Court Opinion

ID: 9588210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:31:28.046907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:13.931841
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
In 1952 Justice Carter wrote for this court: “‘That there is a natural repugnancy to help a guilty party is no excuse for relieving industry of a liability and placing it on the worker or charity . . . . It is the character and nature of the assault which determines whether it arises out of his employment, not the culpability or the lack of culpability of the parties involved. It is the assault itself which arises out of the employment; and who initiates the altercation has no bearing on that question ....’” (State Comp. Ins. Fund v. Ind. Acc. Com. (1952) 38 Cal.2d 659, 669 [242 P.2d 311].) (Italics omitted.) This was good law then and its logic is inescapable today in applying the facts of this case to the provisions of the state Constitution and the underlying intent of workmen’s compensation laws.
*741The majority opinion cites with approval the Larson view: “The homely fact [is] that, long after a quarrel is over, it is often almost impossible to determine who really started it.” (1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law (1968 ed.) § 11.15(c), p. 159.) Yet that is precisely what the Workmen’s Compensation Appeals Board attempted here: to determine who really started the altercation. The test, pursuant to the Constitution, should have been merely: “Did the altercation arise out of and occur in the course of employment?” That query must be answered in the affirmative, and an award of compensation necessarily follows. Indeed, the findings of fact of the referee confirmed that the deceased “sustained an injury arising out of and occurring in the course of his employment.”
There is no evidence that the victim, Mathews, or his assailant, Cedillo, knew each other or that their paths had ever crossed prior to the incident arising out of labor being performed at the Castaic Dam site in Los Angeles County. As part of his work in directing incoming trucks, Cedillo gave orders to Mathews and the latter apparently responded in a vehement and disagreeable manner. Whether Mathews, who struck no blow, nevertheless can be deemed the initial physical aggressor, is of no consequence, since the indisputable fact remains that the two participants in the altercation were present on the construction premises, became involved in a heated controversy and proceeded to act, all in connection with their employment. In that respect this case is factually stronger than compensable tragedies occurring as a result of grievances having their origin independent of the job. (E.g., California Comp. & Fire Co. v. Workmen’s Comp. App. Bd. (Schick) (1968) 68 Cal.2d 157 [65 Cal.Rptr. 155, 436 P.2d 67].)
The Court of Appeal saw the issue properly in Litzmann v. Workmen’s Comp. App. Bd. (1968) 266 Cal.App.2d 203 [71 Cal.Rptr. 731]. There the referee found that the employee’s injury occurred in the course of his employment “but that the injury arose out of an altercation in which applicant was the initial physical aggressor and, therefore, he was not entitled to an award.” (Id. at p. 204.) The court found that the evidence did not sustain the finding that the applicant was the aggressor “and that, even if it did, compensation could not be denied on that ground.” (Italics added; id. at p. 210.) The court adhered to the basic test of whether the injuries arose out of and in the course of the applicant’s employment. This was the correct approach, for once a court concedes that an assault, malicious or otherwise, arises out of the employment for the nonaggressor, the same assault necessarily arises out of the employment for the aggressor. It is the assault which is related to the employment, and who initiates it has no bearing on the issue, unless we are to revert to common law culpability considerations. (See Horovitz, Assaults and Horseplay Under Workmen’s Compensation Laws (1946) 41 Ill. L. Rev. 311, 346.)
*742Recognition of an aggressor defense is anachronistic and contrary to the unmistakable trend in the law. Larson points out: “The abolition of the aggressor defense is one of the most rapid doctrinal reversals in the volatile history of compensation law. Before 1947 the aggressor defense had the entire field to itself. Then New Hampshire, in 1947, and Massachusetts, in 1949, handed down the cogently reasoned opinions in Newell v. Moreau [94 N.H. 439 (55 A.2d 476)] and Dillon’s Case [324 Mass. 102 (85 N.E. 2d 69)], flatly rejecting the entire concept of aggression as a defense. Although a few cases asserting the defense have subsequently appeared, the most impressive feature of the new trend is the number of major compensation jurisdictions that have deliberately abolished the defense in spite of earlier decisions supporting it. These jurisdictions include California, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York.” (Fns. omitted; 1 Larson, op. cit. supra, p. 154.)1
The question then arises as to how Labor Code section 3600, subdivision (g), is to be interpreted. If it involves a weighing of the facts in order to ascertain whether the injured employee Was at fault, then the code section clearly runs afoul of section 21 of article XX of the California Constitution. When the people adopted that constitutional amendment authorizing the Legislature to create “a complete system of workmen’s compensation” they provided as the cornerstone of the complete system the principle that compensation be provided for workmen, and their dependents for death of the workman in the course of his employment, irrespective of the fault of any party. Hence, as Justice Carter wrote, “the charge of aggressor cannot be a defense, for it is nothing more than an assertion that the employee was at fault—was to blame—brought it on himself.” (State Comp. Ins. Fund v. Ind. Acc. Com., supra, at p. 661.)
