*848Torrano Law, Frank J. Torrano ; Jaramillo & Borcyckowski and Robert
D. Borcyckowski for Plaintiffs and Appellants., C. Athena Roussos ; Law Office of
Louinda V. Lacey and Louinda V. Lacey for California Walks as Amicus Curiae on behalf
of Plaintiffs and Appellants., McKay, de Lorimier & Acain, Paul A. de Lorimier,
Janet S. Yoon ; The Thomas Law Firm, Mason Thomas, Bradley S. Thomas and Kelly Thomas
for Defendant and Respondent., Horvitz & Levy, Mitchell C. Tilner, Eric S. Boorstin,
Lacey L. Estudillo ; Gorden & Rees and Don Willenburg for Association of Southern
California Defense Counsel and Association of Defense Counsel of Northern California
and Nevada as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent., The Grace Family
Church was located on Marconi Avenue across from the Debbie Meyer Swim School in
an unincorporated area of Sacramento County. Marconi Avenue was five lanes wide,
with two lanes in each direction separated by a universal left turn lane. The nearest
intersection to the Church was at Root Avenue, about 50 to 100 feet east; there
were no traffic signals or crosswalks at the intersection. The Church had an agreement
to use the swim school lot for overflow parking when the Church's main lot was
full., Vasilenko and his wife sued the Church for negligence and loss of consortium.
He alleged that the Church created a foreseeable risk of harm by maintaining an
overflow parking lot in a location that required invitees to cross Marconi Avenue,
and that the Church was negligent in failing to protect against that risk. He also
alleged that the Church was negligent in failing to adequately train or supervise
its parking attendants. The Church moved for summary judgment on the ground that
it did not have a duty to assist Vasilenko with crossing a public street it did
not own, possess, or control., Civil Code section 1714, subdivision (a)"establishes
the general duty of each person to exercise, in his or her activities, reasonable
care for the safety of others." ( Cabral , supra , 51 Cal.4th at p. 768, 122 Cal.Rptr.3d
313, 248 P.3d 1170.) " 'Courts ... invoke[ ] the concept of duty to limit generally
"the otherwise potentially infinite liability which would follow from every negligent
act...." ' " ( Bily v. Arthur Young & Co. (1992) 3 Cal.4th 370, 397, 11 Cal.Rptr.2d
51, 834 P.2d 745 ( Bily ).) We have said that "in the absence of a statutory provision
establishing an exception to the general rule of Civil Code section 1714, courts
should create one only where 'clearly supported by public policy.' " ( Cabral
, supra , 51 Cal.4th at p. 771, 122 Cal.Rptr.3d 313, 248 P.3d 1170, quoting Rowland
v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 112, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561 ( Rowland
).), In determining whether policy considerations weigh in favor of such an exception,
we have looked to "the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty
that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the
defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant's
conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant
and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting
liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for
the risk involved." ( Rowland , supra , 69 Cal.2d at p. 113, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443
P.2d 561.) We do not ask whether these factors (the Rowland factors) "support an
exception to the general duty of *850reasonable care on the facts of the particular
case before us, but whether carving out an entire category of cases from that general
duty rule is justified by clear considerations of policy." ( Cabral , supra , 51
Cal.4th at p. 772, 122 Cal.Rptr.3d 313, 248 P.3d 1170 ; see Rest.3d Torts, Liability
for Physical and Emotional Harm, § 7, com. a, p. 78 ["No-duty rules are appropriate
only when a court can promulgate relatively clear, categorical, bright-line rules
of law applicable to a general class of cases."].) *1084In this respect, duty differs
from the other elements of a tort. Breach, injury, and causation must be demonstrated
on the basis of facts adduced at trial, and a jury's determination of each must
take into account the particular context in which any act or injury occurred. Analysis
of duty occurs at a higher level of generality. (See Cabral , supra , 51 Cal.4th
at p. 774, 122 Cal.Rptr.3d 313, 248 P.3d 1170.) Here, because "the general duty
to take ordinary care in the conduct of one's activities" applies to choosing the
location of a parking lot for one's invitees and to training one's employees,
"the issue is ... properly stated as whether a categorical exception to that general
rule should be made" exempting those who own, possess, or control premises abutting
a public street from liability to invitees for placing a parking lot in a location
that requires invitees to cross the public street. ( Ibid. ) For conciseness, we
refer to those who "own, possess, or control" such premises as "landowners," regardless
of their legal title over the property., This question is related to, but not squarely
governed by, the rule that "in the absence of a statute a landowner is under no
duty to maintain in a safe condition a public street abutting upon" the landowner's
property unless the landowner created the danger. ( Sexton , supra , 39 Cal.2d at
p. 157, 245 P.2d 496 ; see Rest.3d Torts, Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm,
§ 54, com. d, p. 354 ["[N]o one would think that a land possessor [had] a duty of
care to others for conditions not caused by the possessor on public highways and
streets adjacent to the possessor's land."].) The reason for this rule is that
a landowner generally has no right to control another's property, including streets
owned and maintained by the government. ( Isaacs v. Huntington Memorial Hospital
(1985) 38 Cal.3d 112, 134, 211 Cal.Rptr. 356, 695 P.2d 653 ["A defendant cannot
be held liable for the defective or dangerous condition of property which it did
not own, possess, or control."].), The Church and its amici argue that under this
line of authorities, the Church did not owe Vasilenko a duty here, as Vasilenko
does not allege that the Church controlled the portion of Marconi Avenue where he
was injured. But this case differs from Owens and Seaber . It is one thing for the
owner of an establishment open to the public to have an entrance on a public street.
