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Wong v. 396 Investment Co.5/17/2005
four-part test to determine whether a public entity should be estopped from raising the issue of noncompliance with the Tort Claims Act. As stated in Munoz v. State of California, supra, 33 Cal.App.4th at page 1785: "A public entity may be estopped from asserting the limitations of the tort claims statutes where its agents or employees have prevented or deterred the filing of a timely claim by some affirmative act. The required elements for an equitable estoppel are: (1) the party to be estopped must be apprised of the facts; (2) the party to be estopped must intend his or her conduct shall be acted upon, or must so act that the party asserting the estoppel had a right to believe it was so intended; (3) the other party must be ignorant of the true state of facts; and (4) the other party must rely upon the conduct to his or her injury. [Citation.]" Anaheim insists that not one of these four requirements is met.
(iii) Anaheim's Knowledge
As for the first requirement, Anaheim asserts that it was not apprised of any dangerous condition. More specifically, Anaheim contends it "never concluded the eservoir was dangerous" and "nothing in the record . . . suggests that anyone ever told Anaheim the eservoir was dangerous." Anaheim's conclusions on the matter are not determinative, however. The first requirement, that the party to be charged with the estoppel is apprised of the facts, may be satisfied by either actual knowledge or constructive knowledge. (Canfield v. Prod (1977) 67 Cal.App.3d 722, 731.) Here, the record is replete with evidence to the effect that Anaheim was aware of the extent of the reservoir leakage, and we need not repeat all that evidence here.
Whether that leakage resulted in a dangerous condition is a matter that was determined by the jury. In its special verdict, the jury found, inter alia: (1) "Anaheim's reservoir in a dangerous condition at the time of the slope failure"; (2) "the slope failure caused by the dangerous condition"; (3) "the dangerous condition create a reasonably foreseeable risk of the slope failure"; and (4) "Anaheim actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition a sufficient amount of time prior to the time of the incident so that measures could have been taken to protect against the dangerous condition[.]" Clearly, the first requirement of the estoppel test is met.
(iv) Anaheim's Conduct
Anaheim claims that the second requirement is not met either because Anaheim performed no affirmative act upon which 396 could rely. More specifically, Anaheim explains that there is no evidence of any affirmative act designed to conceal the leakage. Nonetheless, as we shall show, we "conclude that the facts of this case satisfy the second requirement, i.e., that the party to be estopped must intend that his conduct shall be acted upon, or must so act that the party asserting the estoppel had a right to believe it was so intended." (Canfield v. Prod, supra, 67 Cal.App.3d at p. 731.)
As 396 points out, "a public entity has a duty to warn of a dangerous condition under [Government Code] sections 830, subdivision (a), and 835." (Arroyo v. State of California (1995) 34 Cal.App.4th 755, 763; see also Gov. Code, ยง 830.6.) The jury found that the reservoir constituted a dangerous condition and that Anaheim had at least constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition and could have given warnings in time to protect the properties that ultimately suffered damage. However, Anaheim gave no warnings.
The court stated in its Phase I statement of decision: "The Court finds Anaheim had knowledge the seepage rate exceeded the reservoir's design and had reached sixty five gallons per minute. Further, tha
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