(a) A public employee had actual notice of a dangerous condition within the meaning of subdivision (b) of Section 840.2 if he had actual personal knowledge of the existence of the condition and knew or should have known of its dangerous character.

(b) A public employee had constructive notice of a dangerous condition within the meaning of subdivision (b) of Section 840.2 only if the plaintiff establishes (1) that the public employee had the authority and it was his responsibility as a public employee to inspect the property of the public entity or to see that inspections were made to determine whether dangerous conditions existed in the public property, (2) that the funds and other means for making such inspections or for seeing that such inspections were made were immediately available to the public employee, and (3) that the dangerous condition had existed for such a period of time and was of such an obvious nature that the public employee, in the exercise of his authority and responsibility with due care, should have discovered the condition and its dangerous character.

Terms Used In California Government Code 840.4

  • Dangerous condition: means a condition of property that creates a substantial (as distinguished from a minor, trivial or insignificant) risk of injury when such property or adjacent property is used with due care in a manner in which it is reasonably foreseeable that it will be used. See California Government Code 830
  • Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
  • Subdivision: means a subdivision of the section in which the term occurs unless some other section is expressly mentioned. See California Government Code 10

(Added by Stats. 1963, Ch. 1681.)