All pedestrians on a public street face some risk of injury, which the landowner
has done nothing to increase. It is another matter when the landowner sites and
maintains a parking lot on the other side of a public street, so that the landowner's
invitees must cross the street in order to reach its premises. In such cases, while
the public street itself is no more dangerous, the landowner has increased its invitees'
exposure to the specific dangers of that particular street crossing and has thereby
increased the likelihood that the invitee will encounter harm at that crossing.
The question is whether subjecting an invitee to this exposure should be exempt
from the general duty., *1086The third factor, "the closeness of the connection
between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered" ( Rowland , supra , 69
Cal.2d at p. 113, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561 ), is "strongly related to the question
of foreseeability itself" ( Cabral , supra , 51 Cal.4th at p. 779, 122 Cal.Rptr.3d
313, 248 P.3d 1170 ), but it also accounts for third-party or other intervening
conduct. (See Kesner , supra , 1 Cal.5th at p. 1148, 210 Cal.Rptr.3d 283, 384 P.3d
283.) Where the third party's intervening conduct is foreseeable or derivative
of the defendant's, then that conduct does not " 'diminish the closeness of the
connection between defendant's conduct and plaintiff's injury....' " ( Ibid.
, quoting Beacon , supra , 59 Cal.4th at p. 583, 173 Cal.Rptr.3d 752, 327 P.3d 850
and citing **1201Bigbee v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co. (1983) 34 Cal.3d 49, 58, 192
Cal.Rptr. 857, 665 P.2d 947 ( Bigbee ).) In Kesner , we found that the defendant's
conduct was closely tied to the injuries alleged despite the intervening conduct
of the defendant's employees, since the employees' conduct-taking home asbestos
fibers in their clothing-was both foreseeable and derivative of the defendant's
alleged negligence in failing to *852control or limit asbestos fibers in the workplace.
( Kesner , at p. 1148, 210 Cal.Rptr.3d 283, 384 P.3d 283.), "[F]oreseeability alone
is not sufficient to create an independent tort duty. ' "... [The] existence [of
a duty] depends upon the foreseeability of the risk and a weighing of policy considerations
for and against imposition of liability." ' " ( Erlich v. Menezes (1999) 21 Cal.4th
543, 552, 87 Cal.Rptr.2d 886, 981 P.2d 978.) These policy considerations include
" 'the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing
future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community
of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the
availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved' [citation]."
