Princess Hotels Internat., Inc. v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 28 March 1995
• Docket Number: No. A066506,A066506
• Citation: 39 Cal.Rptr.2d 457,33 Cal.App.4th 645
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: PRINCESS HOTELS INTERNATIONAL, INC., Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of San Mateo County, Respondent. Linda L. PEARSON et al., Real Parties in Interest.

Page 457

39 Cal.Rptr.2d 457

33 Cal.App.4th 645

PRINCESS HOTELS INTERNATIONAL, INC., Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of San Mateo County, Respondent Linda L. PEARSON et al., Real Parties in Interest.

No. A066506.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 5, California.

March 28, 1995.

Review Denied June 15, 1995.

Harold A. Stone, Francis M. McKeown, Gudmundson, Siggins, Stone & Skinner, San Francisco, for petitioner.

Richard E. Schwartz, James E. Parrot, Richard Schwartz & Associates, Ltd., St. Louis, MO, Robert L. DuRard, DuRard, Gangemi & McKenna, San Mateo, for real parties in interest.

PETERSON, Presiding Judge.

In this case, we hold that a hotel has no duty to warn its guests of a dangerous condition of adjacent property over which the hotel has no control, to wit, the ocean currents.

Petitioner Princess Hotels International, Inc. (Princess) is a defendant in an action for personal injuries and wrongful death brought by real parties Linda L. Pearson and the estate of her deceased former husband, Robin H. Pearson. Linda Pearson was seriously injured and Robin Pearson was killed when the two went swimming in the ocean adjacent to their Acapulco hotel. Their complaint alleges the hotel, purportedly under Princess's corporate control, was negligent for failing to warn them of the dangers of ocean swimming. Princess moved for summary judgment, arguing, inter alia, that the hotel had no duty to warn. The superior court denied the motion. Princess now seeks a writ of mandate to compel the superior court to grant the motion. We stayed proceedings, issued the alternative writ, and heard oral argument. We agree with Princess and issue the writ of mandate.

I. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND AND FACTS

Although certain facts surrounding the swimming accident are in dispute, the basic facts are more or less established. The decedent, Robin Pearson, was a manufacturing sales representative for SEM Products, a California company which makes automobile paint. SEM awarded Mr. Pearson with an all-expense paid vacation at the Pierre Marques Hotel, Acapulco, in recognition of his sales record. Mr. Pearson left for his Acapulco vacation November 8, 1990. He took his former wife, real party Linda Pearson, along with him; there is a suggestion that the couple planned a reconciliation.

The Pearsons arrived at the Pierre Marques on the evening of November 9. The Pierre Marques is a 344-room hotel which shares a 480-acre oceanfront parcel, including two golf courses and gardens, with the 1,019-room Acapulco Princess Hotel. Adjacent to both hotels is a beach fronting the Pacific Ocean. Like all beaches in Mexico, the beach in front of the Pierre Marques is federal property, patrolled only by Mexican Marines and police. The beaches are considered government property, subject only to government control, and open to public access at any time. ¹

Each room in the Pierre Marques contains an information pamphlet called a "Directory of Services." This document contains various descriptions of hotel services and amenities including this notation: "THE BEACH IN FRONT OF THE HOTELS [p] The beach in front of the hotels is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The hotel cannot assume any responsibility for incidents that occur on the beach."

After their arrival in their room, the Pearsons went for an ocean swim between 10:30 p.m. and midnight. (The Pearsons were not swimming neophytes: Linda was a certified swimming instructor with some experience with ocean swimming; Robin was a certified scuba diver.) To reach the beach from the hotel, the Pearsons walked through a gate let into a seawall. Their path would have taken them past two signs, one a sign with a red pennant warning of high tides, the other a warning sign, which stated with red capital letters on a white background: "WARNING[:] [p] SWIMMING IN THE OCEAN CAN BE DANGEROUS[.] THE BEACH IS FEDERAL PROPERTY AND THE HOTEL IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ACT OC[C]URRING IN THIS AREA[.] USE THE BEACH AND WATER AT YOUR OWN RISK[.] DO NOT VISIT THE BEACH AT NIGHT[.] DO NOT GO FAR FROM THE HOTEL AT ANY TIME[.]" In her deposition, Linda Pearson denied seeing either sign, although there is evidence that the beach area was well lit.

The November 9 swim went without incident. The next day, November 10, 1990, after consuming a light to moderate amount of alcohol, the Pearsons went back to the ocean for another swim. They walked through the hotel lobby with towels and in bathing attire, and no hotel employee warned them not to swim in the ocean. While swimming the Pearsons were caught in a sudden undertow, large waves, and riptide currents. Robin Pearson drowned; Linda Pearson was injured.

