Monday, April 27, 2026
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C.A. Declines to Resurrect Lawsuit Over Hotel’s Allegedly Scalding-Hot Pool Deck in Desert
Opinion Rejects View That Necessity of Walking Barefoot After Exiting Pool Creates Exception to Rule That Property Owes No Duty to Warn About Obvious Dangers
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held that a trial judge rightly granted summary judgment to the owner of a desert hotel accused of failing to warn patrons that the deck surrounding a pool on the property might be hot enough to cause injuries.
In Thursday’s unpublished opinion, written by Justice Martin N. Buchanan, the court rejected the plaintiff’s assertion that the necessity of walking barefoot after exiting the pool creates an exception to the general rule that a property owner owes no duty to warn about dangers that any reasonable person would be expected to perceive and declared:
“This is not a situation in which the evidence shows, for example, that shoes were prohibited from certain parts of the pool deck, or that the hotel required that footwear be stowed in a location far away from the pool….Accordingly, we determine that [the plaintiff] has failed to demonstrate a triable issue of fact on the applicability of the necessity exception.”
The court declined to reach the plaintiff’s alternative argument that the trial judge erred in ruling that the hotel had “no notice that the alleged dangerous condition might cause injury to anyone,” despite finding that the purported danger was open and obvious, based on an assertion that the resort “had no reason to believe someone…would ignore the hot cement.”
Presiding Justice Judith McConnell and Justice Julia C. Kelety joined in the opinion.
Burns to Feet
Appealing the judgment against him was Glenn Cohen, who filed a complaint against Chandra Hospitality, LLC, the owner and operator of a Hampton Inn & Suites located in Blythe in August 2022, alleging that suffered burns on the bottom of his feet while walking barefoot on the cement surface after exiting the property’s pool in August 2021, while the air temperature was 113 degrees, causing the skin to “disintegrate.”
He asserted premises liability and negligence claims, alleging that the company breached its duty of care “by failing to address…the dangerous condition…, and by failing to warn their guests…of such dangerous condition.”
After the defendant moved for summary judgment, Cohen submitted a declaration by Enrique Rivera, a safety engineer, who said that he took heat measurements on the property on a summer day when the air was 108 degrees and determined that the temperature of the pool deck was as high as 147 degrees.
Riverside Superior Court Judge Manuel Bustamente ruled for the defendant, finding that “[t]here was nothing concealing the fact that hot ambient temperatures create hot cement on the ground” and that the defendant was not on notice of the allegedly dangerous condition.
Open, Obvious Condition
Saying that “[t]he most important of [the] considerations or factors [in a premises liability lawsuit] is ‘the foreseeability of injury to another,’ ” Buchanan wrote:
“Harm resulting from a dangerous condition is typically not considered foreseeable if the dangerous condition is open and obvious….Put another way, if a dangerous condition is so obvious that a person could reasonably be expected to perceive it, the condition itself serves as a warning and the landowner generally has no further duty to remedy or warn of the condition.”
However, he acknowledged that courts have recognized a “necessity exception” to the general rule such that “[i]t is foreseeable that even an obvious danger may cause injury ‘if the practical necessity of encountering the danger, when weighed against the apparent risk involved, is such that under the circumstances, a person might choose to encounter the danger.’ ”
Exception Inapplicable
Declaring the exception inapplicable, he opined:
“The record does not show it was necessary for Cohen to walk to the bathroom in the hotel without shoes on, nor does the record show it was necessary for him to stand or walk around the pool barefoot before getting in. The only reason Cohen gave for not putting on his shoes was that he believed ‘there was no need’ for him to wear shoes.”
As to the plaintiff’s assertion that, to the extent he bears some fault for walking barefoot on the pool deck, “that is an issue of comparative fault rather than a matter that provides a complete affirmative defense,” the jurist remarked:
“[T]he same could be said of any case in which the plaintiff confronts a dangerous condition despite its open and obvious nature. By this reasoning, the open and obvious nature of a dangerous condition would never supply a defense.”
The case is Cohen v. Chandra Hospitality, D087166.
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