Pfeifer v. San Joaquin County

• Decision Date: 28 July 1967
• Citation: 67 Cal.2d 177,60 Cal.Rptr. 493,430 P.2d 51
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 430 P.2d 51 Charles Richard PFEIFER, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. COUNTY OF SAN JOAQUIN, Defendant and Respondent. Sac. 7800. In Bank

Page 493

60 Cal.Rptr. 493

67 Cal.2d 177, 430 P.2d 51

Charles Richard PFEIFER, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. COUNTY OF SAN JOAQUIN, Defendant and Respondent.

Sac. 7800.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

July 28, 1967.

Daley, Patridge & Garrett, Richard B. Daley and James M. Garrett, Stockton, for plaintiff and appellant.

Mayall, Hurley, Knutsen & Smith and Edwin Mayall, Stockton, for defendant and respondent.

Harry S. Fenton, Robert F. Carlson and Kenneth G. Nellis, Sacramento, as amici curiae on behalf of defendant and respondent.

BURKE, Justice.

Plaintiff in this personal injury action appeals from a judgment of nonsuit granted in favor of defendant County of San Joaquin after plaintiff's evidence had been presented before a jury. An automobile driven by one Garrett struck plaintiff, a pedestrian, as he was attempting to cross a street. He sued both Garrett and the county. ¹ As against the county he alleged negligent creation and maintenance of a dangerous condition of the street, which the county denied. The county also asserted the plan or design defense found in section 830.6 of the Government Code. (See fn. 2 of Cabell v. State of California, Cal., 60 Cal.Rptr. 476, 430 P.2d 34). As will appear, we have concluded that the evidence, viewed most favorably to plaintiff, fails to establish the existence of the dangerous condition upon which his claim against the county rests. Accordingly, the judgment must be affirmed.

When the accident occurred plaintiff was undertaking to walk across Alpine Avenue in the County of San Joaquin. The attached diagram illustrates the area.

NOTE: OPINION CONTAINS TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE

Alpine is a paved east-west four lane street, intersected at right angles by Delaware Street. East of Delaware a distance of about two city blocks Franklin Street also intersects Alpine substantially at right angles, slightly offset. Retail establishments were located on both sides of Alpine between Franklin and Delaware. The crosswalk at Delaware was marked, and that at Franklin unmarked. (See Veh.Code, § 275.) At the time of the accident there was no crosswalk between Delaware and Franklin, but there was a railroad right of way with tracks intersecting Alpine at right angles about halfway between them and at an elevation of about 2 1/2 feet above the level surface of Alpine. Approximately 10 feet west of the tracks two parallel white 'limit-lines' were painted across the two eastbound traffic lanes of Alpine to indicate where vehicular traffic should stop when a train was approaching. (See Veh.Code, § 22452, subd. (b).)

There were similar limit lines about 10 feet east of the tracks, across Alpine's two westbound lanes. At some former time there had been a marked pedestrian crosswalk which crossed Alpine about midway between the railroad tracks and Delaware. Several years before plaintiff's accident the county had eliminated this crosswalk and blacked out the white lines marking it. However, the pedestrian crossing warning marks, 'PED PED' followed by 'XING XING,' were not blacked out where they appeared on the pavement of both the eastbound traffic lanes at the intersection of Delaware and Alpine and the westbound traffic lanes at the intersection of Franklin and Alpine.

About 6 o'clock on a cloudy dark evening in December 1963 plaintiff, aged 78, parked his automobile in a lot on Franklin Street south of Alpine. Intending to mail a letter at a postoffice on the north side of Alpine, plaintiff, accompanied by his 9-year-old grandson, walked west on the south side of Alpine to the white railroad limit lines and started to cross between such lines. There were no street lights; the only lighting was from the stores in the vicinity. Plaintiff had passed the double lines which marked the center of Alpine and was in one of the westbound lanes when he noticed his grandson was not with him. He stopped and turned around to look for his grandson, when the Garrett automobile traveling west on Alpine, struck him. He testified that he was then at a point about 6 feet west of the railroad tracks.

Plaintiff lived about four blocks from the site of the accident and was familiar with the area both as a pedestrian and as a motorist. He testified that he thought the white limit lines marked a pedestrian crossing; that on many occasions he had seen persons crossing at the tracks. However, he did not recall the pavement markes at Franklin Street, warning of pedestrian crossing ahead.

Garrett, the driver of the car that struck plaintiff, also lived in the vicinity and drove along Alpine and over the railroad crossing almost every evening en route home. He testified that he had seen pedestrians use the railroad crossing to go back and forth across Alpine, but 'no more than I see cross anyplace else in the middle of the block.' There is no evidence that he believed there was an authorized crosswalk in the area of the railroad crossing, and neither plaintiff nor defendant suggests he was confused.

Other witnesses familiar with the area testified that people cross Alpine at various locations between Delaware and Franklin other than the tracks but 'The more cautious ones use the railroad tracks' because 'it is higher and you can see better'; that the railroad crossing is used probably as frequently 'as some of the regular crosswalks' and 'Pretty near anytime you go out there you will see people crossing' at the tracks. Certain of the witnesses stated they knew the railroad was not a crosswalk and that the white limit lines were to stop vehicular traffic when trains were approaching. One witness stated that although he knew the limit lines were stop lines for vehicles, he used the 'railroad crossing * * * probably as frequently as I do a crosswalk, not knowing that it wasn't a crosswalk up until the time of this accident,' that it looked like a crosswalk to him, that he had noticed the pedestrian crossing warning marks on the pavement at Franklin Street and wondered why the crosswalk at Franklin was not marked by white lines, that 'the first white lines you find are the ones at the railroad track.'

The traffic engineer of defendant county, whose duties were 'the maintenance of all the pavement markings, traffic signs, roadway stripping, traffic signals, roadway design, traffic counts, engineering data for design purposes' with respect to the unincorporated areas of the county, testified that in such areas all white lines delineating marked crosswalks extend completely across the street, although in the nearby City of Stockton over whose streets the county has no jurisdiction certain pedestrian lines went only halfway across the street. Pedestrian crosswalks were marked by the county with two single parallel lines, and not with double parallel lines such as the railroad limit lines. ² Pavement markings warning of a crosswalk are located at varying distances from the crosswalk itself, depending on the area and on existing conditions, 'We try to locate them 300 feet, approximately. In most cases, however, there are conditions where we have to adjust accordingly.' In the Alpine area here involved the standard or normal distance would be between 250 feet and 300 feet, approximately, although the former marked crosswalk across Alpine between the railroad tracks and Delaware Street was more than 500 feet from the pedestrian warning marks on the pavement at the Franklin intersection with Alpine. The pedestrian warnings were not relocated after the former crosswalk was blacked out because if they had been put on the other side of the railroad tracks they would be too close to the marked crosswalks at the Delaware intersection and not provide sufficient advance warning to motorists approaching on a downgrade from the tracks; further, stated the witness, 'In some cases we have these pedestrian crossings (pavement...