Facts

Plaintiff Susie Garcia suffered physical injuries as a result of a trip and fall accident on November 20, 2015 at a restaurant facility located within the California Academy of Sciences located in San Francisco, California that is owned by the City and County of San Francisco. The restaurant facility was wholly managed and controlled by Sodexo, Inc., a contracted food service provider at the facility, for whom Plaintiff worked as an employee in the pizza kitchen.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS: Plaintiff claimed that on the morning of the incident, she was working making pizzas and was carrying a tray pan when she stepped into an uncovered floor sink drain. She claimed that the floor sink drain was uncovered the morning of her incident, but that she had observed the cover for the floor sink drain in place the day prior to her fall. Plaintiff claimed that Defendant California Academy of Sciences was liable for her injuries on a premises liability argument and that the Academy negligently maintained the kitchen area where Plaintiff injured herself as they retained some degree of control over the kitchen. As a result of the incident, Plaintiff suffered injury to her knee requiring surgery for a torn meniscus, missed time from work and associated mental and emotional injuries.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS: California Academy of Sciences argued that Plaintiff's sole remedy and recourse was through Workers Compensation and that her claims against Defendant were barred by the Privette v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 689 line of cases. Defendant had relinquished responsibility for the daily maintenance and control of the kitchen area where Plaintiff was injured to her employer, Sodexo, Inc. via a Food Services Agreement and there was no evidence that Defendant actively participated in any way in causing or contributing to the missing floor sink drain cover that had been present the day prior to Plaintiff's incident. While Defendant had responsibility for control of other aspects of the entire building and portions of the kitchen area, the responsibility for daily control of the kitchen preparation area, including the daily responsibility for keeping the premises free of hazardous conditions, nightly cleaning of the kitchen and providing cleaning and maintenance services for the kitchen and preparation area were delegated to Sodexo, Inc. under the Food Services Agreement. The control that was retained by Defendant did not impose liability on Defendant for the conditions that Plaintiff's employer, Sodexo, Inc., chose to expose its employee to without Defendant's consent or approval.

Injuries

Plaintiff Susie Garcia suffered multiple torn tendons and ligaments to her knee when she fell nearly all the way to the ground, along with claims of injury to her shoulder and rotator cuff. She also claims to have suffered injury to her back and tears to her L3-L4 and L4-L5 which resulted in acute pain in her back that Plaintiff claimed have become chronic.

Result

The court determined that Plaintiff failed to show that Defendant California Academy of Sciences affirmatively contributed to the cause of the accident (i.e. removal of the floor sink drain grate that Plaintiff stepped into) and that there was no evidence that Defendant had any role in the removal of the floor sink drain cover that by Plaintiff's own testimony had been present the day prior to the incident. Merely retaining control over the premises or passively allowing an alleged unsafe work environment to exist were insufficient to impose liability on Defendant under the holding of Privette. Accordingly, Defendant's motion for summary judgment was granted.