( Cabral , supra , 51 Cal.4th at p. 781, 122 Cal.Rptr.3d 313, 248 P.3d 1170.) "A
duty of care will not be held to exist even as to foreseeable injuries ... where
the social utility of the *1087activity concerned is so great, and avoidance of
the injuries so burdensome to society, as to outweigh the compensatory and cost-internalization
values of negligence liability." ( Merrill v. Navegar, Inc . (2001) 26 Cal.4th 465,
502, 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 370, 28 P.3d 116.) We first address prevention of future harm,
burden, and moral blame, and then discuss the availability of insurance., The policy
of preventing future harm is ordinarily served by allocating costs to those responsible
for the injury and thus best suited to prevent it. (See Cabral , supra , 51 Cal.4th
at p. 781, 122 Cal.Rptr.3d 313, 248 P.3d 1170.) "In general, internalizing the cost
of injuries caused by a particular behavior will induce changes in that behavior
to make it safer. That consideration may be 'outweighed, for a category of negligent
conduct, by laws or mores indicating approval of the conduct or by the undesirable
consequences of allowing potential liability.' [Citation.]" ( Kesner , supra ,
1 Cal.5th at p. 1150, 210 Cal.Rptr.3d 283, 384 P.3d 283.), The ability of landowners
to reduce the risk of injury from crossing a public street is limited. "The power
to control public streets and regulate traffic lies with the state which may delegate
local authority to municipalities...." ( Nevarez , supra , 7 Cal.App.3d at p. 805,
87 Cal.Rptr. 50 ; see Veh. Code, §§ 21100, 21102.) Only state or local authorities
may install traffic control devices on public streets, such as signs, pedestrian
crosswalks, or traffic signals. (See Veh. Code, § 21350 et seq. ) A landowner can
petition the relevant authority to install a traffic control device-indeed, the
Church did so here-but the ultimate decision is up to *853that authority. Nor can
a landowner erect signs on its property "which attempt[ ] to direct the movement
of traffic." ( Veh. Code, § 21465.) A landowner can place lights on its own premises
to improve visibility for pedestrians and drivers. But assuming such lighting is
not unlawful (see Veh. Code, § 21466 [prohibiting **1202lighting in view of a public
highway that prevents drivers from recognizing official traffic control devices];
id . § 21466.5 [prohibiting lighting in view of a public highway that impairs drivers'
vision] ), it is debatable whether illuminating a landowner's premises would serve
to distract drivers more than it would alert them to crossing pedestrians. (See
Donavan v. Jones (La.Ct.App. 1995) 658 So.2d 755, 759 ( Donavan ) ["The evidence
is undisputed that there was no lighting on the roadway, crosswalk or parking lot;
the plant itself was brightly lit, but the testimony shows this most likely distracted
drivers."].), Vasilenko also contends that landowners can warn of the danger of
crossing the street, perhaps by posting a sign. But the danger posed by crossing
a public street midblock is obvious, and there is ordinarily no duty to warn of
obvious dangers. (See Osborn v. Mission Ready Mix (1990) 224 Cal.App.3d 104, 119,
273 Cal.Rptr. 457.) Although some fraction of people may fail to appreciate an obvious
danger, "to require warnings for the sake of such persons would produce such a profusion
of warnings as to devalue those warnings serving a more important function." (Rest.3d
Torts, Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm, § 18, com. f, p. 208.), It is
possible that a landowner can reduce the risk of harm by maintaining a parking lot
in a location that does not require invitees to cross a public street. We note that
landowners already have incentives to provide parking that is safe and convenient
for their invitees. Doing so increases the likelihood that invitees will visit the
landowners' premises and can help create a positive experience for invitees, increasing
the likelihood of repeat visits. Conversely, a landowner's reputation will be damaged
if parking is unsafe or inconvenient. But there may be instances where another parking
option that did not require crossing a public street was available and would not
have been cost prohibitive. Finding a duty here may encourage landowners to choose
safer parking options. This approach would be socially desirable if it reduces collisions
on the public street, and it is fair to place the costs on landowners to the extent
they seek to attract invitees., But it is likely difficult in many cases to reliably
assess which of several parking options was the safest at the time the invitee was
directed where to park. The relevant considerations are multitudinous and vary by
the hour, day of the week, and month, and many will be hard to establish with accuracy.
These considerations include the volume and speed of traffic along the streets in
the area, the volume of traffic to and from the landowners' premises and neighboring
properties, crime rates *854and perceptions of safety on the sidewalks, and the
location of crosswalks and traffic control devices. The inquiry is further complicated
by the natural tendency to think that a lot was unsafe after a collision has occurred.
(See Chavez v. City of Los Angeles (2010) 47 Cal.4th 970, 987, 104 Cal.Rptr.3d 710,
224 P.3d 41 [defining hindsight bias as the "recognized tendency for individuals
to overestimate or exaggerate the predictability of events after they have occurred"].)
Although the relative safety of one lot compared to others may sometimes be obvious,
it is more typical that a landowner must choose among options with competing advantages
and disadvantages, not all of which may be known to the landowner when deciding.
