Aceves v. Catellus Dev.

• Decision Date: 08 February 2011
• Docket Number: B212903,No. BC341454,BC341454
• Parties: MARIA T. ACEVES, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CATELLUS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION et al., Defendants and Respondents.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

MARIA T. ACEVES, Plaintiff and Appellant,

v. CATELLUS DEVELOPMENTCORPORATION et al., Defendants and Respondents.

B212903

No. BC341454

COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

Filed: February 8, 2011

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Joanne B. O'Donnell, Judge. Affirmed.

Larry Lockshin, a Law Corporation, Larry Lockshin; and Charlotte E. Costan for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Sims Law Firm and Selim Mounedji for Defendants and Respondents.

Plaintiff and appellant Maria T. Aceves brought an action against defendants and respondents Catellus Development Corporation (Catellus) and National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak (Amtrak) after she slipped and fell in an employee restroom and sustained injuries. Following a lengthy jury trial, the jury unanimously found that Catellus and Amtrak were not negligent. Appellant contends that multiple errors—including judicial bias, evidentiary error and instructional error— rendered the trial fundamentally unfair.

We affirm. The trial court exhibited commendable professional restraint in the face of an excruciating number of cumulative and redundant witnesses. It properly exercised its discretion in excluding hearsay and cumulative evidence. And it properly instructed the jury in this negligence action. There is no basis to disturb the judgment or the sanctions order that appellant also challenges.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Appellant's Injury.

In October 2003, appellant worked at Amtrak as one of seven train provision management system clerks. On October 20, 2003, at approximately 12:30 p.m., appellant went to use the crew base restroom and slipped and fell as she pushed open the door to one of the stalls. Fellow employee Mary Townsend walked into the restroom and saw appellant on the floor; appellant told Townsend she had just fallen because of some water on the floor. Appellant had difficulty walking after the fall.

Bernadette Coles was the operations supervisor on duty when appellant fell. Townsend reported appellant's fall to Coles and then escorted Coles to appellant who was now sitting in a chair down the hall from the restroom. Employee Lynn Solomon then arrived and according to appellant exclaimed: "'Oh my God. I was about to call Catellus to come and clean the water.'" Solomon, however, had no recollection of either making that statement or seeing water on the restroom floor. Coles took appellant to the hospital when she responded affirmatively to Coles' question whether she needed medical attention. At some point that day, Coles telephoned Michael Dwyer, the directorof Amtrak's food and beverage operations for the Western United States, to inform him of appellant's injury, and he told her to have Catellus—the building owner—clean up the area where appellant fell. Coles thereafter filled out an injury report (the 260 report) in which she documented that appellant told her she slipped and fell while walking into a toilet stall because the floor was wet.

If Amtrak personnel were to observe water on the floor in the workplace, the normal procedure would be to call Catellus to clean it up. According to an Amtrak log book, Coles wrote that Solomon had reported at approximately 12:15 p.m. that there was water on the restroom floor and that Catellus should be called. But Coles made that entry at 7:30 p.m. that evening when she returned to work from the hospital and her entries may or may not have been appropriately chronological. Coles had never before observed any water on the floor in the restroom where appellant fell. Moreover, although Solomon on occasion had seen water on the restroom floor in the past, she had no recollection of making any report about water on October 20.

Employee Linda Gardner on occasion had heard the sound of running water and noticed water on the restroom floor in the same place where appellant fell. She informed either Coles or Solomon of the condition at various times. The night before appellant's fall another employee, Diane Lesinsky, noticed a small amount of water on the restroom floor and reported the condition to after-hours security. She saw no water on the restroom floor the following day.

One week after appellant's fall, food and beverage manager George Padilla conducted an investigation of the incident for the purpose of avoiding a recurrence of a similar incident. Because he was out of town on the day appellant fell, everything in the report was based on what others told him. As a result of the investigation, he prepared a report (the 405 report) that he, Coles and Robert Stone signed. He submitted the report to central reporting as well as Amtrak's claims and safety departments. The 405 report concluded that appellant's fall was caused by water from a leaky toilet. While he was preparing the report, an employee approached him to tell him that she had observed water on the restroom floor in the past, before appellant was injured. Beyond that, nothing inhis report established that Amtrak was aware of the water on the floor or that an employee had failed to report the condition promptly. Nonetheless, to prevent a similar incident from recurring, the 405 report recommended that when a leak occurs there could be "'signs posted, cones put in place, and possible P.A. system to alert office personnel.'"

