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C.A. Declines to Find That Body Shop Owner Owes Duty to Prevent Harm From Stolen Car

Opinion Says Keeping Keys in Unlocked Rack Did Not Make It Foreseeable That Proprietor’s Grandson With Purportedly Troubled Past Would Steal Vehicle

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Div. Three of this district’s Court of Appeal has held that summary judgment was properly granted to an automotive repair shop that was sued for negligence relating to a crash involving a vehicle stolen from the facility by the owner’s grandson, finding that the fact that the cars were stored in an unsecured lot and the keys were kept in unlocked rack behind reception did not render the accident foreseeable under the “special circumstances” doctrine.

Saying that the shop owed no duty to the parents of a decedent who allege that their son committed suicide after suffering brain damage from the crash, the court also rejected the notion that the owner’s knowledge of the driver’s history of drug use and “rebellious” behavior made the incident reasonably foreseeable.

At issue is whether the facts surrounding the theft qualify as “special circumstances” under jurisprudence establishing that, although the owner or bailee of a motor vehicle generally has no duty to protect third persons against the possibility a thief will steal the vehicle and injure them with it, some facts may justify the imposition of liability if the foreseeable risk of harm imposed by the defendant’s actions is unreasonable.

In Thursday’s opinion, authored by Justice Rashida A. Adams and joined in by Presiding Justice Lee Edmon and Justice Mark K. Hanasono, the court distinguished the case from those finding a duty on similarly situated plaintiffs, saying:

“[W]e conclude that special circumstances do not exist here….[T]he keys were kept in a locked shop, on a rack not visible to someone in front of the reception desk. There had been no prior car thefts, and there is evidence that the vehicles were kept locked. There is no evidence of warning signs of theft or security problems.”

Lost Control

The question arose after Marques Pina, an unlicensed driver, lost control of the stolen vehicle during a turn and crashed into a home in Chino Hills on Jan. 6, 2017. Jalen Murphy was a passenger in the car and allegedly suffered traumatic brain injuries, including severe depression.

In 2020 and 2021, each of Murphy’s parents filed a complaint for wrongful death against Marques Pina, his grandmother, Virginia Pina, and her business, Brea Auto Body Inc., among others, after Murphy died of a fentanyl overdose in August 2019. The cases were later consolidated.

The plaintiffs characterized Murphy’s death as a suicide brought on by the brain injuries he suffered from the crash and based their claims on negligence theories of liability. The vehicle was owned by Hertz Corporation, a rental company that contracted with Brea Auto Body to store cars at the location.

Marques Pina took the keys to the Nissan in question from the unsecured rack behind the reception desk at his grandmother’s business while she was using the restroom. Virginia Pina acknowledged that he had performed odd jobs for the company over the years, receiving a few dollars in compensation, but said that he was not employed at the time of the crash as he was living in Utah.

She admitted that he wound up in Utah after his parents sent him to school out of state due to a history of using drugs and acting “rebellious[ly]” during his teen years.

Virginia Pina and Brea Auto Body filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that they were not vicariously liable for the driver’s actions and owed no duty to Murphy. In November 2022, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jill Feeney granted the request, and judgment was entered in their favor.

Special Circumstances Doctrine

The special circumstances doctrine was established in the 1954 California Supreme Court case of Richards v. Stanley in which the high court said that, unless a case presented special circumstances, “the owner or bailee of a motor vehicle has no duty to protect third persons against the possibility a thief will steal the vehicle and injure them with it.”

In that case, the court declined to find the owner of an unattended and unlocked vehicle, with the key left in the ignition, liable to a motorcyclist who was hit by a thief who stole the unsecured car. Adams said that “[w]hile several courts have distinguished Richards, we disagree with Herman’s assertion that the case is no longer good law,” and remarked:

“[C]ourts have recognized the existence of ‘special circumstances’ in two situations: (1) cases in which a defendant left the keys inside an unlocked car and it was foreseeable the car might be stolen due to the circumstances of the area in which [the] car was left, or something encouraged the public to tamper with the vehicle, and (2) cases involving construction or similar vehicles that pose a danger greater than an ordinary vehicle and give rise to more curiosity from the public than an ordinary vehicle.”

Finding neither set of factors applicable, she commented:

“[I]t is undisputed that the keys were left on a rack behind a reception area, within the locked shop, which was protected by an alarm system. Although the location of the keys within the shop was not locked, it was not visible to individuals in front of the reception area. Keys had never gone missing. No vehicle had ever been stolen from the shop. The shop had never been burglarized. There is no evidence that it was in a high-crime area. There was no evidence that Virginia’s family members or friends who visited the shop ever stole anything, and no evidence that Virginia had knowledge of any person in any way affiliated with her family or the business stealing a car or causing an accident….”

Behavioral History

As to Marques Pina’s behavioral history, Adams opined:

“[The plaintiff] attempts to distinguish Richards—involving the more reckless circumstance of an unlocked vehicle with the key in the ignition—because Virginia knew her grandson was rebellious and had used drugs. He also argues she should have known something was amiss when she asked Marques to wait in the car, but he came inside the shop. Nothing about these facts indicated that Marques would steal a car from his own grandmother’s shop and subsequently drive it in a manner to cause injury to others.”

She added that the court’s task in determining whether a duty of care exists “ ‘is not to decide whether a particular plaintiff’s injury was reasonably foreseeable in light of a particular defendant’s conduct,’ ” but to evaluate whether the type of allegedly negligent conduct at issue is likely to result in the kind of harm experienced.

The jurist concluded:

“The special circumstances doctrine does not apply on the record here.

The case is Murphy v. Pina, 2025 S.O.S. 2894.

Igor Fradkin and Daniel Azizi of the Downtown L.A. Law Group, as well as Joseph S. Socher, represented the decedent’s father, plaintiff Herman Murphy, on appeal. Sherman Oaks-based attorney Stefon Aubrey Jones appeared on behalf of plaintiff Tinasha Sullivan, Jalen Murphy’s mother.

Acting on behalf of the defendants were Steven S. Fleischman and Scott P. Dixler of the Burbank firm Horvitz & Levy LLP. and Matthew Charles Jaime and Robert Wayne Sweetin of Matheny Sears Linkert & Jaime LLP, based in Sacramento.