Sidhu

BACKGROUND

On June 2, 2009, plaintiff was employed as a brakeman assisting in the movement of rail cars to and from businesses in the northeast sector of San Jose. The accident at issue here arose during the removal of a string of cars (known as a “cut” or “consist”) from the premises of defendant Frank-Lin, a bonded distillery. To enter or leave the premises the consist had to pass through a chain-link gate which crossed a curving portion of the track at an oblique angle. The gate consisted of two leaves or panels, to which we will refer as the western and eastern panels, respectively.1 The panels were 20 feet long and designed to be six feet high, though as built they may have been seven feet high. Each leaf was determined by one of plaintiff’s experts to weigh “about 300 pounds.” Plaintiff presented evidence to the effect that at the time of the accident, and at various earlier times, the western panel was difficult to open; it dragged on the ground and lacked a functioning “keeper” or device to hold it in place at a position outside the “foul” or “red zone” in which contact with a train was possible. Plaintiff had not previously worked the Frank-Lin location, and on the date…