Evidence of Inconclusivess Meets SJ Burden

Leyva v. Garcia, No. F073398 (D5 Feb. 28, 2018)

The Court here affirms a grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant, an apartment owner, in a negligence case brought by tenants injured in a fire. The opinion contains a good discussion of the moving party’s burden under California law. 

Unlike under federal law, a moving party in California state court can’t just point to a lack of evidence—it must make an evidentiary showing of its own. It can do that in one of two ways. It can show that the non-moving party can’t come forward with evidence to dispute the fact—for instance, by showing that the party’s responses to written discovery on the issue were junky and insubstantial. Or it can offer evidence that, if credited, would mean the fact at issue wasn’t proven. 

Here, Defendant moved on causation. It offered testimony from a fire chief and a forensic fire examiner. Each explained that although a gas heater installed by the landlord was heat source of the fire’s ignition, there was no way to know whether the fire was caused by a sofa being placed too close to the heater (which would be the tenant’s fault) or by a malfunction in the heater (which might be the landlord’s). 

Because that was sufficient, if credited, to leave causation inclusive, it was sufficient to meet Landlord’s burden of production as the moving party. The fact that the testimony left open the possibility that a malfunction was a cause didn’t change the result, because the existence of a possibility is evidence sufficient to prove a fact by a preponderance of the evidence. And since the plaintiffs didn’t submit any evidence to push the case in the other direction, summary judgment was appropriate.

Affirmed.