1DCA Division 4 Oral Argument - 2025/10/21 - Oct 21, 2025

argument

1DCA Division 4 Oral Argument - 2025/10/21

California First District Court of Appeal 1h 26m 7 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What does the court’s opening statement cover and how are appearances taken?

Unknown 0:15

Good morning, and please be seated, everyone. OK, so it looks like folks are in place already on the first manner, which is Jimenez et al. versus Hayes Apartment Homes et al. Could I begin with appearances from council, please?

Unknown 0:45

Okay. And if I could have counsel for appellants please come up to the podium. And if you would begin by telling us how much of your 15 minutes, if any, you'd like to reserve for rebuttal, I would appreciate that. I'd like to reserve five minutes, Your Honor. Okay. You may proceed. Thank you. As the court knows, this is a tragic case where two young children suffered terrible injuries after falling from an unguarded window. the trial court granted non-suit based on plaintiff's alleged failure to prove negligence. To affirm that grant of non-suit, this court would have to make two holdings. One, that the building code was not violated and the defendants were therefore not negligent per se. And two, that there was no substantial evidence to support a finding of general negligence.

Unknown 1:32

Neither of those holdings is tenable. I'll start with the building code. It's our position that the defendants violated the building code in 2016 when they renovated the complex where the accident occurred, Blakely Townhomes, because they failed to install window opening control devices. In the trial court, It was undisputed that this was an alteration of the windows and that as such, they were required to comply with the same standards as new construction unless there were certain exceptions that they could take advantage of. Now for the first time on appeal, they've argued that actually it wasn't an alteration at all, it was merely a repair. That's an issue that the court should decline to reach because it's not a pure question of law, it's a factual issue.

Unknown 2:18

Whether it's a repair would depend on whether the work was done purely for the purpose of maintenance. There's evidence on the record that it wasn't done for maintenance, that it was done for aesthetic reasons, for energy efficiency reasons, for reasons that had nothing to do with a repair, and if we'd had the opportunity to make a better record on that point because the issue had been raised, then we would have. I mean, actually, on the record here, so the The window is composed, I mean, it's made up of glass. It's made up of a frame surrounding the glass that presumably attaches to the wall of the apartment building, and it's made up of a sill,

Maria Giornova-Dupunov 3:04

right? Yes, sir. So that's

Unknown 3:05

the totality of this building. assembly, I suppose one could call it. Now the window control device, I just want to understand what we're dealing with here. The window control device is attached to the sill, correct? Yes. If it had been installed. There are multiple ways to comply with the standard, but the typical way... I don't want to use the word comply or violate. I'm just trying to factually understand what we got here. There's multiple methods that could be used to prevent a window from opening more than four inches so that a child's head would not fit through it. But in general, yes. So the window control device would be attached to the sill. Would it also be attached to the frame? I believe that there's versions that could be attached to the frame as well.

Unknown 4:05

Our expert testified that there's a variety of different mechanisms that can achieve that and that the standard is simply that it has to be restricted from opening more than four inches.

4:17

Okay, all right.

Unknown 4:18

So on the, I'll proceed to the question of whether those exceptions apply given our position that this is an alteration. And the, The defendants point to two building code sections in support of that argument. Sections 340411 and section 340141, but we contend that neither of them is susceptible to that construction. Those provisions say that original or existing materials can be retained under certain conditions. And the problem for the defendants is that a window is not a material, nor is a safety device on a window a material. In my view, there's no need to advance to the minutia of statutory or regulatory interpretation because the meaning of materials is a matter of common sense and it doesn't apply to windows.