Gonzalez

FACTS

On June 16, 2018, at 7:10 in the morning, Gonzalez, an elderly grandmother, was walking on the sidewalk in the City for her daily exercise. She had been doing daily walks for about

1 years. She approached a portion of the sidewalk that had a crack in the cement. It was a jagged-edged, irregular-shaped elevated crack that extends to almost the entire width of the sidewalk. The defect elevated the broken area of the sidewalk up to a maximum height of “1 and 3/16 inches” above the normal level of the sidewalk. In her deposition Gonzalez testified she fell because her foot “got caught on the cement” crack and she “went flying.” The City’s attorney asked her, “Was there anything blocking your view of the rise?” Gonzalez: “No.” When asked where she was looking, she said, “I’m just always concentrating on my walking.” She did not have a problem walking in this area before she fell. She identified a photograph showing the area where she tripped. That photograph showed the elevated crack was entirely in the shadows of a tree. She said there are always “bottlebrush leaves on the ground” there. The City filed a motion for summary judgment claiming the cracked sidewalk area was “a…