Attorney Michael Rehm — (916) 233-7346
Attorney Michael Rehm represents people injured on someone else's property in Sacramento and throughout Sacramento County. Premises liability is the area of law that governs when a property owner is responsible for injuries that occur on their property. These cases are handled on a contingency fee basis — no fee without a recovery. Call (916) 233-7346 for a free consultation.
The Legal Framework: What Premises Liability Means in California
Under Civil Code § 1714(a), everyone has a legal duty to use ordinary care to prevent harm to others. For property owners, this means maintaining premises in a reasonably safe condition — inspecting for hazards, repairing dangerous conditions, and warning visitors of dangers that are not obvious.
The controlling case is Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108. Before Rowland, California courts applied a tiered system that limited a property owner's duty based on the visitor's status — invitee, licensee, or trespasser. Rowland abolished those categories. The standard is now reasonable care under all the circumstances regardless of how the visitor came to be on the property.
What counts as reasonable care turns on the Rowland factors: the foreseeability of harm, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury, the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the burden on the defendant and the community of imposing a duty, and the availability of insurance. In practice, the most important factor is foreseeability — whether the type of harm that occurred was the kind a reasonable property owner would have anticipated and taken steps to prevent.
What You Have to Prove
CACI 1000 — the California Civil Jury Instruction that governs premises liability claims — defines what a plaintiff must establish. CACI is the set of standardized instructions judges read to juries in civil cases. Under CACI 1000, a premises liability plaintiff must prove:
- The defendant owned, leased, occupied, or controlled the property
- The defendant was negligent in the use or maintenance of the property
- The plaintiff was harmed
- The defendant's negligence was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff's harm
The second element — negligence in maintenance — is where most premises liability cases are contested. The central defense is notice: the property owner claims it did not know about the dangerous condition. Notice can be actual (the owner or its employees knew about the condition), constructive (the condition existed long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found it), or irrelevant — because when a dangerous condition is created by the defendant's own employees or equipment, knowledge is imputed to the owner as a matter of law and the notice defense drops out entirely. The notice framework is examined in detail on the Sacramento Slip and Fall Attorney page.
Where These Claims Arise in Sacramento
Premises liability claims in Sacramento arise across a predictable range of property types and locations.
- Grocery stores and retail. Wet floors from spills, leaking refrigeration equipment, and produce misters are the most common source of serious fall injuries in Sacramento's commercial properties. When the defendant's own equipment or employees created the hazard, the owner cannot claim ignorance of the condition.
- Restaurants and bars. Tracked-in water, unmarked wet floors near beverage stations, inadequate lighting, and slick entryways are recurring hazards. Sacramento's restaurant and bar concentration in Midtown, East Sacramento, and the R Street Corridor produces a steady volume of premises liability claims in those areas.
- Parking structures and lots. Cracked and uneven pavement, inadequate lighting, missing or damaged wheel stops, and drainage failures generate slip, trip, and fall claims. Sacramento's downtown parking structures — including those serving DOCO and the Capitol Mall corridor — are a consistent source of these claims.
- Swimming pools. Sacramento's climate means residential complexes, hotels, and fitness facilities maintain pools for much of the year. Property owners who provide pool access owe a duty of reasonable care to users — maintaining safe pool decks, ensuring adequate drainage, keeping lighting sufficient for the hours the pool is in use, and maintaining barriers required under Health and Safety Code § 115920 et seq. When a property owner expressly invites tenants or guests to use a pool, the recreational use immunity under Civil Code § 846 does not apply.
- Old Sacramento and historic districts. Old Sacramento's brick and cobblestone surfaces, combined with heavy tourist foot traffic, produce consistent tripping and slipping hazards — particularly after rain. Uneven brick joints, sunken pavers, and deteriorating mortar are recurring conditions in the district.
- Apartment complexes and residential properties. Common areas, stairwells, laundry rooms, and walkways generate premises liability claims when landlords fail to maintain safe conditions or repair known hazards.
