Salt Lake City Corp. v. Labor Com'n

• Decision Date: 12 January 2007
• Docket Number: No. 20050774.,20050774.
• Citation: 153 P.3d 179,2007 UT 4
• Parties: SALT LAKE CITY CORPORATION, Petitioner, v. LABOR COMMISSION and Michelle S. Ross, Respondents.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

153 P.3d 179

2007 UT 4

SALT LAKE CITY CORPORATION, Petitioner, v. LABOR COMMISSION and Michelle S. Ross, Respondents.

No. 20050774.

Supreme Court of Utah.

January 12, 2007.

Thomas C. Sturdy, Kristy L. Bertelsen, Salt Lake City, for petitioner.

Alan L. Hennebold, Salt Lake City, for respondent Labor Commission.

Gary E. Atkin, Marsha Atkin, Salt Lake City, for respondent Ross.

NEHRING, Justice:

¶ 1 The law uses the "going and coming" rule to determine when a person acquires and abandons her status as an employee at the beginning and end of the workday. If an untoward event, typically an accident of some kind, befalls an employee who is "just" coming or going from the workplace, it is of no legal consequence to the employer.

¶ 2 However, we must ask how much more than "just" coming and going is required before the reach of the law grasps an employer whose employee is in transit. As the legal history of the automobile accident involving Salt Lake City police officer Michelle Ross illustrates, our answer to the question affects directly the legal rights and responsibilities of the employee, employer, and third parties.

¶ 3 This is the second time this court has been called upon to review the application of the going and coming rule to Ms. Ross's accident. In Ahlstrom v. Salt Lake City Corp., 2002 UT 4, 73 P.3d 315, we held that the district court had properly applied the going and coming rule when it determined that at the time of the accident Ms. Ross was not employed by Salt Lake City to a degree that would render the City vicariously liable for her negligence.

¶ 4 Now, we confront the question of whether the appeals board of the Utah Labor Commission properly applied the going and coming rule when it affirmed the ruling of an administrative law judge (ALJ) that Ms. Ross was entitled to receive workers' compensation benefits because the accident arose out of and in the course of her employment. As we will explain, the application of the going and coming rule to a single event may result in treating a person as an employee for the purpose of establishing eligibility for workers' compensation benefits while withholding employee status for the purpose of making the employer liable to third persons. We hold that the going and coming rule does not bar Ms. Ross from receiving workers' compensation benefits, and consequently, we affirm the Commission's award of workers' compensation benefits to Ms. Ross.

BACKGROUND

¶ 5 At the time her automobile accident occurred, Ms. Ross was a Field Training Officer (FTO) for the Salt Lake City police department. She was returning to her home in Tooele, Utah, from an FTO meeting she had attended while off duty. She drove a marked patrol car. Her infant son was a passenger.

¶ 6 Ms. Ross was permitted to drive the patrol car as a participant in the police department's "Take Home Car Program." Salt Lake City implemented the program to achieve several objectives: (1) to make more officers available for immediate response, (2) to improve the care of city-owned patrol cars, and (3) to increase Salt Lake City's police presence in the community.

¶ 7 Salt Lake City imposed several restrictions and requirements on participating officers. Officers were required to keep their cars clean and well maintained. They were required to carry a service gun, police radio, identification, flashlight, ticket book, report forms, and flares and wear appropriate attire in the vehicle at all times. Even when off duty, officers were required to monitor police radio and, if necessary, respond to emergency calls. While officers were permitted to carry civilian passengers under some circumstances, passengers were not permitted to accompany officers when they responded to emergencies or potentially dangerous calls.

¶ 8 The program imposed additional requirements on participating officers who, like Ms. Ross, lived outside Salt Lake County. Her off-duty use of her patrol car was limited to commuting between work and home, and she was required to pay Salt Lake City $34.62 every two weeks for her travel outside Salt Lake County.

¶ 9 On February 24, 2000, Ms. Ross drove her patrol car, accompanied by her son, from Tooele to Salt Lake City, attended the FTO meeting, and then set out for home. On the way, Ms. Ross fueled her patrol car at the Salt Lake City gas pump and proceeded to Tooele. As required, Ms. Ross had her police radio on during her commute home, although radio reception degraded as she entered Tooele County. On Highway 36 in Tooele County, her car crossed the center line and hit several vehicles traveling in the opposite direction. Ms. Ross injured her neck in the accident.

¶ 10 Chad and Stacy Ahlstrom occupied one of the automobiles that Ms. Ross struck. The Ahlstroms sued Ms. Ross and Salt Lake City Corporation for negligence. We affirmed the summary dismissal of Salt Lake City in Ahlstrom v. Salt Lake City Corp., 2002 UT 4, ¶ 18, 73 P.3d 315.

