Santa Rosa Junior College v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd.

• Decision Date: 12 November 1985
• Docket Number: S.F. 24758
• Citation: 220 Cal.Rptr. 94,40 Cal.3d 345,708 P.2d 673
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 708 P.2d 673, 54 USLW 2289, 28 Ed. Law Rep. 909 SANTA ROSA JUNIOR COLLEGE, Petitioner, v. WORKERS' COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD and Joanne Smyth, Respondents.

Page 94

220 Cal.Rptr. 94

40 Cal.3d 345, 708 P.2d 673, 54 USLW 2289, 28 Ed. Law Rep. 909

SANTA ROSA JUNIOR COLLEGE, Petitioner, v. WORKERS' COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD and Joanne Smyth, Respondents.

S.F. 24758.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Nov. 12, 1985.

Mullen & Filippi, James T. Ponzio and Karen M. Land, San Francisco, for petitioner.

Warren L. Hanna, Hanna, Brophy, MacLean, McAleer & Jensen, San Francisco, Grancell, Grancell & Marshall, Angel Barnes, Inglewood, Parker & Dally, Joan E. Partritz, Pomona, Twohy, Darneille & Frye, D. Lachlan Taylor, Kevin R. Twohy, Sacramento, Allen, Rhodes Sobelsohn, Donald W. McVey, Los Angeles, Hoge, Fenton, Jones & Appel, Raymond W. Haworth, San Jose, Richard A. Krimen, Michael J. Brodie San Francisco, Arthur Hershenson, Los Angeles, Fernando Da Silva, Gary J. Lee, San Francisco, and Jeffrey A. Rosen, Los Angeles, as Amici Curiae on behalf of petitioner.

Fowler & Ball and Robert A. Fowler, Ukiah, for respondents.

Barry J. Williams, Airola, Williams & Dietrich, San Francisco, Raymond L. Hansen, Los Angeles, Donald C. Green, Sue Gouge and Green & Azevedo, Sacramento, as Amici Curiae on behalf of respondent Smyth.

KAUS, Justice. ^*

The Workers' Compensation Act (Lab.Code, § 3201 et seq.) establishes the liability of an employer "for any injury sustained by his or her employees arising out of and in the course of the employment." Almost 70 years ago, we adopted the "going and coming rule" as an aid in determining whether an injury occurred in the course of the employment. Generally prohibiting compensation for injuries suffered by an employee while commuting to and from work, the going and coming rule has been criticized by courts and commentators alike as being arbitrary and harsh. It has generated a multitude of exceptions which threaten, at times, to defeat the rule entirely. This appeal confronts us with the question of whether one such exception should be dramatically expanded to create, in effect, a "white-collar" nullification of the rule.

Santa Rosa Junior College (college) challenges a decision of the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board (board) awarding death benefits to JoAnne Smyth, widow of a community college instructor who was killed in an automobile accident on his way home from the campus. At issue is the applicability of the going and coming rule to school teachers who regularly take work home. If, in such cases, the home may be fairly regarded as a "second jobsite," the rule does not apply and injuries sustained en route are compensable. If the fact that the employee regularly takes work home does not establish the home as a second jobsite, compensation is barred.

We conclude that--unless the employer requires the employee to labor at home as a condition of the employment--the fact that an employee regularly works there does not transform the home into a second jobsite for purposes of the going and coming rule.

FACTS

Joseph Smyth was a mathematics instructor and head of the mathematics department at the college. At about 6 p.m. on March 16, 1982, he was killed in an accident while driving his personal automobile home from work. His home was located in Ukiah, about 60 miles from the Santa Rosa campus. The family had moved to Ukiah six years earlier for their own convenience: Mrs. Smyth worked in Ukiah, she had a "back problem," and the couple decided that she should be located close to home and to their children's schools.

It is undisputed that at the time of the accident Smyth had with him some student papers he intended to grade that evening. Indeed, Smyth regularly worked at home in the evenings. For several years before the accident, he stayed overnight in Santa Rosa once every two or three weeks and worked at home on some week nights. In 1981-1982, he assumed additional responsibilities as department head. In that school year, he worked late on campus once or twice per week, stayed overnight in Santa Rosa once or twice per week, and brought home one or two hours of work "about every night." At home, he worked in a section of the living room reserved for that purpose, where he kept duplicate copies of necessary books. The work usually consisted of grading papers or exams; occasionally, he would also prepare lesson plans or future class schedules at home. Mrs. Smyth testified that her husband worked at home rather than on campus because on campus, he was subject to interruption by students or other business, and, in addition, he wished to spend time with his family.

