Das Berufungsgericht, der State Court of Appeal for the State of California, First Appellate District, entschied am 21. Mai 2012 gegen das Opfer, weil die E Lazy S Ranch in Petaluma keine Schutzpflicht verletzt hatte. Es berücksichtigte sowohl den Charakter einiger Kuharten als auch Nachbarrechte und -praktiken am Privatweg und die Rechtsgrundlagen:
To succeed in a negligence action, the plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant owed the plaintiff a legal duty, (2) the defendant breached the duty, and (3) the breach proximately or legally caused (4) the plaintiff‟s damages or injuries. (Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center (1993) 6 Cal.4th 666, 673 … Reid v. Google, Inc. (2010) 50 Cal.4th 512, 527, fn. 5 …) Regarding duty, “Under general negligence principles, … a person ordinarily is obligated to exercise due care in his or her own actions so as not to create an unreasonable risk of injury to others, and this legal duty generally is owed to the class of persons who it is reasonably foreseeable may be injured as the result of the actor's conduct.” (Lugtu v. California Highway Patrol (2001) 26 Cal.4th 703, 716 …)