*1089In this case, for example, Vasilenko notes that the Church sometimes directed
visitors to park at a business plaza further east along Marconi Avenue on the same
side of the street as the Church building. That lot, he says, would have been safer
than the swim school lot. But the business plaza lot, though **1203located on the
same side of Marconi Avenue as the Church, was on the other side of Root Avenue
across which there was no crosswalk or other marked crossing. Even if it could be
established that crossing Root Avenue was safer than crossing Marconi Avenue, the
business plaza lot was farther away from the Church than the swim school lot. Directing
invitees to the business plaza lot may have increased invitees' exposure to other
dangers of the public street as well as the November rain. If, for example, an invitee
had been mugged between the business plaza lot and the Church, or had slipped on
a puddle on the sidewalk, that invitee might reasonably argue that the swim school
lot would have been safer. Yet another consideration is that cars parked at a business
plaza at night, away from the Church, may have been more at risk of break-ins or
carjackings., In addition to the difficulties in determining the relative safety
of alternative parking lots, it is not obvious how to determine whether a safer
lot was available. In this case, Vasilenko contends that the business plaza lot
had ample parking the night he was injured. But unlike with the swim school lot,
the Church did not have an agreement for use of the business plaza lot. Directing
invitees to park at a private lot in violation of the lot's restrictions may put
them at risk of having their cars towed (see Veh. Code, § 22953 ) and may even amount
to encouraging them to commit trespass (see Pen. Code, § 602, subd. (n) ). Further,
if the business plaza lot was not available in this sense, should the Church have
tried to obtain a formal agreement with the business plaza? More generally, what
is the relevant marketplace for parking lots that the landowner must assess? And
what is the proper timeframe for assessing that marketplace? If a purportedly safer
lot becomes available after a landowner has entered into an agreement to use another,
does the landowner have a duty to cancel the agreement and move to the new lot?
Further, if a safer lot is more expensive, what level of cost is it reasonable to
expect the landowner to incur?, We do not mean to suggest that the business plaza
lot was actually not available as an alternative or was actually less safe than
the swim school lot. Those questions are not before us. We discuss the relevant
considerations only to illustrate the likely difficulties involved in determining
whether a safer alternative was available. In many cases, these complexities will
make it difficult for a landowner to reliably predict which parking lot might be
considered a safer available alternative., We must also account for the possibility
that finding a duty in this case will cause some or perhaps many landowners to stop
*855providing parking. Indeed, *1090Vasilenko argues that the Church should not
have used the swim school for evening events when it was raining. It is not clear
that this would result in a net benefit to invitees or to the public at large. Although
landowners are not required to provide parking for their invitees, it is often socially
desirable for landowners to do so. Providing parking reduces traffic and its associated
dangers. Drivers looking for parking may pay less attention to other hazards than
they otherwise would. They may also disrupt the flow of traffic by driving more
slowly than other drivers, by stopping periodically to wait for parking spaces to
free up, or by speeding up suddenly to capture an available space. By providing
parking, a landowner may decrease its invitees' risk of injury from other dangers
of the road as compared to invitees finding their own parking on the streets., In
contrast to landowners, who generally have limited ability to reduce the risk of
injury to invitees crossing a public street, other entities such as the government,
drivers, and invitees themselves have much greater and more direct ability to reduce
that risk. The public entity that maintains the street can take a wide array of
measures to prevent future harm. For instance, it can install crosswalks, traffic
lights, street lights, warning signs, traffic circles, or stop signs. It can also
provide temporary crossing guards authorized to control the flow of traffic. Drivers
and invitees, for their part, are the ones most directly involved in any given collision;
they can also take significant steps to reduce the risk of injury. Drivers can reduce
their speed and improve their alertness, and invitees can exercise more care in
choosing the **1204precise location and moment they cross. In view of these considerations,
we conclude that the policy of preventing future harm weighs against imposing a
duty on landowners here. (See Kesner , supra , 1 Cal.5th at p. 1153, 210 Cal.Rptr.3d
283, 384 P.3d 283 ["[T]he tort system contemplates that the cost of an injury ...
[is] allocat[ed] ... to ensure that those 'best situated' to prevent such injuries
are incentivized to do so."].), We turn next to "the extent of the burden to the
defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care
with resulting liability for breach." ( Rowland , supra , 69 Cal.2d at p. 113, 70
Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561.) The foregoing discussion on preventing future harms
suggests that imposing a duty on landowners here could result in significant burdens.