The history recited by the majority in support of their strained conclusion is helpful only if one ascribes to the Legislature some consistently strange design, circumlocution, or repeated inadvertence in drafting. As the majority point out, the earlier Roseberry Act referred to liability for compensation “without regard to negligence.” Thus the Legislature was familiar with and knew how to utilize that expression when it accurately reflected the legislative intent. Having previously adopted legislation speak*743ing in terms of negligence, however, in presenting section 21 of article XX to the voters for approval the Legislature rephrased the provisions to call for a system of compensation “irrespective of the fault of either party.” Then the Boynton Act, adopted after the effective date of the constitutional amendment, reverted back to the Roseberry Act expression of providing compensation “without regard to negligence.” And finally, to complete this perplexing historical saga, those who proposed a further constitutional amendment in 1918 employed the phrase “irrespective of fault” once again. However academically intriguing this semantic mystery may be, the issue is not what the Legislature had in mind, but what the Constitution provides. The rule is clear that constitutional language must be read according to its expressed rather than possible intended meaning. (Los Angeles Met. Transit Authority v. Public Util. Com. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 863, 869 [31 Cal.Rptr. 463, 382 P.2d 583].)
In this' case the position of the Board and the majority can be sustained only if the terms “irrespective of the fault of any party” and “without regard to negligence” are entirely synonymous. While concededly some judicial definitions of “fault” restrict its meaning to “negligence,” lexicographers deem “fault” to be a broad generic term which includes the lesser word negligence but also many others, such as wilful misconduct, gross negligence, misbehavior, transgression, dereliction, offense, culpability, wrongdoing, deviation from rectitude, and in general “a failure to do what is right.” (Webster’s New Internat. Dict. (3d ed. 1961), p. 829.) Compania Trasatlantica Espanola, S.A. v. Melendez Torres (1st Cir. 1966) 358 F.2d 209, 213, discusses a statute which refers to “fault or negligence” and holds the terms do not mean the same; fault was found there to include a breach of obligation or warranty. (Also see Lashley v. Koerber (1945) 26 Cal.2d 83, 91 [156 P.2d 441]; United Canneries v. Seelye (1920) 48 Cal.App. 747, 751 [192 P. 341].) A number of code sections refer to “fault” and clearly are not limited to negligence. (E.g., Civ. Code, § 1689, subd. (b) (2); Com. Code, § 2613, and comment thereto.)
The majority resort to the argumentum ad horrendum if we were “to hold that section 21 of article XX prohibits the Legislature from taking into account the intentional wrongdoing of employer or employee in providing for compensation.” They assert that doubt would be cast over the validity of subdivisions (d), (e), and (f) of Labor Code section 3600, as well as section 4551, which reduces the award by one-half if the injury results from the employee’s serious and wilful misconduct, and section 4553, which increases the award by one-half if the injury is caused by the employer’s serious and wilful misconduct, and also other sections providing for various increases and decreases in awards. I suggest that these fears are *744groundless and that the point is irrelevant. Recovery in the. event of intoxication, self-inflicted injury or suicide (Lab. Code, § 3600, subds. (d), (e), and (f)) can be prevented if the act was not work-related, or if the employment relationship is established, then limited by invoking the wilful misconduct statute. As to sections 4551 and 4553, I point out that nowhere in the constitutional authorization for legislative establishment of a workmen’s compensation system is there reference to any specific amount of compensation to be awarded. Indeed, as we noted in our recent case of State Dept. of Corrections v. Workmen’s Comp. App. Bd. (1971) 5 Cal.3d 885 [97 Cal.Rptr. 786, 489 P.2d 818], the injured employee is seldom, if ever, made whole by virtue of a compensation award. The amount to be given to the petitioner, and the percentage thereof to be provided by the employer, may be prescribed by the Legislature, The only constitutional mandate is that a system of compensation be provided and that an award cannot be withheld on the basis of fault. How much should be awarded in terms of dollars or percentages under specified circumstances is within the legislative prerogative.
