Garcia

This is an appeal by Cesar Garcia, plaintiff and appellant (hereafter plaintiff), from the summary judgment entered against him, both as an individual and as the representative of the estate of his daughter, Alexis Garcia, and in favor of defendant and respondent W&W Community Development, Inc., doing business as Children’s Plus Foster Family Agency (hereafter defendant), on plaintiff’s complaint seeking damages based on negligence and wrongful death. In the operative first amended complaint, plaintiff alleged that his two-year-old daughter Alexis drowned on August 16, 2006, when her foster mother, Irma Henry, left the child unattended for up to five minutes in a bathtub half filled with water. According to the complaint, defendant, a state-licensed foster family agency, had placed Alexis and her four-year-old brother in the licensed foster home of Irma Henry and her husband Walter after the County of Riverside declared the children dependents of the court and removed them from the custody of their mother.

Defendant moved for summary judgment, or in the alternative summary adjudication of facts, on the ground that for various reasons it was not liable to plaintiff for…