Fuller v. Department of Transportation
Annotate this Case
A public entity is not liable for an injury caused by a dangerous condition of public property unless the injury was proximately caused by the dangerous condition and the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury which was incurred. After a motorist with a willful and wanton disregard for the safety of others, recklessly tried to pass a tour bus on State Route 1, he struck a car driven by plaintiff head-on. Plaintiff was severely injured and his wife was killed. The jury returned a special verdict that a dangerous condition of public property existed but did not "create a reasonably foreseeable risk that this kind of incident would occur."
The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in favor of defendants, holding that the special verdicts were not fatally or hopelessly inconsistent. The court explained that the jury could find that there was one and/or two dangerous conditions, but it had nothing to do with the collision or the collision was caused by a reckless driver. The court rejected plaintiff's contention that once the jury finds an unsafe condition of public property, the public entity was at least 1 percent at fault and a reckless driver could not be 100 percent at fault. The court also rejected plaintiff's remaining claims of error.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.