A tourist visiting La Jolla from out of state suffered minor injuries recently when a handrail next to a stairway broke from its base and gave way, causing the man to fall.
The broken handrail has been removed. The handrail on the other side of the stairs remains.
Visitor Anne Caddick said “Our group was walking up the steep stairs [from Coast Boulevard to Prospect Street] to dine at a restaurant. … Just as my friend, who relies on a walking stick for balance, was about three or four steps from the top, he reached for the rail on the right to help him up the final steps. When he grabbed it, the rail broke off. The concrete had sheared away and the pipe was rusted through. He fell and fortunately landed facing upward on the steps.”
The friend was able to get up, and Caddick “shoved the rail away from the stairs and we continued on our way,” she said. “He was irritated that he fell [but] didn’t want to make a scene. … Fortunately he wasn’t seriously hurt, just a few bruises, but it could have been much worse.”
San Diego city spokesman Anthony Santacroce said details about the cause of the break likely will not be available for weeks. He added that a timeline for completing repairs also is not immediately available.
In the meantime, he said, “we are making interim repairs to the damaged section of the stairs until the city is able to initiate a capital improvement project to construct a new staircase.”
The tourist involved did not indicate an intention to sue the city, but in recent years, several trip-and-fall lawsuits have been triggered by incidents on city streets in La Jolla.
One of them, filed against San Diego in April 2022, stated that in January 2020, a resident was walking along Pearl Street when she tripped in an empty tree well, fell and hit her face on the sidewalk.
Another was filed in June 2022 after a person walking along Silverado Street reportedly tripped on raised decorative pavers in September 2021.
An additional suit filed in September 2023 by La Jolla resident Ann Kerr alleged that in June 2022 she was injured when she tripped and fell on a cracked and uneven portion of sidewalk on Ivanhoe Avenue.
At the time, the city directed the lawsuits to Enhance La Jolla, the nonprofit that manages the Maintenance Assessment District in The Village with authority to enhance services provided by the city, including landscape maintenance, street and sidewalk cleaning, litter and graffiti abatement and additional trash collection.
However, a new contract with the city effective in July 2023 “takes away the liability of the MAD for trip-and-fall issues on sidewalks,” Enhance La Jolla President Ed Witt said. “We are no longer responsible for things we haven’t done.”
But having seen the hazards associated with the lawsuits, Witt told the La Jolla Light this week that “there are a ton of issues related to stairways to the beaches, and so many people have been asking the city to resolve them. … La Jollans are well-aware of the lack of attention and maintenance on many La Jolla public rights of way, [and] the city just hasn’t the focus or finances to fix them all.”
The city advises reporting such issues on its Get It Done app. To learn more, visit sandiego.gov/get-it-done. ♦
