Cabral v. Ralphs Grocery Co. - 51 Cal. 4th 764, 122 Cal. Rptr. 3d 313, 248 P.3d 1170 (2011)

Rule:

The general rule in California is that everyone is responsible for an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person, Civ. Code, § 1714, subd. (a). In other words, each person has a duty to use ordinary care and is liable for injuries caused by a failure to exercise reasonable care in the circumstances. The court has identified several considerations that, when balanced together, may justify a departure from the fundamental principle embodied in § 1714: the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved. In the absence of a statutory provision establishing an exception to the general rule of § 1714, courts should create one only where clearly supported by public policy.

Facts:

A truck driver working for Ralphs Grocery Company (Ralphs) stopped his tractor-trailer rig alongside an interstate highway in order to have a snack. Plaintiff's husband, decedent Adelemo Cabral, driving his pickup truck home from work, veered suddenly off the freeway and collided at high speed with the rear of the stopped trailer, resulting in his own death. The jury found both decedent and the Ralphs driver to have been negligent and to have caused the accident, but allocated 90 percent of the fault to decedent and only 10 percent to the Ralphs driver. The trial court denied Ralphs's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and entered a judgment awarding plaintiff damages for the wrongful death of her husband. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding Ralphs owed no legal duty to avoid a collision between a negligent driver and the company’s stopped truck. Plaintiff sought review.

Issue:

Did the employer owe legal duty to avoid a collision between the decedent and the company’s stopped truck, thereby warranting the award of damages in favor of the plaintiff?

Answer:

Yes.

Conclusion:

The California Supreme Court held, contrary to the decision of the appeals court, that Ralphs owed a legal duty to avoid a collision between the decedent, who was found 90 percent at fault, and the employer's stopped truck. According to the Court, Civ. Code, § 1714, subd. (a), established a general duty of reasonable care for the safety of others, and there were no grounds in the current case to find an exception. That drivers might lose control of their vehicles, leave a freeway for the shoulder area, and collide with an obstacle was not categorically unforeseeable. Nor did public policy clearly demand that truck drivers be universally permitted, without the possibility of civil liability for a collision, to take nonemergency breaks alongside freeways in areas where regulations permitted only emergency parking. The Court also held that substantial evidence supported a finding that if the tractor-trailer had not been stopped where it was, the other driver likely would have come to a stop without a fatal collision. The evidence included that in the direction of the decedent's travel there was a large expanse of hard packed dirt without obstacles, ending with a gravel shoulder at a freeway on-ramp.