Rodas v. Prescott Valley

NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.
UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL
AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE
ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION ONE

LISA RODAS,
Plaintiff/Appellant,

v.

TOWN OF PRESCOTT VALLEY a municipal corporation,
Defendant/Appellee.

No. 1 CA-CV 24-0584
FILED 05-22-2025

Appeal from the Superior Court in Yavapai County
No. S1300CV202300997
The Honorable Kristyne Marie Schaaf-Olson, Judge Pro Tempore

VACATED AND REMANDED

COUNSEL

MAYESTELLES PLLC, Phoenix
By Alejandro D. Barrientos, J. Blake Mayes
Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant

DOYLE HERNANDEZ MILLIAM, Phoenix
By William H. Doyle, Carlos A. Hernandez, Emily S. Morgan
Counsel for Defendant/Appellee
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MEMORANDUM DECISION

Judge D. Steven Williams delivered the Court’s decision, in which
Presiding Judge Jennifer M. Perkins and Judge James B. Morse Jr. joined.

W I L L I A M S, Judge:

¶1 Lisa Rodas appeals the superior court’s dismissal of her claim
against the Town of Prescott Valley (“the Town”). For reasons that follow,
we vacate the dismissal order and remand for further proceedings.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2 Rodas tripped on a curb and fell while attending an outdoor
Christmas tree lighting event at the Prescott Valley Civic Center on
December 3, 2022. The fall fractured Rodas’s shoulder and tore her rotator
cuff. Anticipating litigation, she retained an attorney on December 9th.
Days later, she underwent surgery.

¶3 In January 2023, Rodas sent a letter to the Town. The Town
responded that same month confirming it maintained and controlled the
area where Rodas fell and was injured. In May 2023, Rodas sent a notice of
claim to the Town.

¶4 On December 5, 2023 (one year and two days after her injury),
Rodas sued the Town alleging gross negligence in its maintenance of the
curb. The Town moved the superior court to dismiss Rodas’s complaint
contending: (1) A.R.S. § 12-821 barred Rodas’s complaint because she filed
it more than one year after Rodas’s cause of action accrued, and
alternatively, (2) it lacked factual allegations suggesting the Town acted
with “gross, willful, or wanton conduct,” a required element to prove gross
negligence.

¶5 At the same time Rodas responded to the Town’s motion to
dismiss, she also filed her first amended complaint (“FAC”). In her
response to the motion to dismiss, Rodas argued that, under the discovery
rule, her cause of action did not accrue until she knew or should have
known both what caused her injury (tripping and falling over the “poorly-
designed and hazardous curb”), and who caused it. In her FAC, Rodas
added, inter alia, that “[w]hen [she] fell, she did not know . . . whether the
curb was owned, controlled, or maintained by the Town [], the County, the

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State, or some other public entity.” In other words, Rodas argued that her
cause of action did not accrue on December 3, 2022, because she did not
know who was responsible for the curb’s maintenance and condition on the
day she tripped over it.

¶6 The superior court granted the Town’s motion to dismiss,
reasoning that Rodas’s complaint “alleges the cause of her damages was a
curb she fell over while at the Prescott Valley Civic Center on December 3,
2022. All of which Plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known on [that
date].” The court concluded Rodas “had until December 3, 2023, to bring an
action against the Town.”

¶7 This timely appeal followed. We have jurisdiction under
Article 6, Section 9, of the Arizona Constitution and A.R.S.
§§ 12-120.21(A)(1), -2101(A)(1).

DISCUSSION

¶8 We review de novo the dismissal of a complaint under Arizona
Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Coleman v. City of Mesa, 230 Ariz. 352, 355,
¶ 7 (2012). In doing so, we “assume the truth of all well-pleaded factual
allegations and indulge all reasonable inferences from those facts.” Id. at
356, ¶ 9.

¶9 A claim against a public entity must “be brought within one
year after the cause of action accrues.” A.R.S. § 12-821. Under A.R.S.
§ 12-821.01(B), “a cause of action accrues when the damaged party realizes
he or she has been damaged and knows or reasonably should know the
cause, source, act, event, instrumentality or condition that caused or
contributed to the damage.”

¶10 However, “[t]he discovery rule provides that a statute of
limitations is tolled until ‘the plaintiff knows or with reasonable diligence
should know the facts underlying the cause.’” Satamian v. Great Divide Ins.
Co., 257 Ariz. 163, 170, ¶ 13 (2024) (citation omitted). The facts underlying
the cause include both the what and who elements of causation and are
expected to be known only after a plaintiff has a reason to connect those
two elements “in such a way that a reasonable person would be on notice
to investigate whether the injury might result from fault.” Walk v. Ring, 202
Ariz. 310, 316, ¶ 22 (2002); accord Lawhon v. L.B.J. Institutional Supply, Inc.,
159 Ariz. 179, 183 (App. 1988) (“The cause of action does not accrue until
the plaintiff knows or should have known of both the what and who
elements of causation.”).

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¶11 Here, Rodas stated in her FAC that she did not know on
December 3, 2022, who owned, maintained or controlled the curb over
which she tripped and fell. For our purposes, we must treat Rodas’s
statement as fact.

¶12 The critical inquiry then, in determining when Rodas’s cause
of action accrued, “is when a reasonable person would readily identify [the
Town] as a potential defendant.” Satamian, 257 Ariz. at 170, ¶ 15. In some
cases the court “may determine the date of accrual as a matter of law,”
Kopacz v. Banner Health, 245 Ariz. 97, 100, ¶ 11 (App. 2018), but if there are
disputed material facts, determining when the what and who elements of
causation should have been known “are usually and necessarily questions
of fact for the jury,” Walk, 202 Ariz. at 316, ¶ 23.

¶13 On this limited record, we cannot say as a matter of law that
any reasonable person should have known the Town was the who behind
Rodas’s injury. That question is best determined after discovery is
complete.

CONCLUSION

¶14 We vacate the superior court’s dismissal order and remand
for further proceedings.

MATTHEW J. MARTIN • Clerk of the Court
FILED: JR

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