Atkins

Patricia Atkins sustained severe and permanent personal injuries on May 27, 1967, when she dove into a swimming pool maintained in connection with the Saddleback Villa Apartments in Tustin, California. The apartment complex and pool were owned by B. & B. Group Number 10, a co-partnership consisting of five individual partners. Mrs. Atkins filed a complaint against the partnership and the individual partners, charging negligence and seeking to recover $1,000,000 in damages. The defendants answered, denying negligence and pleading contributory negligence as an affirmative defense. A jury trial resulted in a unanimous defense verdict. Mrs. Atkins’ motion for new trial was denied and she has appealed from the judgment entered on the verdict.

Respondents purchased the apartment house complex in October 1966. Already constructed on the property, next to a recreation hall, was a large shallow swimming pool of unusual design. It was roughly triangular in shape with its base, approximately 54 feet in length, running parallel to the recreation hall. At each end of the base, where the sides joined, the angles were stubbed off by wide steps leading down into the pool. The third…