No Dangerous Condition; No Duty To Provide More Lighting; Severe Injuries.

Father and his three children were walking across the street in the evening in a marked crosswalk that had no signal lights and no overhead lighting.  A car stopped and they entered the crosswalk in front of the stopped car.  A pickup truck coming from the opposite direction hit one of the children who was thrown 80 feet and landed on his head.  The driver who hit the four-year-old boy said he didn’t even have time to put on his brakes, and “the last thing I saw was someone’s headlights.”  The family sued the State of California for maintaining a dangerous condition and Pacific Gas & Electric Company for inadequate lighting.  They argued the conditions gave them the false impression they were visible to drivers on the roadway. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of both defendants.  The appellate court affirmed, finding the intersection was not in a dangerous condition, and that a public utility has no duty to provide lighting [citing a case that held “a public entity is under no duty to light its streets.”].  Mixon v. State of California   (June 22, 2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 124.