LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – A California YMCA won’t be liable for the death of a resident who fell off its steep roof after drinking alcohol and eating a marijuana brownie.
The Second Appellate District on Aug. 3 ruled against Abel Montes, Sr., in the wrongful death lawsuit he brought on behalf of his son against the Young Men’s Christian Association of Glendale.
The decision affirms a Los Angeles Superior Court ruling that the YMCA did not owe a duty of care to Montes Jr. because the steep slope of the roof was an open and obvious condition. The roof was also covered with “brittle, broken, slippery and unstable Spanish tiles,” the decision says.
Montes Sr. argued it was foreseeable someone could fall off the roof because a desk clerk testified he had heard of people going on what he assumed to be the flat part of the roof.
“Even without the desk clerk’s testimony, it is indisputable that defendant must have known, and intended that people would occasionally access the roof, for example, to make repairs,” the decision says.
“Otherwise, there would not have been stairs to the fifth floor leading to nothing but a small door giving access to the roof alcove where there was a short ladder leading up to the roof. But that fact does not create a material disputed fact that Mr. Montes’s fatal fall from the open and obviously steep sloping roof with broken and slippery Spanish tiles was reasonably foreseeable.
“It is irrelevant whether defendant could have taken the precautions plaintiffs now suggest because defendant had no duty to do so.”
The fall occurred after Montes attended a birthday party on New Year’s in 2015. He was seen drinking beer and champagne at the party and arrived at the YMCA at 2 a.m.
He told the deck clerk he had eaten a brownie, wasn’t feeling well and was high. He declined the clerk’s offer to call 911.
“At about 4 a.m., Mr. Montes returned to the lobby and began behaving erratically, getting on his knees to pray, rolling around against the wall, knocking down plants and falling to the floor, knocking down a window curtain,” the decision says.
At 6 a.m., the clerk noticed Montes lying on the hood of his car. He had fallen off the roof and was still alive but died an hour later at 23 years old.