Guernsey v. City of Salinas, 30 Cal. App. 5th 269

Background

In 2013 Un Suk Guernsey was severely injured while crossing a faded crosswalk on City of Salinas property where a driveway meets North Davis Road; the crosswalk had been painted in 1997 and never repainted.
The Salinas Municipal Code required the City to maintain crosswalks, but City maintenance was complaint-driven and it had no inspection program; MUTCD standards call for 12-inch solid white lines.
Plaintiff sued the City (dangerous condition of public property under Gov. Code § 835) and the driver; at trial plaintiff’s theory against the City was failure to maintain (not defective design). Evidence addressed faded paint, adjacent pink stamped concrete (on private property), stop sign location, and overgrown bushes.
The court, over plaintiff’s objection, gave the City’s requested “Design of the Driveway” instruction which told the jury it could not rely on design characteristics (e.g., stop sign placement, left turn pocket, pink cement) to find a dangerous condition; the court also gave an instruction permitting liability where adjacent-property conditions contributed.
The special verdict asked separately (2a and 2b) whether the City’s property was dangerous due to (a) lack of crosswalk lines/bushes on City property or (b) those factors in conjunction with adjacent-property conditions (pink concrete, stop sign). The jury answered both “No,” found the driver negligent, and wrote “Paint the xwalk Salinas!” on the verdict form.
On appeal the court addressed whether giving the City’s design-focused instruction was erroneous and prejudicial and reversed the judgment as to the City.

Issues

Issue	Guernsey's Argument	City’s Argument	Held
Whether the court erred by giving the City’s “Design of the Driveway” instruction	Instruction was erroneous, ambiguous, and improperly barred the jury from considering adjacent-property features in finding a dangerous condition arising from failure to maintain	Instruction was needed to clarify plaintiff was not pursuing a design-immunity claim so jury would not base liability on design elements	Court reversed — instruction was legally incorrect and conflicted with adjacent-property instruction; error prejudicial
Whether plaintiff forfeited challenge to instruction by failing to object on identical grounds at trial	Objections below encompassed misleading/confusing and erroneous; did not forfeit appellate review of an erroneous instruction	Argued plaintiff forfeited by not raising specific appellate grounds below	Court found no forfeiture; plaintiff preserved objection that instruction was misleading/erroneous
Whether juror declarations and jury notes showed prejudice from the instruction	Juror annotations linked the instruction to verdict questions, indicating the jury used the erroneous language to answer 2a/2b; foreperson’s affidavit corroborated	City argued juror affidavits were inadmissible under Evidence Code §1150 and did not prove prejudice	Court held most juror affidavit material was barred as revealing mental processes, but jury handwriting on the instruction (and verdict questions) supported prejudice finding
Whether instructional error was harmless	City argued no prejudice because other instructions and evidence supported verdict	Plaintiff argued the error likely affected the close dangerous-condition questions; jury struggled with definition and asked questions	Court held error was prejudicial given conflicting instructions, jury questions, the handwritten linkage, and undisputed poor maintenance; reversal required

Key Cases Cited

Agarwal v. Johnson, 25 Cal.3d 932 (recognizes requirement to request clarifying instruction below to preserve certain instructional complaints)
Lund v. San Joaquin Valley Railroad, 31 Cal.4th 1 (party may challenge erroneous instruction on appeal despite different trial objections)
Rutherford v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 16 Cal.4th 953 (standard for prejudicial instructional error review)
Soule v. General Motors Corp., 8 Cal.4th 548 (considerations for assessing instructional error prejudice)
Lewis, People v., 26 Cal.4th 334 (limits on juror affidavits revealing deliberative mental processes under Evid. Code §1150)
Bell v. Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft, 181 Cal.App.4th 1108 (juror affidavit limitations when addressing understanding of instructions)
Harb v. City of Bakersfield, 233 Cal.App.4th 606 (discusses juror affidavits and ambiguous instruction issues)
Mozzetti v. City of Brisbane, 67 Cal.App.3d 565 (explains process for asserting design immunity and distinction from maintenance claims)