The California Court of Appeal has partially reversed a lower court’s decision in a case involving two young children who suffered severe injuries after falling from a second-story apartment window. The court found that while the landlord was not liable under a general negligence claim, a claim of *negligence per se* – meaning the landlord violated a specific law – could proceed.
The Incident
In July 2016, four-year-old Karinah Jimenez and her two-year-old brother, Isaiah, fell from a window in their second-floor bedroom in an apartment complex owned by Hayes Apartment Homes, LLC (Hayes). The children’s mother, Marlina Guerrero, had briefly left the children’s bedroom to run a bath. Both children sustained serious injuries. Karinah suffered permanent brain damage.
The children, through their guardian, sued Hayes and its property manager, Preferred Property Management, Inc., alleging negligence. The lawsuit presented two theories of negligence: general negligence and negligence *per se*. The plaintiffs claimed that the apartment building’s window presented a foreseeable risk of harm to child tenants, and that the defendants breached a duty of care. Additionally, the plaintiffs argued that the defendants violated the California Building Standards Code when they renovated the apartment building shortly before the accident by installing a bedroom window without a fall prevention device. This violation, they alleged, constituted *negligence per se*.
The trial court granted the defendants’ motion for nonsuit after the plaintiffs presented their case, effectively dismissing the lawsuit. The plaintiffs appealed this decision.
The Court’s Ruling
The Court of Appeal examined the trial court’s decision, applying a *de novo* standard of review, which means it reviewed the case as if it were a new trial. The court affirmed the trial court’s ruling on the general negligence claim but reversed it on the *negligence per se* claim.
General Negligence Claim
The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants were negligent in several ways, including failing to install window fall prevention devices, failing to warn of the dangers, and sending a worker to perform repairs without notice. However, the Court of Appeal found that the plaintiffs failed to establish the critical element of duty.
The court explained that while landowners have a general duty to maintain their property in a reasonably safe condition, the scope of that duty depends on the specific facts of the case. In this instance, the court determined that the connection between the landlord’s actions (or inactions) and the children’s injuries was too attenuated to establish a duty under the common law of negligence. The court cited the mother’s actions, which included closing the window and warning the children, as factors weighing against a finding of foreseeability on the landlord’s part.
The court distinguished this case from others where negligence claims against property owners were sustained, such as *Lawrence v. La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club, Inc.* and *Amos v. Alpha Property Management*. In those cases, the court found the hazard was more predictable. In the present case, the court noted that the landlord lacked control over the placement of furniture that may have aided the children in reaching the window. The court emphasized that the landlord could not have known the layout of the apartment or that unattended children might gain access to and open a closed window.
Negligence Per Se Claim
The *negligence per se* claim centered on whether the defendants violated the California Building Standards Code. To establish *negligence per se*, the plaintiffs needed to prove that the defendants violated a regulation, the violation proximately caused the injury, the injury was of the type the regulation was intended to prevent, and the injured party was within the class of people the regulation was designed to protect.
The trial court ruled that the defendants were exempt from installing a fall prevention device because the replacement window was considered an “original material” under section 3404.1.1 of the Building Code. This section allows for the replacement of original materials and the use of original construction methods, provided the building complied with the code at the time of its original construction and does not become substandard.
The Court of Appeal disagreed with the trial court’s interpretation of “original materials.” The court held that a window is not an “original material” within the meaning of the Building Code. The court reasoned that while the window is made *of* materials, the window *itself* is not a material, but an assembly or a unit. The court emphasized that the purpose of the Building Code is to protect the health and safety of occupants. The court found that interpreting the code in the way the plaintiffs proposed best serves that purpose.
The court concluded that the defendants were required to install a fall prevention device and, by failing to do so, potentially violated the Building Code. Therefore, the court reversed the trial court’s decision on the *negligence per se* claim and remanded the case for retrial on this issue.
Implications
This ruling clarifies the interpretation of the Building Code and its application to property owners. It reinforces the importance of safety measures, such as fall prevention devices, in multi-family dwellings. The case highlights the distinction between general negligence and *negligence per se*, and the specific requirements for establishing each type of claim. The case now returns to the trial court for further proceedings on the *negligence per se* claim.