Ramirez

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL

BACKGROUND

Kimco owns a Livermore shopping center. Freeway Insurance Services, Inc. (Freeway) leased an office suite in the center from Kimco. In October 2017, Freeway vacated the suite. Under the lease, Freeway thus became responsible for removing an exterior sign from the suite. Kimco offered to handle the removal and bill the cost to Freeway, but Freeway elected to hire Ramirez, a self-employed contractor, to perform the work. On the afternoon of November 6, 2017, Ramirez arrived at Freeway’s suite to remove the sign. Although Kimco had arranged for someone to be present to let Ramirez inside, no one was there when he arrived. While waiting to access the suite, he confirmed that the sign was powered by a low voltage electrical source that needed to be disconnected before he could complete the job. In his deposition, Ramirez testified that after he waited outside for 20 minutes, a woman from Kimco’s office arrived and gave him the keys to

2 Freeway’s suite.1 He asked her if a security guard or maintenance worker was onsite, since they usually had “all the keys including for the attic access.” The woman responded that she did not know anything about…