![]() ![]() Second, the citizen had to establish that the municipality had knowledge or notice of the condition and failed to remedy it within a reasonable time. ) First, a citizen had to establish that he or she was injured by a dangerous condition of public property. California’s legislature sought to remedy that situation with the Public Liability Act of 1923, which created a two-pronged requirement for citizen suits against municipalities. Such is the mode by which, in the decades since their inception, the message of the trivial-defect doctrine’s forbearers has become heavily distorted.Īt common law, citizens were unable to recover damages for personal injuries suffered as a result of defects in public property because municipalities enjoyed immunity for all acts performed in a governmental capacity. Justice Brennan once analogized the evolution of legal precedent to the children’s game “telephone” – a message is repeated from one person to another, and then another, and after some time, the message bears little resemblance to what was originally spoken. In reality, the modern trivial-defect doctrine is a heavily mutated version of legal principles from the 1920s, which are virtually unrecognizable in their current form and have ceased to serve their original function. ) Recent cases treat the trivial-defect doctrine as a longstanding and self-evident rule, whose existence is compelled by the obvious impossibility of maintaining walkways in perfect condition. ![]() Big Boy Restaurants (1987) 192 Cal.App.3d 394, 396, California courts now treat it as an element of duty which a plaintiff must plead and prove. In essence, the court holds that the defect at issue was so trifling that, as a matter of law, it was reasonable for the defendant to allow the defect to go unrepaired.Īlthough it is sometimes referred to as the “trivial-defect defense,” and has been discussed as if it were an affirmative defense in certain appellate opinions, such as Dolquist v. It is a formidable weapon because it allows a judge to determine that the sidewalk defect that caused the plaintiff’s fall was “trivial” and therefore not actionable as a matter of law instead of submitting the question of a defendant’s negligence to a jury. The “trivial-defect doctrine” is the defense strategy of choice in sidewalk trip-and-fall lawsuits. ![]()
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