Court Opinion

ID: 9789896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:43:37.518286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:24.992666
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent.
Government Code section 831.2 (further statutory references are to that code) immunizes public entities from tort liability for injuries resulting from a natural, though dangerous, condition of unimproved public property. The section provides “Neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable for the injury caused by a natural condition of any unimproved public property, including but not limited to any natural condition of any lake, stream, bay, river or beach.” In my view, defendant (City) was immune from liability to plaintiffs under the foregoing provision.
Plaintiffs, adjoining private property owners, were neither using, nor present upon, City’s property when the incident occurred. The majority holds that section 831.2 was not intended to bar suit by nonusers of public property who are injured on adjacent private land. The majority relies primarily upon a statement in the legislative committee comment that “it is not unreasonable to expect persons who voluntarily use unimproved public property in its natural condition to assume the risk of injuries arising therefrom as a part of the price to be paid for the benefits received.” (See legis. committee com., Deering’s Ann. Gov. Code, § 831.2 (1982 ed.) p. 251.) According to plaintiffs (though not expressly included in the stipulation of facts), the injury they received was to their home and they received no “benefits” from any prior use of City’s land.
By its terms, however, section 831.2 extends immunity to any injury caused by a natural condition of unimproved public property, whether or *837not the injury was received on public or private property or during the course of a nonpublic use. Had the Legislature intended to restrict the immunity in such a manner, it could have easily so provided. Indeed, an earlier version of the bill which incorporated section 831.2 permitted immunity only “if at the time of the injury the person who suffered the injury was not using the property for a purpose for which the public entity intended the property to be used.” (Amend, to Sen. Bill No. 42 (1963 Reg. Sess.) Mar. 19, 1963.) This language, however, was expressly deleted from the section as adopted. (See also §§ 831.4, 831.8, containing similar specific use limitations.)
Moreover, fairly read, other statutory language surrounding section 831.2 persuades me that the section’s immunity precludes whatever liability a public entity might otherwise incur under the Tort Claims Act for dangerous conditions of its property. For example, section 835 imposes liability, except as provided by statute, for injury “caused by a dangerous condition of its property . . . .” The term “dangerous condition” is defined as “a condition of property that creates a substantial . . . risk of injury when such property or adjacent property is used with due care in a manner in which it is reasonably foreseeable that it will be used.” (§ 830, subd. (a), italics added.) Overhanging trees are included by the Law Revision Commission comment to section 830 as a typical example of a hazard to adjacent property. (See Cal. Law Revision Com. com., Deering’s Ann. Gov. Code, § 830, supra, p. 222.)
Immediately following section 830 and its definition of “dangerous condition” and other statutory terms, are various exceptions and immunities from liability. Section 831.2 clearly represents an exception to the general rule of liability for dangerous conditions which result in injuries on public or adjacent private property. Accordingly, it would be anomalous to construe the immunity provision in a narrower manner than the liability itself, thereby providing only partial immunity where an “absolute immunity” (legis. committee com., Deering’s Ann. Gov. Code, § 831.2, supra, at p. 251) was undoubtedly intended.
I also note a possible explanation why section 831.2 did not specifically immunize public entities from liability for “natural condition” injuries occurring on adjacent private property: Prior to our recent decision in Sprecher v. Adamson Companies (1981) 30 Cal.3d 358 [178 Cal.Rptr. 783, 636 P.2d 1121], a possessor of land, public or private, had no duty to remedy dangerous natural conditions which endangered persons outside his premises. (Id., at p. 362.) Thus, in 1963 when section 831.2 was adopted, there *838was no need to provide immunity against a liability which at that time had not been recognized.
For all the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the judgment in City’s favor.