Curties

Statement of the Case

Plaintiff Keith Curties appeals from the judgment entered after a jury verdict in favor of defendant Hill Top Developers, Inc., on Curties’s complaint for personal injuries. Curties slipped and fell on a sloping lawn on Hill Top’s property. Although the jury found that Hill Top was negligent in the management of the property and that its negligence was the legal cause of Curties’s injuries, the jury also determined that Curties had assumed the risk of the injuries he suffered. The trial court therefore implemented the complete bar to recovery inherent in the doctrine of implied assumption of risk by entering judgment for Hill Top.

We will conclude that the defense of implied assumption of risk does not apply under the facts of this case and reverse the judgment. (Knight v. Jewett (1992) 3 Cal.4th 296 [ 11 Cal.Rptr.2d 2 , 834 P.2d 696 ]; Ford v. Gouin (1992) 3 Cal.4th 339 [ 11 Cal.Rptr.2d 30 , 834 P.2d 724 ].)

Statement of Facts

Hill Top operated the South Real Garden apartments in Bakersfield. Hill Top hired Curties’s wife, Janice, to be resident manager and in June 1988, Curties, Janice and their son moved into the apartment complex. On December…