Appellant did not return to work for several months after her fall. She suffered injuries to her ankle, shoulder and back after the fall, resulting in her undergoing shoulder surgery and a neck fusion, and participating in physical therapy. A doctor opined that appellant would also require back surgery and ongoing medical treatment for her injuries.

Trial and Verdict.

Appellant filed a complaint against Catellus and Amtrak in October 2005. Jury selection commenced on April 18, 2008 and a jury was impaneled on April 28, 2008. After 13 days of witness testimony, the jury found that appellant did slip and fall, but that neither Amtrak nor Catellus was negligent. A jury poll revealed that the verdict was 10 to two on the question of whether appellant fell and unanimous on the issue of negligence. The trial court thereafter entered judgment in favor of Catellus only, noting that two causes of action remained to be tried against Amtrak. Appellant later dismissed the remaining causes of action, and the trial court entered judgment in favor of Amtrak on April 27, 2009. Appellant appealed from both judgments and we granted her motion to consolidate the matters.

DISCUSSION

Toward the end of trial, when the trial court was understandably frustrated by appellant's counsel's once again challenging an evidentiary ruling, the following exchange occurred:

"The Court: You haven't understood throughout the trial that a ruling is a ruling.

"[Appellant's counsel]: I beg to differ, your Honor.

"The Court: This one is also a ruling.

"[Appellant's counsel]: This is a very critical ruling.

"The Court: Whatever. There's lots of issues for appeal."

Appellant unfortunately has interpreted the trial court's indication of frustration literally and raised a host of issues that she contends warrant reversal of the judgment. We find no merit to any of her multiple claims.

I. The Trial Court Did Not Deprive Appellant of an Impartial Jury.

Appellant's threshold claim is that the trial court erred in failing to give a curative instruction to the jury panel after it told a potential juror she did not have to give up her biases and beliefs. We review trial court rulings pertaining to the conduct of voir dire for an abuse of discretion. (People v. Benavides (2005) 35 Cal.4th 69, 88; People v. Navarette (2003) 30 Cal.4th 458, 490.) Because the trial court confirmed that the juror did not harbor actual bias within the meaning of Code of Civil Procedure section 225, subdivision (b)(1)(C), ¹ the trial court properly exercised its discretion in declining to admonish the jury panel.

During the fourth day of voir dire, prospective Juror No. 18 indicated that her mother had slipped and fallen at work and that although she suffered minor injuries, she did not sue her employer. On the basis of this experience, prospective Juror No. 18 expressed her belief that an employer should not be responsible for that type of workplace injury. After prospective Juror No. 18 disclosed this belief, the trial court further inquired as to how that experience would affect her:

"The Court: If the court told you that the law were different from your feelings, would you accept the law as given to you by the court?

"Prospective Juror No. 18: I would like to, but I know I cannot set my beliefs aside from that. I just feel that. That's my belief, and I really would have a hard time separating that.

"The Court: I can appreciate you might have a hard time. And, again, I stress that you don't have to give up your biases and beliefs. But when you are sitting there in the jury room and you read an instruction that says, 'X, ' are you going to say, 'No. I won't do "X." I'm going to do "Y" instead'?

"Prospective Juror No. 18: If my belief overrides that, then I'm not going to just say, 'Oh, because the court says this, then I'm going to have to go with this.' It wouldn't be honest, then, so my belief is, I don't believe that someone should be suing their employer because of a problem in the bathroom. It could have happened five minutes before she walked in the bathroom. How are you to know it's the work's fault?

"The Court: That's what the trial is about.

"Prospective Juror No. 18: I know—

"The Court: So you don't have to figure that out before you even hear one iota of evidence. ...