Biscotti

Christian Biscotti attempted to anchor a bicycle against a chain link fence on school property so he could climb up on the bicycle to pick oranges from a tree on the other side of the fence. As he stood on top of the bicycle and reached over the fence, he slipped and fell, cutting his arm badly on the metal prongs on top of the fence. Christian appeals from the trial court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of the Yuba City Unified School District in the lawsuit that Christian, through his guardian ad litem, filed against the school district.

We agree with the trial court that Christian failed to raise a triable issue of material fact as to whether the school district maintained a dangerous condition on its property. As we will explain, the risk of falling and being seriously injured would be obvious, even to a nine-year-old boy, when Christian poked the handlebar of his bicycle into an opening in the chain link fence, climbed onto the bicycle, balanced himself with one foot on the seat and his other foot on the bar, and reached over the fence to pick an orange from a tree on the adjacent property. While unfortunate, the injury that resulted when the readily apparent…