Thursday, March 12, 2026
Page 3
Court of Appeal:
‘Branch Falls’ From Other Trees Relevant to Notice of Danger
Opinion Rejects Contention That Admission of Evidence Was Akin to Allowing Plaintiff to Rely on Proof of Uneven Sidewalks Miles From Where Party Tripped to Show Awareness of Risk
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Five of this district’s Court of Appeal held yesterday that a trial judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting evidence regarding the condition of trees of the same species and in the general vicinity as one that injured the plaintiff by dropping branches on him unexpectedly, reasoning that the testimony was relevant to whether the city was aware of a dangerous condition of municipal property.
Rejecting the defendant’s assertion that allowing the evidence was akin to admitting proof of uneven sidewalks miles away from where a plaintiff tripped, Presiding Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt, writing for the court, declared:
“[T]he repeated recurrence of branch failures in a relatively brief period of time from the same species of tree subject to the same maintenance schedule and similar environmental factors also suggests a common problem that should have attracted the City’s attention to—and thereby imparted actual or constructive notice of—a particular condition requiring correction.”
At issue is whether the so-called “prior branch falls” were properly admitted during a trial in a lawsuit filed by Lulin Yan against the City of Diamond Bar. In the May 2019 complaint, Yan alleged that he suffered a compression fracture to his spine after he was knocked to the ground when three branches fell off a smelly but ornamental “Bradford pear tree” on Montefino Avenue.
Dangerous Condition
The plaintiff asserted a claim under Government Code §835 which provides that a city “is liable for injury caused by a dangerous condition” of municipal property if the defect created a reasonably foreseeable risk and the entity “had actual or constructive notice” of the problem before the accident.
At trial, Yan called Robert Ludowitz, the president of a homeowners’ association in charge of overseeing the neighborhood where the accident occurred. Ludowitz testified that he had reported several previous incidents of fallen limbs from the Bradford pear trees that lined the city’s streets in the five years leading up to Yan’s injuries.
City records showed nine such events in that time period, including an incident in which a limb the size of a truck bed fell to the street and another instance of branches colliding with an area where children load onto school buses. The defendant objected to the admission of the evidence as irrelevant.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Bryant Yang instructed the jury that it could consider the prior branch failures as evidence bearing on whether the city had notice of a dangerous condition. The panel returned a verdict for the plaintiff in 2024, awarding him $750,000 in past and future non-economic losses.
Yesterday’s opinion, joined in by Justice Dorothy C. Kim and retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sanjay Kumar, sitting by assignment, affirms the ensuing May 2024 judgment.
Prior Accident
Hoffstadt noted that evidence of a prior accident may be admitted to prove that a public entity had actual or constructive notice of a dangerous condition so long as it is “similar enough” to attract attention to the risky situation at issue in the lawsuit. Applying those principles, he reasoned:
“[T]he trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the prior branch failures of Bradford pear trees in the same vicinity as the tree that injured plaintiff were admissible….The trees involved in all the incidents were in the same vicinity, which means they were on the same grid-based pruning and maintenance schedule and experienced the same environmental factors that ‘affect tree health’ (such as ‘soil’ and ‘water’).” As to the city’s comparisons to cases in which a plaintiff trips on an uneven sidewalk or slips on vomit, the jurist opined:
“We reject these analogies. The City urges that evidence that a sidewalk is uneven in a different location than where a plaintiff tripped is not relevant. Even if we were to assume for purposes of argument that this principle is true…, [it] does not extend to tree branch failures because defects in different segments of a sidewalk do not share the commonalities that are shared by the same species of tree subject to the same maintenance schedule in the same area.”
Adding that “[t]he City’s analogy to a case about vomit is even more slippery,” he wrote:
“To be sure, it has been held that ‘other instances of “vomit” [at a particular location]’ do not establish a public entity’s constructive notice of the vomit in a different location where the plaintiff slipped….But, as other courts have noted, that holding ‘deal[s] with unusual transitory situations [caused by] different third party sources and not, as here, from the condition’ of the same species of tree subject to the same maintenance schedule.”
Unique Characteristics
Addressing the city’s assertion that each “tree has unique characteristics” affecting the likelihood of shedding branches, including age and health, the judge remarked:
“We reject this argument….To begin, it is unsupported by any evidence, as the City elected not to introduce any testimony at trial as to whether and how the age or health of a Bradford pear tree affects their susceptibility to branch failures….”
He added:
“What is more, the net effect of the City’s argument is to exclude all evidence of branch failures from any tree except the specific tree that caused plaintiff’s injury: Because that standard is more demanding than the ‘relaxed’ standard applicable when admitting prior accidents to show notice…the City is effectively asking us to jettison nearly a century of precedent, including from our Supreme Court.”
The case is Yan v. City of Diamond Bar, B339583.
Martin Joel Kanarek of the Beverly Hills office of BD&J PC and Stuart B. Esner of the Pasadena office of Esner, Chang, Boyer & Murphy acted for Yan. Christopher J. Bagnaschi of Pasadena-based Haith Bagnashi APC represented the city.
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