Anderson v. Falcon Drilling Co.
| Decision Date | 12 February 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 58657,58657 |
| Citation | 1985 OK 13,695 P.2d 521 |
| Parties | Ronald A. ANDERSON and Christine A. Anderson, Appellants, v. FALCON DRILLING COMPANY, an Oklahoma corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
King, Roberts & Beeler, and Saunders & Byrd by K. David Roberts and Charles J. Byrd, Oklahoma City, for appellants.
Looney, Nichols, Johnson & Hayes by Robert D. Looney, Jr., Oklahoma City, for appellee.
On February 6th, defendant Steven Plavchak was driving north on Highway 77 some four miles north of Lexington, Oklahoma, when he lost control of the vehicle on the snow and ice covered highway. Plavchak's automobile turned sideways and collided with a vehicle being driven by appellant Ronald A. Anderson. Both Anderson and Plavchak received injuries as a result of the collision. Roy Thompson, a passenger in the Plavchak car, died as a result of the accident, and Brent Bugher, a second passenger, also received injuries.
Appellants, Ronald A. Anderson and his wife Christine A. Anderson, initiated this action, naming as defendants Steven Plavchak, appellee Falcon Drilling Company and United Services Automobile Association, appellants' insurance carrier. Appellants' claim against Falcon Drilling Company was based upon the theory of respondeat superior and was supported by the allegation that Plavchak had been within the scope of his employment with Falcon Drilling at the time of the accident.
A motion for "partial summary judgment" 1 was filed by appellants requesting a ruling by the trial court on the question of appellee's liability for appellants' damages resulting from the collision with Plavchak. As grounds for the ruling sought, appellants asserted that the question of Plavchak's status at the time of the accident had previously been determined in a Workers' Compensation Court action in which it had been found that the injuries suffered by Plavchak and the other occupants of his vehicle had arisen out of and occurred in the course and scope of their employment by appellee.
Appellee thereafter filed its own motion for summary judgment, alleging that, as a matter of law, Plavchak was not within the scope of his employment at the time of the accident.
Neither appellants nor appellee filed affidavits or exhibits in support of their allegations. In their briefs in support of their motions, and in opposition to the opposing motions, the parties argued that the facts before the trial court supported their positions. The only materials before the trial court to establish these facts were three depositions: one from appellant Ronald Anderson; one from defendant Plavchak; and one from G.A. Malloy, a tool-pusher, or drilling site supervisor, employed by appellee. 2
The testimony presented in these depositions established that Plavchak was a member of a four man drilling crew employed on a drilling rig belonging to appellee, which, at the time of the accident, was in operation near the intersection of Reno and Eastern in Oklahoma City. The immediate supervisor of the drilling crew was the driller, Roy Thompson, who had died as a result of the collision. The driller was responsible for getting his shift to work on time to facilitate a smooth changeover in operation from one shift to another. In order to insure that his crew arrived on time, Thompson required his crew to car pool together. On the date of the collision, Thompson's crew was working evening (3:30 to 11:30) shift on the drilling rig. Thompson, Plavchak and third member of the crew, Brent Bugher, had met at Plavchak's house and were driving toward Norman to pick up the fourth member of the crew when the accident occurred.
The trial court granted appellee's motion for summary judgment, finding that Plavchak was not within the scope of his employment at the time of the accident. The trial court also denied appellants' motion for partial summary judgment. This ruling was appealed, and the cause assigned to the Court of Appeals, Division 1, which affirmed the judgment of the trial court in all respects. Appellants have now petitioned this Court for writ of certiorari to review the Court of Appeals decision, which appellants challenge as not being in accord with applicable decisions of this Court. We grant certiorari for the purpose of reviewing the Court of Appeals decision.
