Personal injury guide
Premises Liability in California
A property owner can be responsible when an unsafe condition it knew about, or should have found, causes an injury. Here is how.
Reviewed by Robert L. Montanez, Esq.
Why it matters
Owners have a duty of care.
Most injuries on someone else’s property come from ordinary things: a spill in a store aisle, a broken step at an apartment complex, a dark parking lot. California law calls these premises liability claims, and they turn on what the person in charge of the property knew or should have known.
California differs from many states in one important way. The reason you were on the property does not by itself decide whether the owner owed you care. What matters is whether the owner acted reasonably to keep the property safe.
This guide explains who can be responsible, what has to be proven, what happens if you were partly at fault, and the shorter deadline that applies when the property belongs to a city, county, or the state.
What is premises liability?
Premises liability is the responsibility a property owner, or anyone else who controls a property, has for injuries caused by an unsafe condition there. California law requires everyone to use ordinary care in managing their property.
The responsible party is not always the owner. Depending on the facts, it can be:
The owner of a home or building
A landlord, for shared areas it controls, such as stairways, hallways, and parking lots, and in some cases for hazards inside a rental that it knew about and had the right to fix
A tenant or business that runs the space, such as a store or restaurant
A property management company or homeowners association
Claims commonly involve wet or slippery floors, broken stairs or handrails, uneven walkways, poor lighting, falling merchandise, and unfenced pools. Our guide to slip, trip, and fall claims covers falls in more detail, and dog bites follow their own rule, explained in our dog bite guide.
In some cases, a business open to the public or a landlord can also be responsible for a criminal attack on the property, usually when earlier similar incidents or other warning signs made it foreseeable and reasonable precautions were not taken.
Does it matter why you were on the property?
Not the way it does in many states. The California Supreme Court did away with the old rules that gave customers, guests, and trespassers different levels of protection. The question is whether the owner acted as a reasonable person would, given how likely an injury was.
Your reason for being there still bears on that question. A store can expect customers in its aisles; it has less reason to expect someone in a locked storeroom at night.
A few situations have their own rules:
Recreation. An owner who lets people use land for recreation, such as hiking, fishing, or picnicking, is generally protected unless the owner charged for entry, expressly invited the person, or willfully or maliciously failed to guard or warn against a danger.
Serious crimes. An owner is generally not responsible to someone hurt while committing certain serious felonies on the property.
What has to be proven?
To win, you generally have to show four things:
The person or business you are claiming against owned, leased, occupied, or controlled the property.
It was careless in how the property was used or maintained.
You were harmed.
That carelessness was a substantial factor in causing the harm.
Most disputes are about the second point. An owner can be responsible for a dangerous condition it knew about, or should have found through reasonable inspection, if it had time to fix it or warn people and did not. If the owner or its employees created the condition, such as by mopping a floor without a warning sign, the owner is generally treated as knowing about it.
When the owner did not create the hazard or know about it, how long it was there is often the key question. A spill that sat in an aisle long enough for a routine inspection to catch it points to a missed inspection; a spill that happened moments before a fall may not.
An owner usually does not have to warn about a hazard anyone would see. But an obvious hazard can still be the owner’s responsibility to fix when people have no practical choice but to encounter it.
What if you were partly at fault?
You can still recover. California uses comparative fault: your compensation is reduced by your share of responsibility, not taken away. If you were found 20 percent at fault for not watching where you were going, you would recover 80 percent of your damages.
Owners and their insurers often argue that the injured person should have seen the hazard. Photos, witness names, and the shoes you were wearing can all matter later.
What if the property belongs to a city, county, or the state?
Injuries on public property, such as a broken sidewalk, a city parking lot, a county building, or a public school campus, follow different rules. A public agency can be responsible for a dangerous condition of its property if the condition created a foreseeable risk of the kind of injury that happened, and either an agency employee’s careless act created it, or the agency knew or should have known about it in time to fix it or warn people.
Before you can sue, you generally must present a written claim to the agency within six months of the injury. Missing that deadline can end the claim, so it is worth getting advice early.
What should you do after you are hurt on someone’s property?
Get medical care, and tell the provider exactly how the injury happened. Our guide to medical bills after an injury explains who pays.
Report the injury to the manager or owner, and ask for a copy of any incident report.
Photograph the hazard, the area, and any warning signs, or the lack of them, before anything changes.
Get the names and phone numbers of witnesses.
Keep the shoes and clothing you were wearing.
Ask whether security cameras cover the area. Video may be recorded over if no one asks for it to be saved.
Be careful with recorded statements to insurance adjusters.
Most injury lawsuits in California must be filed within two years of the injury. Claims against public agencies have the six-month claim deadline above, and a lawsuit must follow within a short time after the agency responds.
Talk with us
Montanez Yu represents people hurt by unsafe property throughout Southern California, including slip, trip, and fall injuries and dog bites. Consultations are free. No fee and no costs unless we recover. Call (951) 444-7407 or request a free consultation.
This guide is general information about California law, not legal advice for your situation.