Court Opinion

ID: 9531806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:14:40.354555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:35.346502
License: Public Domain

TURSI, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The mission upon which Miller had been dispatched by his employer was to go from *1034Meeker to Grand Junction to pick up a tow truck and return it to Meeker. Based on competent evidence, the Industrial Commission found that Miller suffered his fatal accident while endeavoring to complete this mission within the scope and course of his employment. It further found that although Miller had violated an order, he had not left the sphere of his employment. On these facts, the Commission properly concluded that the injury suffered and subsequent death, occurring within the course of and scope of Miller's employment, was com-pensable.
In setting aside the award of the Commission, the majority misreads the workmen’s compensation statutes and too narrowly construes existing case law. Generally, misconduct of an employee, whether negligent or willful, is immaterial in workmen’s compensation law unless it is a deviation from the scope or course of employment. 1A A. Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law § 23.00 (1978).
In Colorado when injury results from an employee’s willful failure to obey any reasonable rule or where the injuries result from intoxication of the employee, compensation must be reduced 50%, § 8-52-104, C.R.S.1973. However, our statutes do not provide for total forfeiture.
Here, the employee (when injured) was not on a mission of his own nor was he overstepping the ultimate work to be done. Rather, his misconduct involved a violation of a prohibition relating to the method of accomplishing the ultimate act. Thus, the act remains within the course, scope, and sphere of his employment. Industrial Commission v. Funk, 68 Colo. 467, 191 P. 125 (1920).
In Fowler v. Baalmann, relied upon by the majority, the Supreme Court of Missouri found that the prohibition which the employer laid down in that case “goes deeper into the relationship of the party than any. mere rule for it severed utterly and terminated completely the employer/employee relationship of the day.”
In contrast, here, the Industrial Commission found that the employer did not terminate the employment for the day but merely told Miller that he felt it was the best thing for all concerned if Miller would get a motel room in Glenwood Springs and wait until the next morning when he would have assistance in picking up the disabled truck. See Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Boggs, 66 S.W.2d 787 (Tex.Civ.App.1933); Turner Elkhorn Mining Co. v. Goble, 506 S.W.2d 521 (Ky.App.1974); General Transportation, Inc. v. Industrial Commission, 120 Ariz. 510, 586 P.2d 1322 (App.1978). On the basis of this finding, the Industrial Commission concluded that although Miller was in violation of the employer’s instruction relating to the method in which the assigned job was to be accomplished, the delivery of the disabled wrecker to Meeker was his assigned job and was an act within the course of the employment. In my view, these findings and conclusion are supported by the record and, thus, are binding on review.
However, I disagree with the Commission’s finding that reduction provided for in § 8-52-104 should not apply in this case because the claim is on behalf of the subsequent injury fund arising under § 8-51-106, C.R.S.1973. Statutes must be read in pari materia, and the reduction of benefits to claimants who have willfully violated a rule or been injured because of intoxication serves not only the purpose of penalizing the wrongful act, but ameliorates the burden placed upon an employer in cases of willful violation of its orders.
Therefore, I would affirm the finding of the Commission that Miller’s death was occasioned by an injury growing out of and in the scope of his employment, but I would reduce the award by 50% as provided in § 8-52-104.