Verdugo

At the request of a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, we agreed to address a question of state law that is potentially determinative of an appeal now pending before that federal appellate court. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.548.) The question, as reformulated and narrowed to conform to the facts of the pending appeal, is whether, under California law, the common law duty of reasonable care that defendant Target Corporation (Target) owes to its business customers includes an obligation to obtain and make available on its business premises an automated (or automatic) external defibrillator (AED) for use in a medical emergency.

*317 Target maintains that recognition of a common law duty on its part to acquire and make available an AED for the use of its customers is inappropriate for two reasons. First, Target asserts that existing California statutes relating to the acquisition and use of AEDs preclude recognition of such a common law duty, either because one of the statutory provisions explicitly bars such a requirement or because the AED statutes as a whole “occupy the field” of AED regulation and thus implicitly foreclose…

Concurring. — I agree with the majority’s conclusion that “under California law, Target’s common law duty of reasonable care to its patrons does not include an obligation to acquire and make available an AED [(automated external defibrillator)] for the use of its patrons in a medical emergency.” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 343-344.) Unlike the majority, however, I reach that conclusion without analogizing this case to those involving protection from third party criminal activity. (Id., at pp. 337-339.) Nor do I embrace the majority’s broad rule, drawn from that analogy, that property owners need not adopt any nonminimal precautionary medical safety measure “in the absence of a showing of a heightened or high degree of foreseeability of the medical risk in question.” (Id., at p. 339.) I would instead directly evaluate the specific obligation proposed here, that of installing and maintaining an AED in a large retail business, under the duty factors we outlined in Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 113 [ 70 Cal.Rptr. 97 , 443 P.2d 561 ] (Rowland), and would hold only that the duty of reasonable care does not extend to that particular obligation.

As the majority explains (maj.…

Filed 6/23/

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA

MICHAEL VERDUGO et al., ) ) Plaintiffs and Appellants, ) ) S207313 v. ) ) Ninth Cir. U.S. Ct. App. ) No. 10-57008

TARGET CORPORATION, )

) U.S. Dist. Ct. Defendant and Respondent. ) No. 2:10-cv-06930-ODW-AJW ___________________________________ )

At the request of a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, we agreed to address a question of state law that is potentially determinative of an appeal now pending before that federal appellate court. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.548.) The question, as reformulated and narrowed to conform to the facts of the pending appeal, is whether, under California law, the common law duty of reasonable care that defendant Target Corporation (Target) owes to its business customers includes an obligation to obtain and make available on its business premises an automated (or automatic) external defibrillator (AED) for use in a medical emergency.

The question of state law, as submitted by the…