A Los Angeles County jury needed six days of trial and a single uneven seam in a concrete walkway to reach a $3.7 million verdict. The woman who tripped on it, Nora Garcia, worked as a special education assistant principal at Orange High School in the City of Orange. She was walking outside a newly built student services building in 2023 when her foot caught the lip where two sections of concrete didn’t line up, and she went down hard enough to fracture her wrist and injure her knee badly enough to end her running.¹
The jury didn’t blame Garcia for wearing the wrong shoes or looking at her phone. It blamed the people responsible for the walkway: the general contractor, a subcontractor, and Garcia’s own employer, the Orange Unified School District, even though the district could never actually be sued. The verdict, returned August 13, 2026, is a useful case study for anyone in Orange County wondering what actually happens when uneven pavement puts someone in the hospital.
What Happened at Orange High School
According to Courtroom View Network, which recorded the trial gavel to gavel, Garcia fell on an uneven concrete surface outside a new student services building on the Orange High School campus.¹ Her trial counsel argued that the mismatched concrete had been raised as a concern in meetings with school officials before Garcia’s fall.¹ PCL Construction, the general contractor on the building project, pointed at the school district and its subcontractor instead.
The jury didn’t pick one villain. It split the fault four ways: 65 percent to PCL Construction, 20 percent to the Orange Unified School District, 10 percent to a subcontractor, and 5 percent to Garcia herself.¹ The total award beat the $2 million pre-trial settlement offer PCL had put on the table, according to reporting on the trial.¹
Why Blaming the School District Didn’t Let PCL Off the Hook
Every contractor working on a property owes the people who use it a duty of ordinary care under California Civil Code section 1714, the statute that anchors almost every premises liability case in this state.² That duty doesn’t disappear just because someone else, the property owner, a subcontractor, also had a hand in creating the hazard. PCL tried to shift the blame at trial, arguing that when school officials flagged the uneven concrete, it showed up only as a routine “punch list” item, construction industry shorthand for something that doesn’t need urgent attention, not a hazard serious enough to demand an immediate fix. The jury didn’t let that argument carry the day.
That’s exactly the kind of dispute Proposition 51, codified at Civil Code section 1431.2, was built to resolve. Under Prop 51, a defendant’s liability for non-economic damages, pain and suffering, and the human cost of an injury is several only, meaning each defendant pays for its own percentage of fault and no more.³ PCL didn’t get billed for the school district’s 20 percent or Garcia’s 5 percent, but it also couldn’t make its own 65 percent disappear by pointing at someone else. The jury did the math defendant by defendant, which is precisely how Prop 51 is designed to work.
Comparative fault cuts the other way, too. California follows pure comparative negligence, a rule the state Supreme Court established in Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804.⁴ An injured person doesn’t lose their case just because they share some blame. Garcia was found 5 percent at fault, and her recovery was reduced accordingly, but that small percentage didn’t come close to erasing a verdict built on the other 95 percent.
The harder question in most trip-and-fall cases isn’t who owned the property. It’s whether the party in a position to fix the hazard knew, or should have known, about it before someone got hurt. That’s exactly where PCL’s “punch list” argument ran into trouble: the plaintiff’s side argued the uneven seam had come up in meetings with school officials well before the fall, not as a minor cosmetic item but as a walking hazard right outside a building people used every day. A defect that’s been reported and left unfixed is a much stronger case than one nobody ever flagged, and it’s the difference between an isolated accident and a preventable one.
Why an Employer Can Get 20 Percent of the Blame Without Being Sued
Orange Unified School District carried 20 percent of the fault in this verdict, but Garcia never sued the district, and she couldn’t have. She was a district employee, hurt on district property, while doing her job. Under Labor Code section 3602, an injured employee’s exclusive remedy against their own employer is a workers’ compensation claim, not a lawsuit.⁵ That rule doesn’t bend based on how careless the employer was or how quickly anyone acted.
That protection only covers the employer. It says nothing about the general contractor or the subcontractor who did the actual work, which is exactly who Garcia sued. But to figure out how much PCL and the subcontractor should each pay, the jury still had to account for every party who contributed to the fall, including the district. California courts settled this in DaFonte v. Up-Right, Inc. (1992) 2 Cal.4th 593: a jury can assign a percentage of fault to an employer even though that employer can’t be sued directly, and that percentage reduces what the actual defendants owe for pain and suffering.⁶ The district’s 20 percent shows up on the verdict form for that reason alone. Nobody was ever going to collect it from the district, and nobody needed to file anything against the district to get there.
What Garcia’s Injuries and Verdict Reveal About Damages
A wrist fracture and a knee injury don’t sound catastrophic on paper, but Garcia’s case shows how much a single fall can take from someone. Her trial counsel described her to jurors as an avid runner, and her injuries ended that.¹ California law allows recovery for both categories of harm a fall like this creates: economic damages such as medical bills, physical therapy, and any lost income, and non-economic damages for pain, physical limitation, and the loss of activities that shaped daily life before the injury. Falls that permanently limit mobility or function can rise to the level of a catastrophic injury claim even without a single broken bone that sounds dramatic on its own.
