Court Opinion

ID: 9721766
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:08:42.217003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:28.571007
License: Public Domain

BARRY -DEAL, J.
I dissent.
The record of arbitration proceedings shows that during the 1977 contract negotiations between the union and employer, the union proposed that the employer, in effect, be required to provide “Tool Insurance” (straight reimbursement for loss), and that the employer refused to place a provision of this *87kind in the contract. The arbitrator found that Bowers was not entitled to reimbursement for his stolen tools under the contract. Bowers now asks this court to construe Labor Code section 2802 as imposing such a “Tool Insurance” on employer. I cannot agree with the majority’s interpretation of that section as doing so. Rather, as I read the statutory scheme here in question, employer’s liability, if any, for Bowers’ loss of tools must be pursuant to Labor Code section 2800, not section 2802.
Labor Code section 2800 provides, “An employer shall in all cases indemnify his employee for losses caused by the employer’s want of ordinary care.” It is significant that when the Legislature enacted section 2800.1 (musician’s instruments), it placed the new statute directly after section 2800, indicating that it is a specific example of the kind of negligence for which an employer must indemnify an employee under section 2800, not section 2802. The analogy between a musician whose instrument is left on the employer’s premises and a mechanic whose tools are left at his place of employment is clear. In either case the worker is entitled to recover for loss occasioned by the employer’s negligence.
Labor Code section 2802, on the other hand, imposes strict liability, but only for “all that the employee necessarily expends or loses in direct consequence of the discharge of his duties as such, . . .” I believe the majority reaches an incorrect result by placing undue emphasis on the term “direct consequence” and failing to consider the entire context in which that term appears. Thus, while it cannot be seriously argued that Bowers’ loss would not have occurred but for his employment, neither can it be said that the weekend burglary of Employer’s premises resulted in a loss which Bowers “necessarily” incurred “in direct consequence of the discharge of his duties as such, ...” (Italics added.)
Cases arising under Labor Code section 2802 are few. Those decisions construing the statute indicate that it was intended to cover such necessary expenditures and losses as those incurred by reason of a salesman being sent to various counties to sell goods (see Automobile etc. Co. v. Salladay (1921) 55 Cal.App. 219 [203 P. 163]) or those incurred by a reporter defending a suit by a third person for his conduct in the course and scope of his employment (Douglas v. Los Angeles Herald-Examiner (1975) 50 Cal.App.3d 449 [123 Cal.Rptr. 683]).
If Bowers had suffered loss or damage to his tools while he was working, Labor Code section 2802 would apply. But where, as here, the loss was one which did not “necessarily” occur as a “direct consequence” of his work “as such,” the Employer should be liable only for loss occasioned by lack of ordinary care under section 2800.
*88To this extent, I believe that Earll v. McCoy (1953) 116 Cal.App.2d 44 [253 P.2d 86] correctly held that loss to fire of tools left on the premises did not come within the purview of Labor Code section 2802.
I would therefore hold that Bowers could only recover for loss of his tools under Labor Code section 2800, and I would remand the cause for consideration of the question whether the loss was occasioned by employer’s want of ordinary care.
Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied May 19, 1983. Grodin, J., did not participate therein.