In Ceja v. Department of Transportation (issued December 19, 2011) the Appellate Court held that the history of incidents on property prior to a substantial change of the property may be properly excluded from evidence, as they have no tendency to prove the existence of a dangerous condition.
In May 2003, Gerardo Ceja (“Ceja”) was driving his vehicle northbound on Route 99 when he crossed the median and struck two southbound vehicles. Both Ceja and his passenger, Simon Olivarez (“Olivarez”), died in the collision. Ceja’s and Olivarez’s surviving family members sued the Department of Transportation (“DOT”) for wrongful death damages, alleging that the lack of a median barrier created a dangerous condition.
In 1994, the portion of Route 99 where the incident occurred had been reconfigured from a four-lane highway to a six-lane highway. The DOT requested the Court exclude evidence of four accidents that had occurred in the same area before the 1994 reconfiguration on the grounds that the physical condition of the area had substantially changed. After the trial court granted the DOT’s request, the jury entered a verdict in favor of the DOT. Ceja’s and Olivarez’s family members appealed.
The Court of Appeal upheld the trial court’s decision to exclude evidence of the pre-1994 accidents. In deciding whether a dangerous condition of property exists at the time of a given accident, a trial court has the discretion to admit evidence of prior accidents where the conditions existing at the time of the those accidents are similar. However, there must be proof that there was “no substantial change” during the time between the prior accidents and the accident being considered in a present lawsuit. In this case, the Court of Appeal found that the expansion of the highway nine years before the accident resulted in a “substantial change” in the property. As a result, evidence of accidents on the four-lane highway prior to 1994 was inadmissible, as those accidents would not tend to prove that the existing six-lane highway was dangerous in 2003.
While the Court of Appeal applied this reasoning to an incident on a public road, this decision should be applicable to situations involving private property, as well. The holding here is a victory for property owners in that not every incident that occurs on their property will be deemed relevant to prove the existence of a dangerous condition. If modifications have been made between the time that prior incidents occurred and the time of the incident upon which a present lawsuit is based, it is likely that the prior incidents will be successfully excluded from evidence.
