Bill to Ease City Blame in Accidents Voted Down

California beach cities, seeking relief from scores of multimillion-dollar lawsuits since an appellate ruling over a 1978 San Diego drowning, suffered a severe setback Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

With most members abstaining, the committee voted 3 to 1 against a bill by state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) that would have reversed the court ruling and restored an immunity California public entities had enjoyed since 1962 from liability for injuries resulting from natural conditions at beaches and other recreational areas.

Bergeson acknowledged that the vote makes it all but impossible “to get a bill through this year,” but she said the issue “is too important to just drop.”

Bergeson’s bill had been inspired by a $6-million Orange County Superior Court verdict last year against the City of Newport Beach in a lawsuit brought by John Taylor of Claremont, Calif., who became a quadriplegic after diving into shallow water and striking his head on a sand bar.

That case, which the city is appealing, relied on the 1982 Third District Court of Appeal ruling in the drowning of Theresa Gonzales at Black’s Beach.

Essentially, the justices said in the Gonzales case that public entities are not immune from liability for injuries in areas where improvements have been made and municipal services such as police and lifeguards have been provided.

But Bergeson argued before the committee Tuesday that the Gonzales decision is at odds with what the Legislature intended when it granted the natural condition immunity to governments, and it is inconsistent with several earlier court rulings.

Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia), expressing what appeared to be the committee’s general feeling, said there must be a way to relieve cities of responsibility for injuries over which they have no control, without excusing them for negligence.

“But this is not that bill,” he said.

“It appears to me that both the cities and the trial lawyers need to get together and write a bill,” Keene added.

While supporters of Bergeson’s bill saw the Newport Beach verdict as an example of a city being ordered to pay a huge judgment for an unfortunate injury in which a natural force and the victim himself are the true culprits, trial lawyers who opposed the bill said that Newport Beach was justly held responsible for Taylor’s injuries.

Bergeson’s bill was supported by the California League of cities, Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and numerous cities and counties.

But only Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia) voted for the bill in committee Tuesday.

Committee Chairman Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) and Sens. Milton Marks (R-San Francisco) and Nicholas Petris (D-Oakland) voted against the bill, while the rest of the nine-member committee either missed the vote or abstained.