Government Code 835 tough facts cases are among the most challenging in public entity litigation, the ones where a criminal or grossly negligent third party's conduct is the immediate, visible cause of an injury while a public entity's dangerous condition sits in the background as a contributing cause. Building a viable claim against the public entity in these cases requires a precise understanding of how California's dangerous condition statute interacts with third-party causation. A wrong-way collision on a public park road that left a cyclist paralyzed, yet still produced a substantial recovery against the city, shows how these elements can be proven even against a backdrop of extreme third-party misconduct.
835
Government Code section governing dangerous conditions of public property
6 months
Deadline to present a claim when the defendant is a public entity
California Government Code section 835 establishes that a public entity is liable for injury caused by a dangerous condition of its property if the plaintiff proves the property was in a dangerous condition at the time of the injury, that the condition proximately caused the injury, that the injury was reasonably foreseeable from the condition, and either that a public entity employee created the condition through a negligent or wrongful act, or that the entity had actual or constructive notice of the condition long enough before the injury to have taken protective measures. In cases where an impaired or criminally reckless driver's conduct is the immediate mechanism of harm, defendants routinely argue that the third party's egregious conduct was the sole cause, attempting to shift the entire causal narrative away from the condition of the public property. Overcoming that argument requires a clear-eyed application of California's substantial factor causation standard.
CACI No. 430 instructs juries that a substantial factor in causing harm does not need to be the only cause. It need only be a factor that a reasonable person would consider to have contributed to the harm, rather than a trivial or remote factor. CACI No. 431 further instructs that a defendant is not relieved of liability merely because some other person's conduct was also a substantial factor in causing the same harm. These instructions were decisive in litigation involving a public park roadway where overgrown vegetation and earthen berms completely blocked sightlines at a blind curve, and a driver impaired by methamphetamine, traveling the wrong direction on a one-way road, struck a group of cyclists head-on. The public entity argued that the driver's criminal, drug-impaired conduct was the sole cause. The jury rejected that argument because the blind corner independently created a foreseeable risk: a properly maintained road with clear sightlines gives all road users, including cyclists and even a wrong-way driver, the opportunity to see danger and react. The blind corner eliminated that opportunity entirely.
When a dangerous condition such as overgrown vegetation develops gradually over years, constructive notice can be established by showing the condition existed long enough that the entity should have discovered it through reasonable care and diligence in inspecting its property.
Defense counsel frame the issue in but-for terms, arguing that but for the third party's crime none of this would have happened. That conflates but-for causation with the legal standard. A dangerous condition that measurably increases both the likelihood and severity of harm from foreseeable third-party conduct satisfies the substantial factor test.
Side-by-side comparisons showing what visibility would have existed with reasonable maintenance versus the actual blocked sightlines help a jury understand precisely how the condition transformed an otherwise avoidable close call into an unavoidable collision.
In the underlying case, the same framework carried the claim against the public entity despite a criminal co-defendant.
The case behind this page
The full story of the Fiesta Island blind corner and the $23.75 million recovery.
Read the account of a paralyzed cyclist's case against a California cityRelated strategy
How apportionment and collectibility shift when the individually culpable driver cannot pay.
How fault is apportionedRelated breakdowns from this case and our dangerous condition practice.
We evaluate dangerous condition referrals complicated by a criminal or negligent third party on a contingency fee basis and pay statutory referral fees.
Refer a caseYes. Under California's substantial factor causation standard, a public entity can be held liable if its dangerous condition was a substantial factor in causing the harm, even if a criminal third party's conduct was also a substantial factor.
A plaintiff must prove the property was in a dangerous condition, the condition proximately caused the injury, the injury was reasonably foreseeable from the condition, and the entity either created the condition or had notice of it long enough to take corrective action.
No. California law applies a substantial factor test rather than a strict but-for standard, meaning a public entity's dangerous condition does not need to be the sole cause of harm to support liability.