Negligent Security
A property owner's duty under Civil Code § 1714(a) extends beyond physical hazards. It includes a duty to protect visitors from foreseeable criminal conduct. The California Supreme Court addressed this directly in Delgado v. Trax Bar & Grill (2005) 36 Cal.4th 224, 235–36, 113 P.3d 1159, 1165:
"A defendant may owe an affirmative duty to protect another from the conduct of third parties if he or she has a 'special relationship' with the other person. Courts have found such a special relationship in cases involving the relationship between business proprietors such as shopping centers, restaurants, and bars, and their tenants, patrons, or invitees. Accordingly, in Ann M., we recognized as 'well established' the proposition that a proprietor's 'general duty of maintenance, which is owed to tenants and patrons, ... include[s] the duty to take reasonable steps to secure common areas against foreseeable criminal acts of third parties that are likely to occur in the absence of such precautionary measures.' (Ann M., supra, 6 Cal.4th 666, 674, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137, 863 P.2d 207, italics added; see also Kentucky Fried Chicken of Cal., Inc. v. Superior Court (1997) 14 Cal.4th 814, 819 & 823–824, 59 Cal.Rptr.2d 756, 927 P.2d 1260 [proprietor who has reason to believe, from observation or experience, that the conduct of another endangers an invitee has a duty to take reasonable steps to protect the invitee]; Peterson v. San Francisco Community College Dist. (1984) 36 Cal.3d 799, 806, 205 Cal.Rptr. 842, 685 P.2d 1193 [a special relationship exists between 'a possessor of land and members of the public who enter in response to the landowner's invitation']; Taylor, supra, 65 Cal.2d 114, 121, 52 Cal.Rptr. 561, 416 P.2d 793 [a business proprietor has a 'duty to take affirmative action to control the wrongful acts of third persons which threaten invitees where the [proprietor] has reasonable cause to anticipate such acts and the probability of injury resulting therefrom']; Rest.2d Torts, § 344.)"
The controlling factor in negligent security cases is foreseeability — whether prior similar criminal incidents on or near the property gave the owner reason to anticipate the risk. A bar that has documented prior assaults in its parking lot and takes no precautionary measures, a downtown parking structure with a known history of robberies and no working lighting or cameras, an apartment complex with documented prior criminal incidents and no functional security gate — these are the fact patterns that support a negligent security claim.
The duty is not triggered only by prior incidents on the specific property. It can arise from the general character of the area and the nature of the business itself. A bar that stays open until 2:00 a.m. and serves alcohol is in a different foreseeability posture than a dry goods store that closes at 6:00 p.m. Sacramento's RT light rail stations, late-night commercial corridors along K Street and Broadway, and multi-unit residential complexes in high-crime corridors are the locations where negligent security claims in Sacramento County most commonly arise.
What constitutes reasonable steps depends on the foreseeability and severity of the risk. It may mean adequate lighting, functioning security cameras, a security guard, a working gate or fence, or at minimum calling police when witnessing an assault on the premises. The measure required is proportional to the risk the owner knew or should have known about.
What Damages Are Available
A person injured through a property owner's negligence may recover economic and noneconomic damages. Economic damages include past and future medical expenses, lost earnings, and any reduction in future earning capacity caused by the injury. Noneconomic damages include pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and permanent disability or disfigurement.
Premises liability cases produce some of the most serious injuries in personal injury practice. Hip fractures — particularly in older adults — frequently require surgery and extended rehabilitation and can cause permanent impairment. Traumatic brain injuries from striking the ground or a fixed object, spinal cord injuries, and serious orthopedic injuries are all well-documented consequences of falls and assaults on inadequately maintained or secured property. Standalone pages on traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury address those specific injury categories in detail.
Punitive damages:
"In the case at bench, we find the evidence amply sufficient to justify the jury's determination of malice and an award of punitive damages. As Seimon tells us, '(m)ost often this element is proven by circumstantial evidence alone.' Here there was considerable evidence, both direct and circumstantial, that a very dangerous condition existed around defendant's gas pumps; there was a dual peril to both customers and employees of fire and slipping and falling.
Defendant's established inattention to the danger showed a complete lack of concern regarding the harmful potential the probability and likelihood of injury. The entire nature of defendant's operation, as it was presented to the jury, reflected defendant's overriding concern for a minimum-expense operation, regardless of the peril involved. This concern was evidenced by the method of deployment of clerks, the absence of maintenance personnel, and the absence of necessary equipment for handling oil sold to customers. The evidence also established that the employees who observed the danger daily communicated it upward to supervisory personnel, but to no avail."
Filing a Premises Liability Claim in Sacramento County
Premises liability injury claims in Sacramento County are filed in the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Superior Court, located at 720 Ninth Street, Sacramento, CA 95814. The standard statute of limitations for personal injury claims is two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1. Attorney Rehm identifies all applicable deadlines at the outset of every case.
Free Consultation — No Fee Without a Recovery
Attorney Michael Rehm handles premises liability cases throughout Sacramento County on a contingency fee basis. No fee without a recovery. Call (916) 233-7346 for a free consultation — home visits, and hospital visits available.
Sacramento Premises Liability Attorney — Michael Rehm — (916) 233-7346
Resources:
Sacramento Slip and Fall Attorney