HOA Not Responsible for Injuries to Pedestrian/Visitor Who Had to Park Across the Street

In a recent case, (Issakhani v. Shadow Glen Homeowners Assn. (Apr. 30, 2021, No. B301746) ___Cal.App.5th___ [2021 Cal. App. LEXIS 369, at *1].), the plaintiff was struck by a car while jaywalking across a five-lane highway at night.  The plaintiff sued the owner of the condominium complex she was trying to visit for negligence and premises liability for having too few onsite parking spaces for guests.

The trial court granted summary judgment to the owner on the grounds that it owed plaintiff no duty under the common law or under a city ordinance that rezoned the complex’s specific parcel for multifamily dwellings and conditioned that rezoning on providing a specific number of guest parking spaces.

The plaintiff appealed.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment. Summary judgment in favor of the owner was appropriate because the owner owed plaintiff no duty of care as a matter of law.

The court concluded that a landowner’s common law duty of care does not encompass a duty to provide onsite parking for invitees in order to protect them from traffic accidents occurring off site as they travel to the premises.

Because the city ordinance requiring the owner to provide a specific number of guest parking spaces embodied no general public policy, it could not be used as a fulcrum to create a duty of care.

The court rejected as meritless plaintiff’s argument that the owner engaged in active misfeasance because it reduced the number of available guest parking spaces from 34 to 6. There was no evidence that plaintiff was less careful in crossing the road because the complex had fewer onsite parking spaces than required by the ordinance.