California Public Entities' Duty to Light Streets: the Erosion of the Peculiar Condition Exception
| Jurisdiction | California,United States |
| Author | By Andrew J. Chan |
| Publication year | 2020 |
| Citation | Vol. 43 No. 1 |
By Andrew J. Chan
Andrew J. Chan is a Senior Associate in Ericksen Arbuthnot's Oakland/East Bay office and a member of the firm's Appellate, Construction, and Real Estate Practice Groups.
Absent a statutory or charter provision, public entities generally are under no duty to light streets and any alleged failure to light them is not actionable negligence.1
For more than three decades, however, California courts have recognized a potential exception where a "peculiar condition" may render lighting necessary in order to make the streets safe for travel.2
However, the continuing viability of this Peculiar Condition Exception is highly questionable as (1) the 1985 precedent establishing the Peculiar Condition Exception was merely suggested in dicta,3 (2) that dicta was based on secondary authority that has since been revised to only indicate potential liability after a public entity undertakes to light a road, (3) no California cases have enforced the exception to find a public entity's duty to light streets, and (4) imposing a duty to ameliorate darkness on public property would create an untold burden on public entities.
In 2019, California's Fourth District Court of Appeal recently held that a large tree overhanging a portion of crosswalk and casting shadows from a nearby streetlight did not constitute a "peculiar condition" creating public entity liability. In doing so, the Court joined other precedent refusing to render a public entity liable under the "peculiar condition" exception. The holding further clarifies that, even when undertaking efforts to light a street, a public entity is not liable for failing to provide a consistent level of lighting.4
A public entity is not liable for an injury, whether such injury arises out of an act or omission of the public entity or a public employee or any other person, except as otherwise provided by statute.5
Except as provided by statute, a public entity is liable for injury caused by a dangerous condition6 of its property if the plaintiff establishes that the property was in a dangerous condition at the time of the injury, that the injury was proximately caused by the dangerous condition, that the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury which was incurred, and that either: (a) a negligent or wrongful act or omission of an employee of the public entity within the scope of his employment created the dangerous condition; or (b) the public entity had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition under Section 835.27 a sufficient time prior to the injury to have taken measures to protect against the dangerous condition.8
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A claim alleging a dangerous condition may not rely on generalized allegations but must specify in what manner the condition constituted a dangerous condition. A plaintiff's allegations, and ultimately the evidence, must establish a physical deficiency in the property itself.9 Specifically, there must be a defect in the physical condition of the property and that defect must have some causal relationship to the third-party conduct that injures the plaintiff.10 Third party conduct by itself, unrelated to the condition of the property, does not constitute a dangerous condition for which a public entity may be held liable.11
A public entity is only required to provide public roads that are safe for reasonably foreseeable careful use.12
Public liability lies under Section 835 only when a feature of the public property has "increased or intensified" the danger to users from third party conduct.13 A public entity may be liable for a dangerous condition of public property even where the immediate cause of a plaintiff's injury is a third party's negligent or illegal act if some physical characteristic of the property exposes its users to increased danger from third party negligence or criminality.14
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Generally, a public entity, which has no general duty to light its streets, cannot be held liable for failing to provide a consistent level of lighting between one street and the next.15 Ownership of the streetlight by a utility does not alter the general rule.16
In Antenor v. City of Los Angeles, the Court's dicta establishing the Peculiar Condition Exception relied on a prior version of American Jurisprudence 2d, which stated that "In the absence of a statutory or charter provision to the contrary, it is generally held that a municipality is under no duty to light its streets even though it is given the power to do so, and hence, that its failure to light them is not actionable negligence, and will not render it liable in damages to a traveler who is injured solely by reason thereof. A duty to light, and the consequent liability for failure to do so, may, however, arise from some peculiar condition rendering lighting necessary in order to make the streets safe for travel."17
This passage has been redrafted in the current edition of American Jurisprudence 2d, which states: "There is authority to the effect that, in the absence of a statutory or charter provision to the...
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