Background
Edwin Sargenti was riding a rented electric scooter on a sidewalk in Long Beach when he hit an asphalt patch, fell, and was injured. He sued the City under Government Code section 835, which imposes liability on public entities for dangerous conditions on their property when the entity created the condition or had actual or constructive notice of it.
The City moved for summary judgment on three grounds: Sargenti’s manner of use (riding on the sidewalk after consuming alcohol), lack of notice, and an exculpatory clause in the scooter rental company’s user agreement. The trial court granted summary judgment solely on the third ground — the waiver in the rental agreement — finding triable issues existed on the first two grounds. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Whitehead v. City of Oakland cast doubt on that waiver ruling, the Court of Appeal invited supplemental briefing on the other grounds.
The key evidence dispute centered on whether the City had notice of the asphalt patch. Sargenti relied on the City’s original interrogatory responses (which mistakenly stated the City had placed the patch in 2014) and a Google Street View screenshot purportedly showing the patch in March 2015.
The Court’s Holding
The Second District affirmed, but on the notice ground rather than the waiver. The court held the City had neither actual nor constructive notice of the dangerous condition.
On actual notice, the court found that the City’s original interrogatory responses — stating a City employee placed the asphalt patch in October 2014 — were an admitted mistake, corrected by amended responses months before the summary judgment motion. The amended responses explained the error resulted from referencing the wrong work order for a different address on the same street. Sargenti presented no evidence the original responses were correct or the amended ones false. The court held that serving amended interrogatory responses does not, without more, automatically create a triable issue of material fact.
On constructive notice, the only evidence was a Google Street View screenshot attached to Sargenti’s attorney’s declaration. The trial court had overruled the City’s authentication objection by invoking Sweetwater Union High School Dist. v. Gilbane Building Co., reasoning that the foundational defects could be cured at trial. The Court of Appeal rejected this approach, holding that Sweetwater’s rule — permitting consideration of potentially admissible evidence — applies only to anti-SLAPP motions, not summary judgment. The court emphasized that the Sweetwater rule was designed for early-stage motions filed before discovery, while summary judgment motions occur after ample opportunity to develop evidence.
Key Takeaways
- Amended interrogatory responses that correct an acknowledged mistake do not automatically create triable issues of fact; the opposing party must present independent evidence that the original responses were correct.
- The Sweetwater doctrine — allowing courts to consider evidence that could potentially be made admissible at trial — does not apply to summary judgment motions, which require admissible evidence under Code of Civil Procedure section 437c.
- Google Street View screenshots require proper authentication and foundation to be admissible; an attorney’s bare declaration that a screenshot is “true and correct” is insufficient without explaining how the image was obtained and verified.
- Under section 437c(m)(2), a party’s opportunity to address alternative grounds for summary judgment in a reply brief satisfies the statute’s requirement for supplemental briefing — declining to address them in the reply brief forfeits the argument.
Why It Matters
This decision draws a clear line between the evidentiary standards for anti-SLAPP motions and summary judgment motions, closing a loophole that some trial courts had begun using to admit deficient evidence in the summary judgment context. For litigators, the practical message is straightforward: by the time a summary judgment motion is heard, parties have had months to conduct discovery and cure evidentiary defects. Courts will not excuse foundational failures that could have been fixed.
The ruling on amended interrogatory responses is equally significant for civil practice. Parties that receive amended responses cannot simply wave the originals at the court and claim a triable issue — they must develop independent evidence that the original response was right and the amendment was wrong. This encourages good-faith use of the amendment process and discourages gamesmanship with superseded discovery responses.