Appellate court reverses summary judgment against injured lawyer

LOS ANGELES -- A company contracted to maintain traffic light backups for the city of Glendale can be sued for negligence if the system fails, a state appellate court panel ruled in the case of a traffic accident that left a well-known Los Angeles attorney a quadriplegic.

Since 2008, Siemens Industry Inc. has been contractually responsible for upkeep on battery backups for traffic lights in Glendale. After backup units failed to hold charges, they were removed for testing and eventually replaced.

According to the lawsuit, the replacement unit at one intersection was installed without batteries, and when a power outage in September 2011 caused a blackout, the traffic light failed entirely.

That night, Joanne Lichtman, then a litigator for Baker & Hostetler LLP, entered the intersection with her family in the car and was broadsided by another vehicle.

"This was obviously a life-changing injury for me, and for my entire family," she said Tuesday. "I'm gratified that the Court of Appeal made this ruling, and that we get to have our day in court."

Lichtman, who was once managing partner of Howrey LLP's Los Angeles office, sued Siemens for negligence. The company brought a motion for summary judgment, claiming it owed no duty of care to her. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John P. Doyle granted the motion. Lichtman et al. v. Siemens Industry Inc., BC492694 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 25, 2012).

A three-judge panel in the 2nd District Court of Appeal reinstated the case in a unanimous decision published Nov. 2.

"The city was confronted with a known risk -- power outages will happen and traffic signals will stop operating. The city's response to ameliorate the harmful effects of that risk was to install a battery backup system and enter into a contract with defendant to maintain it," Judge Kim Dunning wrote for a unanimous panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal. Lichtman v. Siemens, 2017 DJDAR 10529 (Cal. App. 2nd Dist. Nov. 2, 2017).

"We went into the appeal optimistic that this would be the outcome. It always seemed to us that Siemens should have a very difficult time arguing that even though they took the batteries out and left them out for months, they never had a duty to people who would be using the intersection in a blackout," said Jeffrey I. Ehrlich, who handled the appeal on behalf of Lichtman.

"We are currently considering our further appellate options with our client, and believe the trial court appropriately granted summary judgment in favor of Siemens," said Vangi M. Johnson of Haight, Brown & Bonesteel LLP, who represented Siemens on the appeal.

Ehrlich said that Siemens argued the city's statutory immunity carried over to the company, a position the Court of Appeal rejected.

"Just because they're contracting from a government entity doesn't mean the contractor is immune," said Michael J. Bidart of Shernoff Bidart Echeverria LLP, Lichtman's trial counsel.

Ehrlich said the company claimed the darkened intersection was no more dangerous than an intersection without signals entirely and that traffic lights serve no public safety function, only a traffic flow function.

"When you effectively thwart the city's effort to keep the lights on in [a] blackout, it's hard to make an argument you didn't make things less safe," Ehrlich said.

"The type of injury suffered is the foreseeable consequence of this negligence," Bidart said. "They just failed to do it. The contractor failed to do their job."

Dunning is an Orange County Superior Court judge sitting on special assignment with the Court of Appeal. Justices Sandy R. Kriegler and Lamar W. Baker concurred with the opinion.