Landowners that wished to provide or continue providing parking would have to make
difficult and complex determinations of availability and relative safety. They would
have to continuously monitor the dangerousness of the abutting street and other
streets in the area to determine which ones become more or less safe, and they may
have to relocate their parking lots as conditions change. They may also need to
hire employees to assist invitees with crossing the street., Recognizing these burdens,
Vasilenko argues that he is advocating only for a duty that could be satisfied by
"simple, inexpensive, and reasonable", The final Rowland factor is the availability
and cost of insurance. Vasilenko contends that general commercial liability insurance
is readily available to landowners such as the Church, and there is no reason to
believe that imposing a duty here would lead to unmanageable increases in premiums.
The Church challenges this premise, contending that it is unclear whether insurance
would be available to landowners or whether such insurance would be reasonably affordable.
Moreover, other forms of readily available insurance may already cover this type
of injury; for example, all drivers in California are required to carry personal
injury insurance. ( Veh. Code, § 16020 et seq. ; Ins. Code, § 11580.1, subd. (b).)
Insurance is also available to cover injuries resulting from collisions with uninsured
or underinsured drivers ( Ins. Code, § 11580.2 ), although these forms of insurance
may not cover a pedestrian's injuries if the pedestrian was at fault. Neither party
has provided sufficient information to settle the question of insurance one way
or the other; we can conclude only that insurance could be available to the landlord,
the invitee, and the driver. We find that the insurance factor weighs neither for
nor against imposing a duty here., **1205*1092In sum, two of the Rowland factors-foreseeability
and certainty-weigh in favor of finding a duty, while four-closeness, preventing
future harm, burden, and moral blame-weigh against duty, with the insurance factor
weighing in neither direction. In assessing duty, however, we do not merely count
up the factors on either side. In this case, the policy of preventing future harm
looms particularly large. In light of the limited steps the landowner can take to
reduce the risk to its invitees, especially when compared to the ability of invitees
and drivers to prevent injury, and in light of the possibility that imposing a duty
will discourage the landowner from designating options for parking, we hold that
a landowner who does no more than site and maintain a parking lot that requires
invitees to cross a public street to reach the landowner's premises does not owe
a duty to protect those invitees from the obvious dangers of the public street.,
Like the Court of Appeal, Vasilenko relies on two appellate decisions holding that
a landowner can be liable for injury occurring off-premises on an abutting public
street, Barnes v. Black (1999) 71 Cal.App.4th 1473, 84 Cal.Rptr.2d 634 ( Barnes
) and Annocki v. Peterson Enterprises, LLC (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 32, 180 Cal.Rptr.3d
474 ( Annocki ), as well as our decision in Bonanno v. Central Contra Costa Transit
Authority (2003) 30 Cal.4th 139, 132 Cal.Rptr.2d 341, 65 P.3d 807 ( Bonanno ), which
involved the placement of a public bus stop. Vasilenko also cites Schwartz v. Helms
Bakery Limited (1967) 67 Cal.2d 232, 60 Cal.Rptr. 510, 430 P.2d 68 ( Schwartz ),
involving the placement of a street vendor's bakery truck; Bigbee , supra , 34
Cal.3d 49, 192 Cal.Rptr. 857, 665 P.2d 947, involving the placement of a phone booth;
and Johnston v. De La Guerra Properties (1946) 28 Cal.2d 394, 170 P.2d 5 ( Johnston
), involving a dangerous means of ingress to a landowner's premises., By contrast,
Bonanno , Schwartz , and Bigbee did involve liability for the defendants' selection
of the location of the relevant premises. Bonanno did not involve a question of
duty under Civil Code section 1714, but rather whether a bus stop accessible only
across a dangerous uncontrolled *858crosswalk constituted a " 'dangerous condition'
" of public property within the meaning of Government Code sections 830 and 835.
( Bonanno , supra , 30 Cal.4th at p. 144, 132 Cal.Rptr.2d 341, 65 P.3d 807.) Although
we looked to Seaber , supra , 1 Cal. App.4th 481, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 405, and Schwartz
, supra , 67 Cal.2d 232, 60 Cal.Rptr. 510, 430 P.2d 68, for guidance, those cases
involved the duty of private parties, and we declined to hold that "public entity
liability under [Government code] section 835 is coextensive with private liability
for maintaining property in an unsafe condition." ( Bonanno , supra , 30 Cal.4th
at p. 152, 132 Cal.Rptr.2d 341, 65 P.3d 807.) Rather, Bonanno only assessed public
entity liability as "set by statute, not common law," and did not apply the Rowland
factors in question here. ( Bonanno , at p. 156, 132 Cal.Rptr.2d 341, 65 P.3d 807.)