Poor boy

The state's Fourth District Court of Appeal on Friday (October 31) reversed a Superior Court decision letting La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club off the hook for serious head and brain injuries suffered by a five-year old boy who fell through a screen in a second-floor room in 2008. The parents, Nan and Jeff Lawrence, had asked for a first-floor room, but couldn't get one. In the morning, the mother opened a window to hear the ocean. The parents were distracted and the boy fell, hitting the concrete below.

The parents sued for negligence, dangerous condition of property, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Superior Court Judge Randa Trapp dismissed the parents' suit last year, saying the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club had no duty to install a prevention device on the window and the accident was not caused by the hotel's failure to employ such a device.

A certified building inspector testified that the window complied with building codes that did not require preventive devices. But the hotel's former director of operations testified that he had ordered bars placed on front bay windows to prevent people from falling out of windows. Another witness for the Lawrences noted that the hotel room had safety bars on two of its windows and on windows in other ocean-facing rooms, but not the one from which the boy fell.

On Friday, the appellate court said a jury should decide whether the hotel, the parents, or both were at fault.