Linda Pearson and Robin Pearson's estate filed the present action for personal injuries and wrongful death. Their complaint alleged, inter alia, that as the operator of a hotel Princess had an affirmative duty to warn its guests of the known hazards of swimming in the ocean. ²

Princess moved for summary judgment on the legal question of whether a hotel operator has a duty to warn guests of the dangers of ocean swimming. ³ The trial court denied the motion, ruling that Swann v. Olivier (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 1324, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 23 (Swann ), a recent decision holding an adjacent landowner cannot possibly control the machinations of the ocean, was distinguishable because Princess "commercially benefit[ed] from the adjacent beach." Accordingly, the court concluded Princess had a legal duty to warn the Pearsons of the hazards of the surf.

II. DISCUSSION

Swann contains a cogent and exhaustive discussion of the California cases on the liability of a landowner for a defective or dangerous condition of adjacent property. In that case, a man was injured while swimming in the surf area of the "public ocean" (seaward of the high tide line) of a private beach. (Id., 22 Cal.App.4th at p. 1327, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 23.) He sued the owner of the beach for his injuries. The Swann court held that "The owners of a private beach do not own or control the ocean.... 'A defendant cannot be held liable for the defective or dangerous condition of property which it did not own, possess, or control.' " (Id. at p. 1326, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 23, quoting Isaacs v. Huntington Memorial Hospital (1985) 38 Cal.3d 112, 134, 211 Cal.Rptr. 356, 695 P.2d 653.)

Referring to this "commonsense rule," Swann, supra, 22 Cal.App.4th at pages 1329-1330, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 23, reviewed the California premises liability decisions uniformly holding that: (1) summary judgment may be granted where a defendant unequivocally establishes a lack of ownership, possession, or control (see, e.g., Seaber v. Hotel Del Coronado (1991) 1 Cal.App.4th 481, 484-485, 487-489, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 405 (Seaber ) [public street crossed by hotel patrons to reach a nearby parking lot]; Donnell v. California Western School of Law (1988) 200 Cal.App.3d 715, 718, 720, 246 Cal.Rptr. 199 [public sidewalk adjacent to law school in high-crime area] ); and (2) "A corollary is that a landowner has no duty to warn of dangers beyond his or her own property when the owner did not create these dangers." (Swann, supra, 22 Cal.App.4th at p. 1330, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 23, italics in original; Seaber, supra, 1 Cal.App.4th at pp. 487-488, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 405.)

Swann then distilled the two exceptions to the rule: (1) Liability may be imposed when the landowners "imposed or created some palpable external effect on the area where the plaintiff was injured"; and (2) liability may be imposed on the landowners when they "received a special commercial benefit from the area of the injury plus had direct or de facto control of that area." (22 Cal.App.4th at p. 1330, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 23.) The first exception is inapplicable to the present case. The second, as Swann noted, "is commercial in nature." (P. 1331, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 23.) Swann reviewed several cases where business premises were found liable for dangers on adjacent property because "the defendants received direct pecuniary benefits from the plaintiff[s'] use of the areas where the plaintiffs were injured," and "either directly created the risk [citation] or exercised direct [citation] or de facto [citations] control over that area." (Id. at pp. 1331-1333, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 23.)

Swann then waxed eloquent: "In the present case, by contrast, any thought of 'control' over the area of injury is out of the question. The idea that anyone can control the ' "sledge hammering seas" ' and ' "inscrutable tides of God" ' is debatable, to say the least. (See Carolina Beach Fish[.] Pier v. Town of Carolina Beach (1970) 277 N.C. 297 [177 S.E.2d 513] ..., quoting Melville's Moby Dick[.) ] The idea that [defendants] can control the ocean adjacent to their land is nothing short of ludicrous. 'Even the fabled King Canute with all of his power could not control the water by fiat.' (Queen City Terminals, Inc. v. City of Cincinnati (S.D.Ohio 1987) 666 F.Supp. 1035, 1039, fn. 4.) Because there was no commercial benefit to the defendants, nor creation or control by them of the hazards in the precise area where the injury occurred, we hold defendants owed no duty to warn the plaintiff of the dangerous condition of the ocean beyond their private beach." (22 Cal.App.4th at p. 1333, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 23.) ⁴

Swann distinguished two cases, which are now relied on by real parties, in which there was at least the possibility raised of a plaintiff's recovery for surf injuries: Buchanan v. City of Newport Beach (1975) 50 Cal.App.3d 221, 123 Cal.Rptr. 338 and Gonzales v. City of San Diego (1982) 130 Cal.App.3d 882, 182 Cal.Rptr. 73. However, both cases involved suits against public entities which owned beaches, and both decisions focused on questions of immunity. Buchanan assumed, perhaps questionably, that public entity control over a beach is the same as control over the raging surf. "Buchanan cannot be used as support for the idea that the private beach owners here somehow 'controlled'...