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Landowner Scope of Duty

1/11/18

By: Owen T. Rooney

The California Supreme Court recently issued an opinion that limits the scope of duty and liability in premises liability cases. In  Vasilenko v. Grace Community Church, plaintiff was struck by a car as he crossed a public street, at night in the rain, between the main premises of a church and the church’s overflow parking area. Plaintiff alleged that the church owed him a duty of care to assist him in safely crossing the public street. The court ruled “that a landowner does not have a duty to assist invitees in crossing a public street when the landowner does no more than site and maintain a parking lot that requires invitees to cross the street to access the landowner’s premises, so long as the street’s dangers are not obscured or magnified by some condition of the landowner’s premises or by some action taken by the landowner.”

The court was motivated in part by the lack of control the church has over the public roadway, and in part by “the possibility that finding a duty in this case will cause some or perhaps many landowners to stop providing parking…. By providing parking, a landowner may decrease its invitees’ risk of injury from other dangers of the road as compared to invitees finding their own parking on the streets.”

This case should limit liability in cases where plaintiff tries to stretch the landowner’s “property lines” to conditions off the property.

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Owen Rooney at orooney@fmglaw.com.