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The city of Pleasanton won an interesting case in the appellate court earlier this year that might also remind bicyclists to beware of where they’re riding in the eastern part of town.
At issue was whether the pathway on the west side of Valley Avenue between Busch Road and Boulder Street is a streetside sidewalk that could leave the city liable for a dangerous pavement condition, or if it is a trail by definition and therefore exempt because of the so-called “trail immunity” under state law.
Verdict? Trail.
The California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four upheld the Alameda County Superior Court’s prior finding in favor of the city and rejected the lawsuit brought by former resident Diana Escoda, who sustained serious head injuries after crashing her bike upon hitting a piece of disjointed concrete on the path in the spring of 2020.
“Escoda does not and cannot dispute that the pathway was designed for use by recreational bicyclists and is being used by bicyclists, including herself, both for recreation and to access three recreational areas in the general area. Her failure to contest these facts is fatal to her appeal,” Acting Presiding Justice Jon B. Streeter wrote in the unanimous opinion.
City attorney Dan Sodergren offered no real reaction to the legal victory when I contacted him. “As you know, it is our practice not to comment on litigation,” he responded by email. (I can respect the consistency, but I was surprised the city didn’t want to say more after a win in court.)
The plaintiff’s lawyer, George Oliver, had plenty of strong words when we spoke by phone last Friday.
“I’m really of the belief that the court didn’t get it right,” Oliver told me. “No ramifications for not addressing a dangerous condition, which doesn’t promote public safety.”
The appellate court’s unpublished opinion, meaning essentially it’s a one-off ruling that can’t be cited as precedent by other cases, was issued on June 12. An astute reader put it on my radar a couple of months later; unfortunately I didn’t have time to pursue it until recently because of our election workload.
And come to find out, I actually had the original $5 million claim and subsequent rejection from late 2020 in my email archives as part of a prior records request to the city.
Escoda, then an executive at The Clorox Company in the Bay Area, was riding her bike southbound on the pathway with her son on May 16, 2020 when she hit a patch where one piece of concrete had become 3 inches higher than the last and she crashed about 440 feet north of the Boulder Street intersection. Her attorney said the city was told about the dangerous condition at least three days earlier.
She sustained a traumatic brain injury, permanent eye damage and PTSD. She spent 15 days in care between a hospital and an inpatient rehabilitation facility, and missed three months of work, according to her original claim for damages against the city filed that October.
Her claim was rejected on Dec. 4, 2020 by Acclamation Insurance Management Services, a third-party claims administrator for the city at the time — a denial that referenced trail exception among its explanations. (Her husband also filed a $1 million claim against the city because of his wife’s injuries. It was rejected by AIMS.)
Escoda proceeded to sue the city for general negligence and premises liability, with a first amended complaint submitted in July 2021. By that time, it appears she had left the Bay Area for the Washington, D.C. metro area, later co-founding Tic Tac Toe Innovation in January 2023.
More than a year after the lawsuit, an Alameda County Superior Court judge granted the city’s motion for summary judgment based on trail immunity. She appealed, and attorneys argued the case earlier this year.
None of her arguments hit home with the three-justice appellate panel, which sided pretty much down the line with the city.
“In short, the trial court correctly granted the City’s motion for summary judgment because all the papers submitted show there is no material triable issue of fact; as a matter of law, the pathway is a ‘trail’ under Government Code section 831.4,” Streeter wrote in the 17-page opinion. “Trail immunity applies to all manner of defects in the trail’s condition.”
Finally finding time to dive into the case, I walked the route in question last week — and I’ll admit it wasn’t easy for me to discern on the ground.
This is the stretch where East Bay Regional Park District’s Iron Horse Regional Trail is broken up, stopping Busch and Valley before picking up again at Shadow Cliffs Regional Recreation Area. In between? A city-owned connector trail.
The Iron Horse is on the east side of Valley, but the pathway on that side stops a bit after Boulder and there are black-and-white stamps in the corners of the crosswalks leading Iron Horse users to the west side of Valley at Boulder to continue south to Stanley Boulevard.Â
In question though is the pathway north of that well-marked intersection, on the west of Valley between the Busch intersection (which doesn’t have an east-west crosswalk across Valley) and Boulder, alongside the foliage and fence with Oldcastle Infrastructure on the other side.
Oliver tried to argue it is obviously a sidewalk in an industrial zone and Iron Horse users would not consider that portion as part of the recreational connector trail because the clearest signage on the west side starts south of Boulder.
The appellate court disagreed, saying the “Bike Route” signage in the area is clear enough and as importantly, so is the city’s paper trail (planning documents) in defining both pathways on either side of Valley.
Recreational path. Trail immunity. No liability. Case closed.
Editor’s note: Jeremy Walsh is the editorial director for the Embarcadero Media Foundation’s East Bay Division. His “What a Week” column is a recurring feature in the Pleasanton Weekly, Livermore Vine and DanvilleSanRamon.com.
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