LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) - A jogger who says she was diverted into the road by a homeless encampment and struck by a car has no case against the owner of the property where the squatters set up camp, a California appeals court has ruled. California law prohibits most lawsuits by plaintiffs who are on someone else’s property for a “recreational purpose” and jogging is included in that definition, the court ruled.
Shanna Rucker was training for a half-marathon at around midnight on Nov. 9, 2016, when she jogged onto a property owned by Wincal LLC in Los Angeles. She was familiar with the area but this time her path was blocked by a homeless encampment, so she ran onto the bicycle lane on the street. A car struck her, and she was thrown more than 30 feet, sustaining serious injuries.
Rucker sued multiple defendants over the accident, including Wincal, claiming the property owner negligently allowed its premises to slip into an unsafe condition. Wincal filed for summary judgment, citing California Civil Code Section 846, which states property owners owe no duty of care to people who enter their premises “for any recreational purposes.”
A Los Angeles trial court dismissed the case and California’s Second Appellate District, Division Five, in a Feb. 4 decision, upheld.
Rucker’s attorneys, James A. Link and DAG Law Firm, argued jogging was not specifically listed in the statute, which names a number of activities including fishing, hunting, spelunking and hang-gliding. They cited a California appeals court decision from 1979 that held a jury must decide whether a girl walking her bicycle across a bridge met the definition of “hiking” listed in Section 846.
That California Supreme Court disapproved of that decision in 1984, however, and the appeals court agreed that the list of activities in the statute isn’t exhaustive and should be “construed broadly.”
“Even if the mere act of jogging, a form of movement by foot, were insufficient to demonstrate a “recreational purpose,” it was undisputed here that plaintiff was jogging as part of her training for a half-marathon,” the appeals court ruled. “She was not, for instance, jogging because she was late for work.”