Jordan v. City of Long Beach

In Jordan v. City of Long Beach (1971) 17 Cal. App. 3d 878, the plaintiff allegedly fell when she stepped on broken, sunken pavement and a protruding water pipe. She sued the defendant city, alleging that the city had failed to remedy the dangerous condition created by the broken pavement and the protruding pipe. ( Id., at p. 880.) The trial court granted summary judgment for the city on the ground that it did not own either the broken portion of the pavement or the pipe. ( Id., at pp. 879-881.) The appellate court reversed. It, too, quoted the Law Revision Commission's comment that a public entity's "'property may be considered dangerous if . . . a condition on the adjacent property exposes those using the public property to a substantial risk of injury.'" ( Jordan v. City of Long Beach, supra, 17 Cal. App. 3d at p. 882.) It concluded that "a dangerous or defective condition may be found to exist on public property sufficient to impose a duty upon the public entity to take corrective or protective measures notwithstanding that the danger exists only by reason of a condition existing on adjacent privately owned property. " ( Id., at p. 883.) Noting that the broken pavement and the pipe were about 12 inches away from a city-owned sidewalk, it held there was a triable issue of fact with respect to whether the "condition existing on the adjoining private property exposed persons using the city-owned property to a substantial risk of injury." ( Id., at p. 881.)