Smyth's habit of working at home in the evenings was not unusual for members of the college's faculty; working at home appears to have been the rule, not the exception. Patrick Boyle, one of Smyth's colleagues and a former department head, testified that he and many other instructors regularly took work home. ¹ In his opinion, the work could not be completed during normal working hours because teachers were subject to interruption in their offices by students (both during the day and at night) and no suitable alternatives for uninterrupted work existed on campus.

Richard Giles, another of Smyth's colleagues, echoed these concerns about the persistent interruptions on campus, testifying that he also took work home four or five nights per week. With respect to the student interruptions, Giles considered it "tremendously important" to be accessible to students while on campus: "[T]here is a feeling of professionalism ... and I think Joe Smyth ... was more open to questions and working with students than any of the rest of us...." He added that another reason he personally took work home was that by late afternoon he grew tired and felt the need for a break before continuing his duties.

Edmund Buckley, associate dean of instruction at the college, testified that the administration neither encouraged nor discouraged working at home. Noting that "it's common for many, many instructors to take work home," he stated that during his own four-year tenure as a departmental head he had been able to avoid interruptions in his office "to some degree--not to a great degree." Buckley had occasionally worked in the library grading papers, a solution he considered "satisfactory" because he found "study carrels that nobody else knew about." He had never received any complaints from instructors to the effect that their working facilities on campus were inadequate.

William Wilbur, dean of business services, agreed that there was no rule against taking work home and that working at home is "common to all disciplines." He also stated that neither Smyth nor any other staff member received financial or other consideration to account for the distance and time of their commutes. He knew of no benefit to the employer by reason of the work being done at home rather than on campus.

An office was provided for each instructor at the college. Undisputed evidence shows that Smyth could have eliminated or reduced student interruptions by posting office hours. Moreover, the record shows--not surprisingly--that Smyth was also subject to interruption while working at home.

The workers' compensation judge concluded that Smyth's death did not occur in the course of employment. He found that Smyth had adequate facilities and sufficient time to complete his work on campus and that it was Smyth's choice to work at home.

Acting on a petition for reconsideration, a three-member board panel, by a two-to-one vote, held that the death arose out of and occurred during the course of employment. The board concluded that because of the nature of the work and the frequent interruptions from students and phone calls, Smyth was "essentially required to maintain a second worksite in his home." ² It reasoned that in this case "[t]he work at home was more a matter of business necessity than of personal convenience." Accordingly, the board awarded death benefits to Mrs. Smyth.

The college seeks review of the board's decision.

Discussion

As the employer, the college is liable for the death benefits provided under the act only if Smyth's accident arose "out of and in the course of the employment" and if certain "conditions of compensation" were present. ³ (Lab.Code, § 3600.) We note at the outset that where, as here, there is no real dispute as to the facts, "the question of whether an injury was suffered in the course of employment is one of law and a purported finding of fact on that question is not binding on an appellate court." (Reinert v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1956) 46 Cal.2d 349, 358, 294 P.2d 713; see Dimmig v. Workmen's Comp. Appeals Bd. (1972) 6 Cal.3d 860, 864, 101 Cal.Rptr. 105, 495 P.2d 433.)

We originally adopted the going and coming rule as one means of determining when an accident should be treated as an "accident arising out of and in the course of the employment." In Ocean Accident etc. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1916) 173 Cal. 313, 159 P. 1041, the issue was whether a fatal accident suffered by a seaman as he attempted to reboard his ship after going ashore for personal reasons arose out of and occurred within the scope of his employment. Observing that the language of the act was identical to that of the English Workmen's Compensation Act (enacted in 1897), we looked to English case law for guidance. We concluded that "there are excluded from the benefits of the act all those accidental injuries which occur while the employee is going to or returning from his work...." (173 Cal. at p. 322, 159 P. 1041.)

Of course, we recognized that in the broadest sense an injury occurring on the way to one's place of employment is an injury "growing out of and incident to his employment," since "a necessary part of the employment is that the employee shall go to and return from his place of labor." (Ibid.) However, the right to an award is founded not "upon the fact that the injury grows out of and is incidental to his employment" but, rather, "upon the fact that the service he is rendering at the time...