Jury Awards $6.71 Million After KSBY Manager Killed Crossing Shell Beach Road Outside The Cliffs Resort

On November 19, 2011, Tricia Rittger, 39, of Los Osos drove to The Cliffs Resort in Shell Beach for an evening out with friends. The resort's west parking lot was full, so she was directed to the east lot across Shell Beach Road. There was no marked crosswalk at that location. While crossing the road, she was struck by an SUV and suffered fatal injuries. She died at Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, leaving behind her husband Aaron and a four-year-old daughter.

Aaron Rittger filed a civil lawsuit against The Cliffs Resort, its owner John King, the City of Pismo Beach, and the driver of the SUV. The central claim was that The Cliffs had violated its conditional use permit, which required the east lot to be reserved exclusively for employees, and that the resort's failure to enforce that restriction placed guests in the position of having to cross a busy road with no pedestrian protection.

The City of Pismo Beach settled before trial for $1.5 million, without admitting liability. The case against The Cliffs and its owner proceeded to a two-week jury trial beginning July 31, 2014, in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court before Judge Barry LaBarbera. Plaintiff's counsel argued that management knew the cross-street parking arrangement was dangerous and that a simple policy correction or a crosswalk could have prevented the death.

The jury set the family's total damages at $6,709,300 for Aaron Rittger and his daughter, then apportioned fault among the parties, assigning 10 percent to The Cliffs Resort and 36 percent to Tricia Rittger, with the remainder split among the other defendants. Under California's comparative-fault rules, each defendant is responsible only for its share of that total, so The Cliffs faced roughly 10 percent of the award.

The family had initially sought roughly $22 million covering funeral costs, lost income, court costs, and general damages, based in part on Rittger's salary of more than $70,000 a year as the household's primary earner. The $6,709,300 figure was the jury's finding of the total value of the family's loss before that fault was apportioned.