Court Opinion

ID: 9529727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:53:41.649443+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:54.133510
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.—I respectfully dissent.
In my view, under the circumstances of this case petitioner’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits is barred by the “going and coming rule.” (See General Ins. Co. v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1976) 16 Cal.3d 595, 598 [128 Cal.Rptr. 417, 546 P.2d 1361].)
Petitioner, a teacher, left her employment at school at the regularly appointed time, and drove her car out of her employer’s parking lot. She entered the general flow of traffic on a public street. After proceeding a short distance, departing schoolchildren apparently impeded her progress and, while waiting in her stopped car in the street, she was assaulted by three unidentified assailants. Labor Code section 3600 requires, as a condition of workers’ compensation, that the injury arise out of and in the course of employment. I think the injury here did not so arise.
In the absence of “exceptional” or “extraordinary” circumstances, the well established going and coming rule precludes an award of workers’ compensa*594tion for injuries suffered during the course of a local commute to or from a fixed place of business at fixed hours. We have repeatedly so held. (See General Ins. Co., supra, at p. 598; Hinojosa v. Workmen’s Comp. Appeals Bd. (1972) 8 Cal.3d 150, 157 [104 Cal.Rptr. 456, 501 P.2d 1176].) While an employer’s parking lot is deemed a part of the employment “premises” for purposes of applying the foregoing rule (General Ins. Co., 16 Cal.3d at pp. 599-600), petitioner was injured after she left the lot and after she had begun to travel on a public street. This was a normal, routine departure by petitioner from her place of employment.
Petitioner was not engaged in any “special mission” for her employer. She suffered her injury after working hours, away from her place of employment, as a result of the voluntary, criminal act of third parties wholly unrelated to her work. As we recently observed, “The ‘premises line’ has the advantage of enabling courts to ascertain the point at which employment begins—objectively and fairly .... As Professor Larson has so clearly pointed out, ‘[i]t is a familiar problem in law when a sharp, objective, and perhaps somewhat arbitrary line has been drawn ... to encounter demands that the line be blurred a little to take care of the closest cases. For example, one writer says that there is no reason in principle why states should not protect employees “for a reasonable distance” before reaching or after leaving the employer’s premises. This, however, only raises a new problem . . . because it provides no standard by which the reasonableness of the distance can be judged. It substitutes the widely-varying subjective interpretation of “reasonable distance” by different administrators and judges for the physical fact of a boundary line. At the same time, it does not solve the original problem, because each time the premises are extended a “reasonable distance,” there will inevitably arise new cases only slightly beyond that point—and the cry of unfairness of drawing distinctions based on only a few feet of distance will once more be heard.’ (1 Larson, [Workmen’s Compensation Law (1972)] § 15.12, pp. 4-5—4-6; fn. omitted.)” (General Ins. Co., supra, at p. 599.)
Petitioner’s injury was not compensable as job related unless some exception to the going and coming rule applies and the majority attempts to invoke the rule’s “special risk” exception. This restriction is recognized when the employment itself has created a special risk of injury which is not shared by the public generally. (Id., at p. 600.) It seems obvious that the special risk exception is inapplicable here. The hazard which caused petitioner’s injury, the “hit and run” assault by unidentified criminals, was not “special” to her, nor was it a “special risk” of her employment as a teacher, nor was it “causally” related to the school. It was a common danger to which the public in general was and is equally susceptible. Our holding in General Ins. Co. is enlightening. We there denied compensation where the applicant’s decedent was struck on a public street by a passing motorist as he alighted from his parked car on his way to *595work. We specifically emphasized that “But for his job, Chairez would not have been on La Cienega that morning. However, Chairez’ death does not come within the second requirement of the special risk exception—that the risk is distinctive in nature or qualitatively greater than risks common to the public. Chairez was parked on a public street at a time and in a location where parking is available to the general public. The fact that he was struck by a passing motorist, while tragic, is a type of risk the public is subject to daily. Moreover, nothing in the facts indicates Chairez was exposed to a greater risk from passing motorists than anyone else on La Cienega that morning.” (Id., 16 Cal.3d at p. 601.)
The key question is whether “the danger [is] one to which the employee, by reason of and in connection with his employment is subjected peculiarly or to an abnormal degree.” (State Compensation Ins. Fund v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1924) 194 Cal. 28, 31 [227 P. 168]; see Freire v. Matson Navigation Co. (1941) 19 Cal.2d 8, 12 [118 P.2d 809].)
The assault by unknown assailants on the occupant of a vehicle stopped on a public street was a wholly random and unforeseeable risk. Such a stop could occur anywhere on the street, and could have been caused by pedestrians in a cross walk, a red traffic light or a temporary traffic obstruction. It was shared by any and all members of the general public who were on the public street where it occurred. It cannot reasonably be said that petitioner, because of her work, was subjected “peculiarly or to an abnormal degree” to the risk of this type of assault. The incident causing the injury here cannot fairly or reasonably be considered a risk that is special to petitioner’s employment as a schoolteacher. In terms of time, location, nature, cause or source of the injury, it was not job related. As we stressed in General Ins. Co., we cannot say that “the risk is distinctive in nature or qualitatively greater than risks common to the public.”
The special risk exception not applying, the case is controlled by the going and coming rule. The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board was correct in denying petitioner relief. I would affirm the decision of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board.
The petition of respondent Los Angeles Unified School District for a rehearing was denied April 20, 1983. Richardson, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.