Restivo

BACKGROUND

At approximately 4:00 p.m. on a weekday in early March 2021, plaintiff was skateboarding on a residential street in Petaluma, Noriel Lane, following her son, who was also skateboarding, on their way to a neighborhood park. 2 Plaintiff, who lived about a block away, had traveled the street “hundreds of times” before. On the afternoon in question, it was clear and sunny, the pavement was dry, visibility was unobstructed, and plaintiff recalls no one else being on the street. Plaintiff claims the wheels of her skateboard caught in a “deep crack”/“pothole” in the street surface, which “catapulted” her off her skateboard. She describes the crack/pothole as “approximately 6–9 inches in length, 1–2 inches deep, and 4–7 inches wide” and “very clear”—“[i]f you [were] walking . . . , you would see it.” Plaintiff also claims, however, she had never before seen the crack/pothole, despite having traveled the street by various means “hundreds of times” before. 3 She recalls no other problems with the street that day. Plaintiff did not take any photos of the street at or near the time she fell.

2In the trial court, plaintiff also referred at times to Turtle Creek Way, which is…