The California Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Riverside woman who heard her daughter’s car crash over the phone—and who sued for dangerous property conditions that she claimed caused the crash.
The ruling sets precedent over emotional distress cases heard over the phone.
The crash
Jayde Downey was on a phone with her daughter, Malyah Vance, while Vance was driving through the Via Zapata/Canyon Crest Drive intersection, just south of Riverside’s Canyon Crest Towne Centre, on Dec. 4, 2018. Vance took a left turn onto Canyon Crest, and was hit by a car going southward.
Downey heard the sounds of the crash, heard a person say he was trying to find a pulse, and rushed to the accident.
Downey sued, arguing that the accident caused emotional distress. She brought the case against both Riverside city, and the owners of the property on the corner.
She alleged both of them negligently caused line of sight issues: the property owners were negligent in maintaining landscaping, and the city was negligent by allowing parking along the side of the road.
Case history
Riverside Superior Judge Harold Hopp threw out Downey’s case Sept. 24, 2021, after finding that Downey did not have a bystander claim to sue. A bystander claim occurs when a person witnesses their family member being harmed. Since Downey was not physically present, Hopp ruled, she could not bring the case.
The Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One, found on April 26, 2023, that Downey remotely experienced the crash.
The court still ordered the case to be amended, finding that she did not prove she knew about the city or the property owner’s alleged negligent conduct at the time of the crash.
Supreme Court ruling
The Supreme Court’s ruling overturned the appellate decision, finding that plaintiffs do not have to know about the defendant’s role in causing an injury.
“The emotional trauma that comes from witnessing such an accident exists regardless of whether the plaintiff is aware at the time of the accident of all the individuals or entities that have contributed to the accident through their conduct,” the ruling says.
The Supreme Court came to that decision through case review, finding that past rulings have not established a need to be aware of the negligent conduct. In doing so, the court differentiated between precedent for medical cases and car accidents.
“(Bird v. Saenz) placed particular emphasis on how difficult — often impossible — it generally is for laypersons to recognize in the moment that a course of medical treatment is causing injury. Even when plaintiffs are present at the scene of the injury causing event and observe conduct that they later realize caused injury to a close relative, their lack of medical knowledge will ordinarily keep them from being ‘then aware that it (was) causing injury to the victim,’” the ruling said.
The court relied largely on the 1989 case Thing v. La Chusa, which established a requirement for a bystander plaintiff to be present at the scene of the event, and to be aware that the event was causing injury. That requirement does not include a requirement to prove knowledge of a defendant’s negligence, the court ruled.
“In sum, neither Bird nor subsequent cases have required contemporaneous awareness of the causal connection between each defendant’s conduct and a victim’s injury. On the contrary, several post-Thing cases have at least implicitly rejected such a requirement by allowing recovery for plaintiffs who have witnessed injurious explosions, fires, and other similar accidents, even if they could not have been aware at the time that the defendant had contributed to these disastrous events,” the ruling says.
Restriction
During oral argument, Shelby Kennick of CP Law Group argued for the property owners. She said that a restriction—such as by a requirement of knowledge—was needed to halt the increase of bystander tort cases that have been brought through phone calls.
The Supreme Court found that argument unpersuasive.
“We see no reason why this balance (between recovery and liability) ought to tip in favor of circumscribing recovery based not on whether the plaintiff has suffered emotional harm from witnessing a loved one being injured, but whether the plaintiff is also contemporaneously aware of all those responsible for the injury,” the court ruled.
Oral argument
During oral argument, Riverside attorney Greg Rizio argued that a different ruling would be too restrictive.
“I would submit to the court that dangerous conditions take place over time. They don’t just happen right away. Therefore, it is impossible, and an impossible burden, to say that a plaintiff should understand all of the elements at the time that a triggering event takes place,” Rizio said.
Defendants’ attorneys argued that plaintiffs must have contemporaneous understanding of the defendant’s alleged negligence.
“She could not see the tree branches, she could not hear the tree branches, she could not see where the stop sign was placed, if there were parked cars, she had no awareness of the defendant’s connection, in relation to plaintiff’s injury. The sound of a car crash does not equate to, ‘Oh, it’s because the trees were negligently maintained.’ Even if plaintiff Downey knew at other times that area, she had driven there before, and the trees had blocked her view—she had no idea at the time of the accident,” Kennick said.
Case information
Grez Rizio of Rizio Lipinsky Heiting argued before the Supreme Court.
Riverside Deputy City Attorney Edward Reed argued.
Shelby Kennick of CP Law Group argued for the property owners.
Appellate Case No. S280322
Read Downey’s opening brief here
Read the city’s answer brief here
Watch oral argument here
Read the ruling here.
Read our previous coverage:
Riverside crash case sets rules for emotional distress claims
IE lawyer argues before CA Supreme Court on negligence ruling
