Defense motions arguing that a defendant owed no duty are a staple of personal injury litigation. They usually share a structure: the facts of this particular accident were so unusual, the argument goes, that no reasonable person could have foreseen them, so the law should impose no duty at all. The California Supreme Court's decision in Cabral v. Ralphs Grocery Co., 51 Cal.4th 764 (2011), is the most important authority for rejecting that structure. It holds that duty is decided at a categorical level, and that the particular facts of the plaintiff's injury belong to the jury on breach and causation.
The facts
A Ralphs tractor-trailer driver stopped his rig on the dirt shoulder of a Southern California interstate to eat a snack. The stop was not an emergency. Some time later, Adelelmo Cabral's van left the roadway and struck the parked truck, and Cabral was killed. His widow sued Ralphs for wrongful death, alleging that the driver's decision to stop where he did, close to the traffic lanes and not in an emergency, was negligent.
The jury found both drivers negligent and apportioned most of the fault to Cabral, with a smaller share assigned to the Ralphs driver. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that Ralphs owed no duty because the risk that a car would veer off the freeway and strike a truck parked on the shoulder was not sufficiently foreseeable to justify imposing liability.
The holding
The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Werdegar, reversed the Court of Appeal and reinstated the judgment. The court's reasoning has three components worth understanding precisely.
Duty is the general rule
California Civil Code section 1714 establishes a general duty of ordinary care. Everyone is responsible for injuries caused by their want of ordinary care. Exceptions to that general duty must be clearly supported by public policy. The question in a no-duty motion is therefore not whether a duty should be created, but whether an exception to the existing duty is justified.
Exceptions are categorical
When courts consider whether to recognize an exception using the Rowland v. Christian factors, they analyze the issue at a broad level of factual generality. The question in Cabral was not whether Ralphs should have foreseen this particular van striking this particular truck at this particular time. It was whether a categorical rule should exempt drivers who stop on freeway shoulders for non-emergency reasons from the ordinary duty of care. The court held no such exemption was warranted. Drivers do leave the road, and stopping close to traffic increases the risk that such a vehicle will strike a stationary object with serious consequences.
Case-specific foreseeability is for the jury
The court drew a sharp line between duty and breach. Foreseeability as it bears on duty is assessed at the categorical level. Foreseeability as it bears on whether this defendant acted reasonably in these circumstances is part of the breach analysis, and breach is a question of fact. By assessing the specific circumstances of the crash and concluding that the harm was too unlikely, the Court of Appeal had converted a breach question into a duty question and taken it away from the jury.
Why it matters
Cabral is one of the most frequently cited duty decisions in California personal injury practice because the defense tactic it rejected is so common. Its practical effects show up in several places.
Opposing no-duty motions
When a defendant moves for summary judgment on duty, read the motion for case-specific reasoning. Arguments that turn on the particular sequence of events, the exact timing, or the unusual conduct of the plaintiff or a third party are breach and causation arguments dressed as duty arguments. Cabral supports the response that those issues are for the jury and that the proper duty question is whether a categorical exception exists for the class of conduct at issue.
Framing the category
Both sides will try to frame the category to their advantage. Defendants describe it narrowly to make the risk seem remote. Plaintiffs describe it at a level that reflects the general risk the conduct creates. Cabral itself provides the model: the category was non-emergency stops on freeway shoulders, not the specific stop that preceded this crash. Frame the category around the defendant's conduct and the general type of risk it creates.
Comparative fault does not eliminate duty
Cabral also illustrates that a plaintiff's substantial fault does not erase the defendant's duty. The decedent bore most of the fault in the jury's allocation, and the judgment against Ralphs still stood. Under comparative negligence principles, the plaintiff's own conduct reduces recovery; it does not alter the existence of the defendant's duty.
How later decisions build on it
The Supreme Court has repeatedly relied on Cabral's framework in subsequent duty decisions, including cases addressing landowner duties, employer duties, and duties to protect against third-party conduct. Later decisions refined how the Rowland factors are applied and how special relationship analysis fits into the framework, but the core principle, that duty exceptions are categorical and case-specific foreseeability is for the jury, remains intact.
For practitioners, Cabral pairs naturally with the court's later decisions on third-party harm and premises duties. Our case law and settlements coverage tracks how those decisions interact, and the comparative-fault apportionment issues Cabral raises in vehicle cases are covered under auto accidents.
Working checklist
- Start every duty opposition with Civil Code section 1714 and the general duty of ordinary care.
- Identify whether the defendant seeks a categorical exception or is actually arguing breach.
- Frame the relevant category at a general level tied to the defendant's conduct.
- Walk through the Rowland factors at that categorical level, emphasizing foreseeability of the general type of harm, the connection between conduct and injury, and the policy of preventing future harm.
- Argue that any case-specific foreseeability concerns belong to the jury on breach.
The bottom line
Cabral reminds courts that the duty question is a legal question about categories of conduct, not a vehicle for deciding individual cases on their unusual facts. For plaintiffs facing no-duty motions, it supplies the structure for keeping the case in front of a jury, where questions about what this defendant should have foreseen properly belong.
