Defense verdict in slip and fall at apartment complex. Los Angeles County.

Facts and Background

• Facts and Background:

  According to plaintiff’s Complaint : “On January 3, 2015 at approximately 10:00 a.m., Plaintiff was walking to the Defendant’s management office (in Palmdale) to pay the rent. The (irrigation) sprinklers caused the cemented walkway to become extremely wet and freeze. While walking on the cemented walkway, Plaintiff slipped on the frozen walkway and fell forward, landing on his right shoulder with his face partially in the grass. … [D]efendants breach [their] duty by failing to maintain the sprinklers and walkway.”

  There was no allegation of when that condition was created. Plaintiff  was a tenant in Apartment A110. 

   Plaintiff did not visit any healthcare provider until five days after he fell, and worked, full-time, in the interim.

• Plaintiff's Contentions:

  That the apartment community owner and its property manager were negligent in failing to properly maintain the courtyard sprinkler system outside plaintiff’s apartment, in allowing watering at sub-freezing temperatures and not regularly taking precautions to remedy or warn of the icy conditions; that defendants had prior knowledge of ice patches on the concrete walkways in the community that created a dangerous condition and was the cause of plaintiff’s slip and fall incident.

• Defendant's Contentions:

  That all evidence showed that the last time the courtyard sprinklers were in operation was three days before plaintiff fell; that the water that became ice could not have come from the sprinklers; that both defendants took more than adequate steps to salt the walkways as soon as they had notice of icy patches, and that plaintiff fell because he did not pay adequate attention to where he was going; that he was running, in flip-flops, in sub-freezing temperatures, in a community that he knew would be likely to contain icy patches, causing his own slip and fall incident.

  That the property manager instructed the custodian, immediately upon her arrival on the job on that day, to apply rock salt to the walkways, having seen patches of ice, as there frequently were in Palmdale. Salt takes some time to melt ice. In fact, the custodian was about to begin the process of salting the icy patches in walkways, which ran over one thousand linear feet, when plaintiff fell. The resident maintenance technician who resided in the apartment directly over that occupied by the plaintiff was not working on that Saturday morning. He saw the plaintiff exit his apartment and run several steps along the walkway, wearing “flip-flops,” shorts and a t-shirt, and then fall as plaintiff attempted to round a corner, then get up and walk to and from the management office. It was broad daylight. The icy surface was plainly visible.

  Defendants contended they took more than customary, reasonable steps to warn and protect residents there, according to the industry standards in Palmdale.