Special Errand Doctrine Applies to Employee Driving Home Even When Route Taken Overlaps Regular Commute Route
In Chuenchomporn Jeewarat, et al v. Warner Brothers Entertainment, Inc., No. B212323 (September 3), Division Five of the Second Appellate District reversed a summary judgment awarded Warner Brothers after one of its vice-presidents was involved in an automobile accident while returning from a three-day out-of-town business conference. Upon his return, he drove from the airport to his office location, drove around it without stopping, and then followed his normal commute route to his home. In the course of the latter part of this trip a multi-vehicle accident occurred, resulting in both injuries to two pedestrians and death to a third. Plaintiffs sought to impose liability on Warner Brothers based on principles of respondeat superior. Warner Brothers filed a summary judgment motion rooted in the “going and coming rule,” providing that an employer is not subject to vicarious liability for accidents taking place during an employee’s commute to and from the workplace. The trial court granted the motion. On appeal, plaintiffs contended the business conference was a special errand under the “special errand doctrine,” which imputes liability to employers for acts of employees engaged in a special errand for the employer, including the employee’s commute to and from the errand.
The Court of Appeal held that the employee’s attendance at an out-of-town business conference may be considered a special errand under the special errand doctrine. In addition, the Court went on, when an employee intends to drive home from the errand, the errand is not concluded simply because the employee may drive his regular commute route. Rather, the errand is concluded only when the employee returns home or deviates from the errand for personal reasons. Here the employee drove around his office location only coincidentally, with no intention to return to work, and there was no other interruption of the special errand, other than that caused by the incident, until he actually reached home. The Court also rejected Warner Brothers’ attempt to avoid liability based on workers compensation law. In IBM Corp. v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (1978) 77 Cal. App. 3rd 279, 282, it was held that an employee whose work entails travel away from home is continuously acting within the course and scope of his employment. However, Warner Brothers argued, in Sunderland v. Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems Support Co. (2005) 130 Cal. App. 4th 1, 8, the Court concluded that the employer could not be held liable for a tort that occurred, albeit during a business trip, when the employee was acting solely in a personal behalf. The Court here found that Sunderland did not address the special errand doctrine, does not, by its own terms, apply to third-party torts regardless of whether the employee is acting in a personal capacity at the time of the tort, and dealt with a factual scenario in which the employee was clearly engaged in his own personal business at the time of the incident.
September 3, 2009
Posted in: Blog