in any of the Supreme Court cases, the premises possessor had received specific reliable information that a particular assailant would be at the property to attack persons there, yet took no steps to prevent the attack. This distinction is pointed up in Saelzler v. *1221Advanced Group 400 (2001) 25 Cal.4th 763, 776 [107 Cal.Rptr.2d 617, 23 P.3d 1143], a causation case. There the court contrasted the unknown assailant scenario with the case of a known anticipated attacker. It cited Rosh v. Cave Imaging Systems, Inc. (1994) 26 Cal.App.4th 1225, 1238 [32 Cal.Rptr.2d 136], in which a plaintiff was attacked and severely injured by a disgruntled and recently terminated employee, where the employer was fully aware of the danger posed by the former employee and had employed a security firm to protect its. employees. The security company ignored the danger and failed to keep the former employee off the property. The appellate court rejected the argument that the guard company could not have kept the former employee off the premises, and hence did not cause the injuries that were inflicted when he appeared.
Here, the identity of the attacker was well known: it was the Ajanel party, and particularly Mauricio Ajanel, the man who had received a bloody nose at the hand of Carlos Alvarez. The group left vowing to return, and it did.
4. Threat
The majority concludes that, as a matter of law, the facts of the case “did not make Ajanel’s subsequent return with deadly force and cold-blooded shooting of Alvarez foreseeable.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1211.) As has been discussed, whether the “cold-blooded murder” of Carlos Alvarez was foreseeable is not the question; it would be enough if it was foreseeable that the Ajanel group would return bent on a violent assault on Carlos or his group. It is difficult to see how anything else could have been foreseen if plaintiffs’ evidence is credited. Mauricio had been severely “disrespected” in a public setting: at a restaurant, in the presence of customers and employees. He had insulted the Alvarez women, and had been bloodied by a blow from Carlos Alvarez in return. He and his group then left, saying they would be back. Why were they leaving? Why would they come back?
Assuming they meant what they said, a reasonable inference under the circumstances is, the only reason for them to leave and return was to get more manpower (there were three Ajanel men and four men in the Alvarez group), or more weapon power, or both. Certainly, they were not coming back to toast Carlos’s health. Of course, it is possible that someone hearing and seeing the whole episode would have thought they were bluffing, or that they would change their mind about returning. But those speculative possibilities are matters for the trier of fact to decide. It cannot be said on this record that, under all the circumstances and indulging every reasonable inference in favor of plaintiffs, the return with violent results was not *1222foreseeable. In today’s violent urban setting, it was only too foreseeable, as attested by the stream of this kind of case coming before our court and others.
Against this, what was the defendants’ burden? Even if we were to remove the incident from the commercial setting where it occurred and posit it in the context of the duty of a stranger, where there is no obligation to come to the aid of another, there is an obligation not to induce reliance on the part of a person who needs help, and not to make the situation worse. (See Rest.2d Torts, § 323.) Defendants did both. Their employee assured Carlos Alvarez that there was no danger, when there was. And their spokesperson failed to inform the responding officers of the circumstances that presented a danger: that one of the Ajanel party was struck by one of the Alvarez party and had suffered a bloody nose, that the group had left saying they would return, and that the Alvarez party had not left but was still in the restaurant.
5. Causation
The majority takes the position telling the officers the Ajanéis had said they were coming back would have made no difference. That is because, under police policy, the officers would not have advised the Alvarez party to leave. As I have discussed, no police officer stated that was police policy. Captain Sanchez’s statements indicate that if the officers had known that the Ajanéis planned to return under circumstances where further violence might be anticipated, they would have taken some action to prevent violence, at least by advising the Alvarez group to leave. Carlos Alvarez wanted to leave because he was afraid of staying. But he had been assured by a restaurant employee that there was nothing to worry about.
At the very least, the officers’ testimony fails to establish that the responding officers would not have, or should not have, warned the Alvarez party to leave had they known the group was still at the restaurant, that one of the Ajanel group had been bloodied, and that, on leaving, the group had said they were coming back. Commonsense, and the expectation that police officers will apply it, make it likely that the responding officers would have warned the Alvarez party to leave, and that the warning would have been heeded.
Of course, they might not have left; and the officers might not have warned them; and one of the officers might have actually talked to the Alvarez group; and perhaps all the Ajanéis said was something on the order *1223of “see ya,” with no sinister connotation. There are other possibilities as well, and the case is full of credibility issues. But all these things were for the jury to decide. Plaintiffs were entitled to have it do so. It was error to deprive them of that right by nonsuit. We should reverse.

At the concluding portion of its opinion, the majority respond to the analysis in this dissent. The majority discusses the duty of the restaurant, through its spokesperson, to provide information to police. That issue was not explicated in briefing or argument to the trial court or to this court. At its perimeters it raises significant issues of duty analysis. But in this case, we are not dealing with the perimeters of what the restaurant’s spokesperson ought to do. What he actually did went beyond failing to impart full details of the episode to the officers who responded to the 911 call. He provided them with no information. Instead, he effectively sent them off, telling them that the problem was over when, according to plaintiffs’ evidence, he knew that it was not.