¶ 11 Ms. Ross made a claim for workers' compensation benefits based on the injuries she sustained in the accident. Salt Lake City resisted her claim. The City contended that Ms. Ross was not injured in the course of her employment under the statutory requirements set out in Utah Code section 34A-2-401 and was therefore ineligible for workers' compensation benefits. An ALJ rejected Salt Lake City's claim. He determined that the coming and going rule did not disqualify Ms. Ross from receiving workers' compensation benefits.

¶ 12 The City sought review of the ALJ's order before the appeals board of the Utah Labor Commission. The appeals board issued an order denying review and affirmed the ALJ's ruling. The City then brought this appeal.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 13 We review the legal determinations of the Labor Commission Appeals Board under a correction-of-error standard, ceding the board no deference as appellate courts have "the power and duty to say what the law is and to ensure that it is uniform throughout the jurisdiction." State v. Pena, 869 P.2d 932, 936 (Utah 1994) (citation omitted). We will disturb the Commission's findings of fact only if they are clearly erroneous. Drake v. Indus. Comm'n of Utah, 939 P.2d 177, 181 (Utah 1997). The issue before us is a mixed question of law and fact, one that calls upon us to review the application of law to fact. The facts relating to the accident and the take-a-car-home program are undisputed. We concern ourselves with the interplay between these facts and the eligibility requirements for workers' compensation benefits found in Utah's Workers' Compensation Act, Utah Code sections 34A-2-101 to-803.

¶ 14 In Drake, we explored in considerable detail the standard of review that we should assign to appeals from Industrial Commission rulings based on mixed questions of law and fact. We undertook this exploration in a context very similar to the one here. The facts were undisputed, and the legal principle the Commission applied to the facts was the "special errand" doctrine, a cousin of the going and coming rule that we examine today.

¶ 15 We settled upon a conditionally deferential standard of review grounded in two considerations. First, practical difficulties attend any attempt to craft coherent and evolving legal rules from the multifarious array of factual settings presented by scope-of-employment cases. In this environment, our preeminent role, as an appellate court charged with interpreting the law, would shrink away if we became a forum to merely reassess the facts.¹ See Drake, 939 P.2d at 181 (citing Pena, 869 P.2d at 936).

¶ 16 Furthermore, our statutory obligation to give effect to the Act's purpose to "`alleviat[e] hardship upon workers and their families'" heightens the degree of oversight of Commission rulings, particularly those that result in a denial of benefits. Id. at 182 (quoting Baker v. Indus. Comm'n, 17 Utah 2d 141, 405 P.2d 613, 614 (1965)). We will therefore look closely to assure ourselves that the Commission has liberally construed and applied the Act to provide coverage and has resolved any doubt respecting the right to compensation in favor of an injured employee. See id. at 182, 939 P.2d 177 (citing State Tax Comm'n v. Indus. Comm'n, 685 P.2d 1051, 1053 (Utah 1984)).

¶ 17 Our obligation to adopt an employee-friendly perspective on scope-of-employment cases from the Commission highlights the material difference between this case and the earlier case involving this accident, Ahlstrom v. Salt Lake City Corp., 2002 UT 4, 73 P.3d 315. Unlike Ms. Ross's quest for benefits, the Ahlstrom plaintiffs were not entitled to a sympathetic application of the going and coming rule in aid of their effort to make Salt Lake City vicariously liable for Ms. Ross's negligence. Thus, elements of the take-a-car-home program that were insufficient to render Ms. Ross an employee for the purpose of Salt Lake City's vicarious liability were nevertheless adequate to make Ms. Ross eligible to receive workers' compensation benefits.

¶ 18 We break no new ground by applying different standards of review to scope-of-employment cases derived from vicarious liability and workers' compensation cases. In Ahlstrom, we anticipated the arrival of this appeal when we stated that

[w]ith very different presumptions governing worker's compensation and negligence cases, it would not be wise to hold that the rules governing scope of employment questions in one area are wholly applicable to the other because the legal effect of identical facts may be different in a negligence case than in a worker's compensation case.

Ahlstrom, 2002 UT 4, ¶ 7, 73 P.3d 315.

ANALYSIS

¶ 19 To be eligible for workers' compensation benefits, an employee's injury must arise out of and be sustained in the course of her employment. Utah Code Ann. § 34A-2-401. As a general rule in Utah, an employee's injury does not arise out of and occur in the course of employment if the injury is sustained while going to or coming from work. VanLeeuwen v....