In Monroy v. City of Los Angeles, (— Cal.Rptr.3d —, 2008 WL 2514315, Cal.App. 2 Dist., June 25, 2008), a California Court of Appeal considered whether there was judicial error when the trial court admitted a jury instruction regarding California Vehicle Code (“CVC”) Section 21055 which provides an exemption for emergency vehicles obligation to observe other provisions of the CVC. The court also considered whether there was judicial error when the trial court excluded the deposition testimony of a plaintiff witness that was not available to testify at trial, as well as the trial court’s decision to limit expert witness testimony. In all three areas the appellate court found that there was judicial error and reversed the judgment.
Facts
On September 4, 2004, Yesinia Monroy, accompanied by her child Pheobe P. (collectively, “plaintiffs”), was driving on Third Street in Los Angeles, California. Around the same time, Officer Felipe Arreola, accompanied by his partner Officer Jamie Garcia, was driving a Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) vehicle on Pleasant Avenue. Officers Arreola and Garcia heard a call go out on the radio requesting backup; the call was designated “Code 2.” Code 2 is an urgent, but non-emergency, request requiring responding units to obey the rules of the road. After taking a right off Pleasant Avenue onto Boyle Avenue, Officers Arreola and Garcia approached the intersection at First Street where Officer Arreola turned on both his overhead lights and siren while passing through the intersection against a red light. After passing through the intersection Officer Arreola turned off the siren, but does not remember if he turned off the lights. At the Third Street intersection Officer Arreola saw Monroy’s car and applied the brakes to his vehicle but was unable to avoid the collision.
The posted speed limit where the accident occurred was 25 miles per hour. At trial, three experts confirmed that Officer Arreola was speeding at the time of the accident and estimated his speed at the time of impact to be between 44 and 47 miles per hour. The experts estimated his speed to be between 51 and 65 miles per hour before he began breaking.
Discovery prior to trial yielded a number of admissions by Arreola and the City of Los Angeles (collectively, “defendants”). In sum, the defendants admitted: 1) the LAPD did not have any civilian witnesses that heard sirens during or just before the accident, 2) at the time of the accident Officer Arreola was required to obey the CVC, 3) Officer Arreola had a duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons using Boyle Avenue, and 4) Officer Arreola was responding to a Code 2 which requires officers to obey the CVC.
At trial, over plaintiffs’ objection, the trial court allowed the defendants to call an expert witness to testify about LAPD training regarding Section 21055. The trial court decided that the admissions did not establish issue preclusion because a factual dispute still existed. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants.
Decision
The appellate court began with a discussion of CVC Sections 21055 and 21056. The court explained that “in order for emergency responders to be exempt from the rules of the road, including the speed limit, they must be responding to an emergency call, they must sound a siren as may be reasonably necessary, and their vehicle must display a lighted red lamp visible from the front as a warning.” Still, as provided in Section 21056, “Section 21055 does not relieve the driver of a vehicle from the duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons using the highway, nor protect him from the consequences of an arbitrary exercise of the privileges granted in that section.” In addition, the court observed that the LAPD Manual (the Manual) defines a Code 2 as an urgent call, but that “the red light and siren shall not be used, and all traffic laws shall be observed.”
The court proceeded to explain that “‘a matter admitted in a response to a request for admissions is conclusively established against the party making the admission . . . unless the court has permitted withdrawal or amendment of that admission . . . .'” The court found that the admissions made by defendants prior to trial necessarily precluded the possibility that Officer Arreola was responding to an emergency situation falling within Section 21055. Thus, the court said, “the exemption of Section 21055 did not apply and the trial court erred in instructing with that section.” The court concluded that the error was prejudicial because the jury found that Officer Arreola was not negligent, though all facts show that he was speeding, and therefore the jury must have accepted the defendants’ defense based upon Section 21055.
Next, the court discussed the trial court’s decision to exclude the deposition testimony of Juan De Los Santos who observed the cars involved in the accident prior to and after the point of impact. In De Los Santos deposition he testified that he saw and heard the lights and siren go off on Officer Arreola’s vehicle prior to the accident. The trial court excluded De Los Santos deposition testimony despite plaintiffs providing substantial evidence that he moved to Mexico with no intention of returning to the United States. The California Code of Civil Procedure Section 2025.620(c)(1) provides that deposition testimony is admissible when the witness resides more than 150 miles from the place of trial. After taking judicial notice that Puebla, Mexico (the location the facts indicate De Los Santos lived at the time of trial) was more than 150 miles from the courthouse in Los Angeles; the court said that “although trial courts have broad discretion in ruling on the admissibility of evidence . . . that discretion must be exercised reasonably.” (Citations omitted). Finally, the court concluded that this error was prejudicial because it would have directly contradicted witness testimony for the defendants that the overhead lights were on before and at the point of impact.
Lastly, the court considered the trial court’s limitation of expert witness testimony at trial. The trial court allowed only one expert witness to testify to the same opinion, regardless of which party elicited the testimony. The trial court also severely limited the examination of the expert witnesses. The court explained that “overly restrictive limitations on the introduction of evidence and on the method and manner of presenting a case can undercut a plaintiff’s case by preventing that party from presenting evidence in an organized and coherent way.” In addition, “while there can be no hard and fast rule regarding the limits of cross-examination, a trial court’s ruling should not be so overly restrictive so as to deprive trial counsel of the tools necessary to probe, test, and even discredit the adverse expert witness.” As a result, the court concluded that the restrictive rulings by the trial court constituted an abuse of discretion and were yet another reason for reversal.