Carter v. Clausen
| Decision Date | 23 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | G060213 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | AMY CARTER, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BRUCE CLAUSEN, Individually and as Trustee, etc. Defendant and Respondent. |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Monterey County No 17CV002066, Marla O. Anderson, Judge. Affirmed.
Hollingsworth Law Firm, Daniel D. Hollingsworth; Law Office of John R. Coniglio and John R. Coniglio for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Wood Smith Henning & Berman and Steven R. Disharoon for Defendant and Respondent.
A woman slipped and broke her ankle while watching her teenage son compete in a steer roping competition at an outdoor horse arena. She sued the owner of the property for negligence and premises liability. The trial court granted summary judgment for the property owner, citing Civil Code section 846 (section 846), which limits the liability of private landowners for injuries sustained from the public's recreational use of their land. After reviewing the matter de novo, we conclude the woman's claims fall within the language and intent of section 846, and none of the statutory exceptions to recreational immunity apply. We therefore affirm the judgment in favor of the property owner.
The facts here are not in dispute. Defendant Bruce Clausen owns an outdoor horse arena in Prunedale, California. For many years, he has allowed the American Cowboy Team Roping Association (ACTRA) to hold ACTRA-sponsored roping events on his property.
The accident in question occurred at one such event in August 2015. Plaintiff Amy Carter learned about the event through an advertisement in a local newspaper. Her teenage son, who had participated in several similar events at Defendant's arena over the years, decided to sign up. Entry to the event was free; any member of the public could enter the arena and watch the competition free of charge.[1] However, each roper who wanted to compete had to pay the timer a $20 fee per roping, and Defendant retained one-third of those fees. Plaintiff's son, like most other ropers, entered as many times as possible that day, and paid a total of $120 to compete.
Plaintiff sat on the lawn beside the arena to watch the event with other family members. Between runs, her son asked her to bring him iced tea. Plaintiff, who was wearing rubber flip-flops, walked toward the arena with the beverage heading down a sloping walkway made of pavers set in dirt and sand. Just before reaching the gate to the arena, she slipped and fell, breaking her ankle.
Before the accident, Defendant had never received any complaints about the walkway being dangerous or needing repair, and Plaintiff had never seen anyone else fall on that walkway. Although Plaintiff had heard general discussion about others slipping and falling on the path, she had no details about any such incidents.
Plaintiff filed a complaint against Defendant and ACTRA for negligence and premises liability.[2] Plaintiff later dismissed all claims against ACTRA.
Defendant moved for summary judgment, claiming immunity under section 846. The trial court granted the motion, dismissed the claims against Defendant with prejudice, and entered a judgment for Defendant. This appeal followed.
Our standard of review is well settled. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, a motion for summary judgment must be granted if all the papers submitted show there is no triable issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. We review a grant of summary judgment de novo and affirm summary judgment if correct on any of the grounds asserted in the motion. (Huerta v. City of Santa Ana (2019) 39 Cal.App.5th 41, 47.) Statutory interpretation is also a matter of law for our de novo review. (Land Partners, LLC v. County of Orange (2018) 19 Cal.App.5th 741, 745.)
Subject to certain statutory exceptions, California's recreational immunity statute limits the liability of private landowners for injuries sustained by another from the public's recreational use of their land. (§ 846, subd. (a) []; id., subd. (c) []; see id., subd. (d) [statutory exceptions].)
“The statute provides an exception from the general rule that a private landowner owes a duty of reasonable care to any person coming upon the land.” (Ornelas v. Randolph (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1095, 1099 (Ornelas).) It is intended to encourage private landowners to permit free public use of their property for recreational purposes by relieving them of broad tort liability exposure. (Id. at p. 1103.)
Two elements must be met for recreational immunity to apply: “(1) the defendant must be the owner of an ‘estate or any other interest in real property, whether possessory or nonpossessory'; and (2) the plaintiff's injury must result from the ‘entry or use [of the “premises”] for any recreational purpose.'” (Ornelas, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 1100.)
Even if both elements are satisfied, section 846 (§ 846, subd. (d)(1) (3).)
Plaintiff contends section 846 does not apply because she was not engaged in a recreational activity when she fell, and she did not enter the property for a recreational purpose. We are not persuaded.
Section 846 defines ‘“recreational purpose”' to “include[ ] activities such as fishing, hunting, camping, water sports, hiking, spelunking, sport parachuting, riding, including animal riding, snowmobiling, and all other types of vehicular riding, rock collecting, sightseeing, picnicking, nature study, nature contacting, recreational gardening, gleaning, hang gliding, private noncommercial aviation activities, winter sports, and viewing or enjoying historical, archaeological, scenic, natural, or scientific sites.” (Id., subd. (b).)
That statutory list is not exhaustive, and courts broadly construe the term ‘“recreational activity.”' (Wang v. Nibbelink (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 1, 29 (Wang) []; see, e.g., Ornelas, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 1101 [].) Although whether a plaintiff entered the property for a recreational purpose is typically a question of fact, it may be decided as a matter of law on summary judgment where, as here, the relevant facts are not in dispute. (Wang, at p. 28.)
Applying those standards here, we conclude a roping competition qualifies as a recreational activity under section 846. Roping is a type of outdoor sport. And considering section 846 specifically includes “riding [and] animal riding” as examples of recreational purposes, we see no reason why a roping competition would not also qualify as a recreational activity.
Plaintiff nonetheless insists she did not personally participate in the roping event; she was only present to watch her son compete; she was injured not by steer roping, but rather by slipping on a dangerous walkway; and she was not “a random spectator enjoying the competition, ” but rather was there in a parental capacity. Again, we are not persuaded. In our Supreme Court's words, (Ornelas, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 1102; see also Wang, supra, 4 Cal.App.5th at p. 18 [].)
Here, the statute applies because Plaintiff's presence was occasioned by her son's recreational use of the property, and Plaintiff's injury was a product thereof. It makes no difference that Plaintiff was not personally participating in a recreational activity when she got injured; the statute applies irrespective of what caused her injury. (See § 846, subd. (c)(3) [].) Indeed, section 846 even “applies to relieve a landowner of liability for injury caused by a recreational user to an off-premises nonparticipant.” (Wang, supra, 4 Cal.App.5th at p. 23, italics added [meadow owners not liable to accident victim after horse from historic wagon train re-creation event escaped from meadow and trampled victim on neighboring property].)
We...
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