A motion for summary judgment should be denied if, under the evidence presented, reasonable men might draw different interpretations from the undisputed facts. 3 Where different interpretations may be drawn from those facts as to the status of a defendant at the time of the commission of a tort, the question of status should be presented to a jury, under proper instructions, as a question of fact. 4
The trial court, in granting summary judgment for appellee, apparently followed the "going and coming" rule recognized by this Court in the third syllabus of Elias v. Midwest Marble and Tile Company, 5 where we stated that, "[a]s a general rule, a man's employment does not begin until he has reached the place of his employment, and does not continue after he has gone ...." Or, as stated in Hinman v. Westinghouse Electric Company: 6
Under the "going and coming" rule, an employee going to and from work is ordinarily considered outside the scope of employment so that the employer is not liable for his torts. (1 Witkin, Summary of Cal.Law (7th ed.1960) pp. 448-449.) The "going and coming" rule is sometimes ascribed to the theory that the employment relationship is "suspended" from the time the employee leaves until he returns (Harvey v. D & L Construction Co., 251 Cal.App.2d 48, 51, 59 Cal.Rptr. 255), or that in commuting he is not rendering service to his employer (Robinson v. George, 16 Cal.2d 238, 244, 105 P.2d 914). Nevertheless, there are exceptions to the rule.
....
... [E]xceptions will be made to the "going and coming" rule where the trip involves an incidental benefit to the employer, not common to commute trips by ordinary members of the work force. The cases also indicate that the fact that the employee receives personal benefits is not determinative when there is also a benefit to the employer. (Citation omitted)
Oklahoma, like California, also recognizes exceptions to this rule. It is appellants' claim that the trial court erred in finding that the facts of this case were not subject to being interpreted as fitting within one of these exceptions.
The exception relied on by appellants in both the trial court and on appeal was that recognized by this Court in the case of Haco Drilling Co., Inc. v. Burchette: 7
We recognize as the general rule that a man's employment does not begin until he has reached the place of his employment, and does not continue after he has gone. Elias v. Midwest Marble & Tile Company, Okl., 302 P.2d 126. However, the instant situation presents an exception to the general rule. Not only was it anticipated that an employee's car would be used but under the facts a particular person (on the day in question this was Hughes) and his car was to carry the ice water. Hughes was going to work but this does not vary the fact that he was engaged in carrying out instructions given relative to performance of acts in his employment.
The facts in Haco were highly similar to the facts in the present case. In Haco, three members of a drilling crew were en route to work when the driver lost control of his car and crossed the center line, striking the plaintiff in that case. The three crew members had made a practice of car pooling and took turns driving. The driller, their immediate supervisor, did not participate in the car pool, but had instructed the three crew members that the person responsible for driving would also be responsible for stopping at an ice house, with which the drilling company had made a previous arrangement, and filling a company provided water can with ice and water for use by the crew on shift. The driver received no compensation until he started work on the rig. The driver had picked up the other two crew members, stopped at the ice house and filled the water can, and was on a direct route to the drill site when the accident occurred.
In Haco these facts were submitted to a jury, which found that the driver was in the scope of his employment when the accident occurred. On appeal, this Court found that these facts were sufficient to support the jury's verdict. In the course of the opinion, this Court indicated that the transportation of the water can was a decisive issue. As a result, it appears to have become the practice in the oil field to give a crew its own water can and instruct them, as was done in the present case, that they could either fill it or not. However, to read Haco with this emphasis, as was done by the Court of Appeals in distinguishing Haco, is to give it an overly simplistic interpretation. The decisive statement in Haco was this Court's finding that, "Hughes [the driver] was going to work but this does not vary the fact that he was engaged in carrying out instructions given relative to performance of acts in his employment." 8
In the present case, the driver, defendant Plavchak, was required by the driller, his immediate supervisor, to car pool. This car pooling requirement was of benefit to appellee's operations in that it facilitated smooth changeovers of drilling shifts. In the deposition of the tool pusher, G.A. Malloy, it was stated that if one of the crew members had objected to the car pooling, he, as rig supervisor, would have backed the driller's imposition of this requirement. It was as a result of the car pooling arrangement that Plavchak was driving north on Highway 77 to pick up the fourth member of the crew when the accident occurred, rather than proceeding by the quickest route from Lexington to Oklahoma City via Interstate 35.
Under these facts, it could be reasonably concluded that Plavchak "was engaged in carrying out instructions given relative to performance of acts...
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