Here there has been no exercise of the legislative prerogative to direct that the sum awarded an “initial aggressor” shall be ratably increased or reduced; there is a total prohibition against an award being made when the defense of “initial aggressor” is sustained. Yet an award in an appropriate amount, I submit, cannot be denied without violating section 21 of the article XX.
In supporting the Board amicus curiae cavalierly denigrate the expression “irrespective of fault” as a species of “catch-phrase” that has served variously as “a battle cry, a campaign slogan, a figure of speech, a shibboleth.” In short, the position of the Board, the amicus curiae, and now the majority of this court, is that the constitutional provision is as meaningless as yesterday’s political oratory; that the Legislature cannot be inhibited in passing statutes which deny compensation when the injured workman is found to be at fault. I cannot be that casual in application of our Constitution.
Justice Rutledge, while on the circuit court, wrote a landmark opinion which expresses the philosophy behind elimination of the physical aggressor defense. In Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Cardillo (1940) 112 F.2d 11, 17, footnote 17 [72 App.D.C. 52], he said; “Natural repulsion toward rewarding intentional misconduct accounts largely for the [problem], though it ignores the fact that one purpose of the statute is sustenance of the misbehaving employee’s family during his disability and their dependence is not the less because the misconduct is his rather than another’s.” This *745quotation is particularly apt in the instant case in which the workman is deceased and his dependent widow is the petitioner.
Then, writing of the concept which concerns itself not with whether the claimant was the aggressor, but with whether the dispute arose immediately over the work, Justice Rutledge said (at p. 17): “This view recognizes that work places men under strains and fatigue from human and mechanical impacts, creating frictions which explode in myriads of ways, only some of which are immediately relevant to their tasks. Personal animosities are created by working together on the assembly line or in traffic. Others initiated outside the job are magnified to the breaking point by its compelled contacts. No worker is immune to these pressures and impacts upon temperament. They accumulate and explode over incidents trivial and important, personal and official. But the explosion point is merely the culmination of the antecedent pressures. That it is not relevant to the immediate task, involves a lapse from duty, or contains an element of volition or illegality does not disconnect it from them nor nullify their causal effect in producing its injurious consequences. Any other view would reintroduce the conceptions of contributory fault, action in the line of duty, nonaccidental character of voluntary conduct, and independent, intervening cause as applied in tort law, which it was the purpose of the statute to discard.” (Fn. omitted.) Of the same philosophical bent, though not expressed in a workmen’s compensation case, was Justice Traynor’s opinion for this court in Carr v. Wm. C. Crowell Co. (1946) 28 Cal.2d 652, 656 [171 P.2d 5].
I am convinced that State Comp. Ins. Fund v. Ind. Acc. Com., supra, is still sound law and that its concept of the constitutional provision “irrespective of fault” is binding upon us under the doctrine of stare decisis. That the Legislature may have reached a conflicting interpretation of the constitutional provision, as evidenced by its adoption of Labor Code section 3600, subdivision (g), is unfortunate but not controlling. “We cannot push back the limits of the Constitution merely to accommodate challenged legislation.” (Warren, C. J., in Trop v. Dulles (1958) 356 U.S. 86, 104 [2 L.Ed.2d 630, 644, 78 S.Ct. 590].)
I would annul the decision of the Board and remand the matter for appropriate proceedings.
Peters, J., concurred.
Petitioner’s application for a rehearing was denied March 30, 1972. Peters, J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

The innovative decisions by Justice Kenison in New Hampshire and Chief Justice Qua in Massachusetts were quickly followed by others, including the following: Commissioner of Taxation & Fin. v. Bronx Hospital (1950) 276 App.Div. 708 [97 N.Y.S.2d 120]; Brookhaven Steam Laundry v. Watts (Miss. 1951) 55 So.2d 381, 394; Myszkowski v. Wilson & Co. (1952) 155 Neb. 714 [53 N.W.2d 203]; Petro v. Martin Baking Co. (1953) 239 Minn. 307 [58 N.W.2d 731]; and the particularly well reasoned decision in Johnson v. Safreed (1954) 224 Ark. 397 [273 S.W.2d 545, 547] (and numerous cases cited therein).