Court Opinion

ID: 9454631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:53:07.827755+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:12.881145
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The facts as found by the District Court establish that the Forest Service asked Nabors to accept a transfer to Cleveland, Tennessee. The Forest Service obviously considered that it would be to its benefit for Nabors to work in Cleveland, rather than Jackson, Mississippi. Otherwise Nabors would not have been asked to accept the transfer and to agree to continue his employment with the Service for at least one additional year. In my opinion this situation is analogous to those cases cited in the opinion of the District Court involving the transfer of military personnel from one duty station to another and the use of their private automobiles in doing so. McCluggage v. United States, 392 F.2d 395 (6th Cir.).
By necessity the transfer from one duty station to another involves incidental duties to the employee which are not within his normal day to day routine. Yet when these incidental duties are fully approved and authorized by the employer, they have been held to be within the employee’s scope of employment. See Kinnard v. Rock City Construction Co., 39 Tenn.App. 547, 551, 286 S.W.2d 352.
The purpose of making the trip to Cleveland was instigated by the Forest Service. It was of benefit to the Service and in furtherance of its business to accomplish the orderly transfer of its personnel from one duty station to another. The Service was realistic in authorizing Mrs. Nabors to accompany her husband on this house hunting trip. In my view the fact that the house hunting trip to Cleveland was personnally beneficial to Mr. and Mrs. Nabors as well as the Forest Service is not sufficient grounds to exclude the trip from the scope of Na-bors’ employment.
In United States v. Taylor, 236 F.2d 649, 654 (6th Cir.) this Court said:
“Moreover the Tennessee Court of Appeals has recognized that an employee may remain within the scope of his employment so as to hold his employer liable for his tort even though he undertakes a personal project of his own, if it is undertaken in the general course of carrying out his employer’s business. Baskin & Cole v. Whitson, 1928, 8 Tenn.App. 578.”
The majority opinion compares Na-bors’ trip to that of an employee on a paid vacation. Normally on such vacations employees are not continued on “duty status” and are not given a per diem allowance along with their wives. Neither are they given travel orders that must be followed during the vacation. These factors strengthen my conclusion that the Forest Service had the right of control over Nabors at all times during *26the trip and that the trip itself was in furtherance of the employer’s business.
Had Nabors been sent to Cleveland under the same circumstances except to look for a house for his supervisor, there would be no question that the trip was within the scope of employment. I do not believe that a different conclusion is warranted because Nabors was sent to look for a house for himself. In footnote 3 of the majority opinion, it is said that had Nabors been expressly ordered to go to Cleveland a different result might be required. I fail to see the distinction between permitting an employee to travel to a destination on official government business and ordering him to do the same thing.
I would affirm the opinion of the District Court, reported at 273 F.Supp. 148 (E.D.Tenn.).