The size of a verdict isn’t something any attorney can promise going in. What Garcia’s case shows is how a jury actually values a permanent change to someone’s daily life once the medical evidence and the liability picture are fully developed at trial.
What to Do After a Fall on Uneven Pavement
First, get photos of the exact spot before anyone repairs it. An uneven seam, a cracked slab, or a lip in the concrete is often patched within days of a complaint, and the photo of the actual hazard is usually the single most persuasive piece of evidence in a premises case.
Second, report the fall in writing to whoever manages the property, whether that’s a business, a homeowner, a school, or a government agency, and ask for a copy of any incident report they create.
Third, get evaluated by a doctor the same day if at all possible. Adrenaline hides pain, and a same-day record ties your symptoms to the fall instead of leaving room for an insurer to argue they showed up later for some other reason.
Fourth, find out who owns and who maintains the property. Those aren’t always the same entity, and a fall on a school campus, in a shopping center, or on land leased to a business can involve more than one responsible party.
Fifth, if the fall happened at your own job, understand that a workers’ compensation claim, not a lawsuit against your employer, is generally your path forward against that employer specifically. That doesn’t rule out pursuing a contractor, a property manager, or another outside party who also contributed to the hazard.
Sixth, get a personal injury attorney involved before you give a recorded statement to anyone’s insurance company. What you say in the first few days, before you know the full extent of your injuries, can follow you through the rest of the case.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still recover if I was partly at fault for my own fall?
Yes. California’s pure comparative negligence rule reduces your recovery by your percentage of fault, but it doesn’t bar the claim. Garcia was found 5 percent at fault and still recovered a multi-million dollar verdict on the remaining 95 percent.
How do courts decide how much each defendant pays?
Under Proposition 51, each defendant’s share of non-economic damages, the pain and suffering portion of a verdict, tracks its own percentage of fault. A defendant found 65 percent at fault pays for that 65 percent, not for another defendant’s share.
What if I was hurt at my own workplace instead of as a visitor?
If your injury happened on the job, California’s workers’ compensation system is generally your only path against your own employer, regardless of how careless the employer was.⁵ That doesn’t end the case. If a contractor, equipment maker, or other outside party also contributed to the hazard, you can still pursue them directly, and a jury can still weigh your employer’s share of fault when deciding how much those outside parties owe.⁶
Does a jury have to assign fault only to the people actually sued?
No. When a party who contributed to an injury can’t be sued directly, often because it was the injured person’s own employer, a California jury can still assign that party a percentage of fault. That allocation reduces what the actual defendants owe for pain and suffering, even though the unsued party never faces a judgment. That’s what happened with the school district in Garcia’s case.⁶
How long do I have to file a slip and fall claim against a private property owner in California?
Generally two years from the date of the injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1.⁷ A shorter deadline can apply in other situations, such as a claim against a government entity you’re not employed by, which is why identifying exactly who owns and controls the property is worth doing early.
How Wunderli Injury Law Approaches Cases Like This
A fall on uneven pavement rarely involves just one responsible party, and sorting out a general contractor’s share from a subcontractor’s share, especially when an employer’s immunity is part of the picture, takes real investigative work before a case ever sees a courtroom. At Wunderli Injury Law, PC, we work to identify every outside party who contributed to a dangerous condition, whether that’s a general contractor, a subcontractor, or a property manager, and to protect the statute of limitations and any other deadline that applies before evidence disappears or a claim window closes. If you were seriously hurt in a slip and fall accident anywhere in Orange County, our office is available for a free consultation. There’s no fee unless we recover for you, and case costs are handled separately depending on the outcome. Contact Wunderli Injury Law or call (949) 866-3833 to talk through what happened.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws cited are California statutes as of publication date and are subject to change. If you have been injured, contact a qualified California personal injury attorney to discuss your rights. Wunderli Injury Law, PC serves clients throughout Southern California.
CITATIONS
1. Courtroom View Network, “Principal Awarded $3.7M+ In School Slip-And-Fall Trial: Watch Gavel-to-Gavel via CVN” (Aug. 2026), https://blog.cvn.com/principal-awarded-3.7m-in-school-slip-and-fall-trial-watch-gavel-to-gavel-via-cvn.
2. Cal. Civ. Code § 1714 (general duty of ordinary care), https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV§ionNum=1714.
3. Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2 (Proposition 51; several liability for non-economic damages), https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV§ionNum=1431.2.
4. Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 (California adopts pure comparative negligence).
5. Cal. Labor Code § 3602 (workers’ compensation as the exclusive remedy of an injured employee against the employer), https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB§ionNum=3602.
6. DaFonte v. Up-Right, Inc. (1992) 2 Cal.4th 593 (under Proposition 51, a jury may allocate fault to an employer immune from suit, reducing the non-economic damages owed by third-party defendants).
7. Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 (two-year statute of limitations for personal injury).