Martinez

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Facts

A. Incident Nieves Martinez (plaintiff) works at a law firm that occupies three offices within walking distance of each other in the City of Beverly Hills, California (the City). The law firm’s main office is located at 361 South Robertson Boulevard, and can be accessed from the rear by an alley that runs parallel to the boulevard. The alley is “relatively flat” and paved with asphalt, and has a drainage channel (called a “swale”) made of concrete that runs down its center. The law firm’s employees use the alley to walk between its offices. Plaintiff parks in a space in the alley near the satellite office where she works, and thus walks through the alley’s center to get to the main office only once a month. In the late morning of July 8, 2016, plaintiff was walking through the alley from the law firm’s main office to her satellite office. She was wearing soft-bottomed flip-flops and carrying a paper plate piled with pastries. As she walked toward the alley’s center, the front edge of her flip-flop hit the edge of the swale; the asphalt that is normally flush against the edge of the swale had worn away, creating a divot that was…