Court of Appeal: No Employer Liability for Employee's Car Accident in Company Truck

We posted about the Court of Appeal's previous opinion in Moradi v. Marsh here.  That case caused quite a stir, when it held that an employer could be vicariously liable for an employee's car accident when she took a detour for yoga and frozen yogurt during her commute home.  The premise was that the employer required the employee to use her personal vehicle for work. Therefore, the  "going and coming" rule exonerating employers did not apply.  The employer was held vicariously liable for accidents occurring during foreseeable detours from the commute as well as the commute itself.

Now, just a few days later, a different court decided that an employer was NOT liable for an employee's accident when he was using a company-owned vehicle.   Why? Because he took a long detour away from work, over 100 miles.  Here is the Court's analysis.

The undisputed facts presented by Halliburton’s motion for summary judgment demonstrated that Martinez’s purpose in traveling to and from Bakersfield on September 13, 2009, was entirely personal. He finished his shift and drove the company truck 140 miles to Bakersfield; he intended to meet his wife at a car dealership and sign the papers to purchase a vehicle for her. Martinez was not performing any services or running any errands for Halliburton. His supervisor was unaware of the trip until after the accident. The trip was not made in the furtherance of any business activity of the employer. The
risk of a traffic accident during this personal trip was not a risk inherent in, or “‘“typical of or broadly incidental to,”’” Halliburton’s enterprise. (Bailey, supra, 48 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1558-1559.)

The Court here read Moradi before issuing the opinion, but held that the plaintiff's trip for yogurt and yoga was way more closely related to her commute than the plaintiff in the Haliburton case.

The plaintiffs in this opinion were the injured persons who sued Martinez, Halliburton's employee. Halliburton argued that it was not liable for Martinez's accident because he was acting outside the course and scope of his employment by driving the company owned truck on a personal errand taking him miles away from his home and work. 

The Court rejected the plaintiff's argument that the 100 mile detour was part of his commute or that it was foreseeable:

The Plaintiffs argue Martinez was returning to work at the time of the accident, so the trip, or at least the return from Bakersfield, was part of Martinez’s commute back to work. We do not believe the purpose or destination of the return leg of the journey can be separated from the purpose of the trip as a whole in this manner. Under plaintiffs’ theory, the return leg of any personal trip in the company vehicle, regardless of the length of time spent, the distance traveled, and the complete lack of connection between the trip and the enterprise of the employer or the work of the employee, would give rise to respondeat superior liability, as long as the employee’s ultimate destination on return was the workplace. We reject such an expansion of the incidental benefit exception to the going and coming rule.

The purpose of Martinez’s trip as a whole was entirely personal. The trip to Bakersfield was such a complete and material departure from his employment duties that it could not reasonably be considered to be an activity in pursuit of the employer’s business or a minor deviation from the strict course of the employee’s duties. It was such a marked turning aside from the employer’s business as to be inconsistent with its pursuit: driving to a location 140 miles from his assigned worksite, a trip that would take more than six hours to complete, without asking his employer’s permission or informing his supervisor that he would be gone, when, according to plaintiffs, Martinez was on call 24 hours, seven days a week, and might be called at any time to proceed to a new location. This activity would be entirely inconsistent with serving the employer’s purposes. Consequently, the trip to Bakersfield was, as a matter of law, outside the scope of Martinez’s employment.

Plaintiffs attempt to characterize the trip to Bakersfield as part of Martinez’s commute between the oil rig in Seal Beach and his home in Caliente. But the evidence presented indicated Martinez did not go home, because it was too far out of the way. Martinez met his wife and daughter at a car dealership in Bakersfield, 45 to 50 miles from his home, in order to sign the documents necessary to purchase a vehicle for his wife. The undisputed evidence does not support a contention that Martinez was
commuting between his home in Caliente and the oil rig at the time of the accident.

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So, Moradi is not going to expand liability as far as some imagine, apparently.  

This case is Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. v. Department of Transportation and the opinion is here.