Court Opinion

ID: 9574627
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:06:36.154791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:26.183828
License: Public Domain

BURKE, J.
I dissent. On the factual issue the record does not compel the finding that the employer required the deceased employee to furnish his own car. Instead, the majority opinion has reweighed the evidence, attempting to reconcile the testimony which conflicts with the “conclusion” it announces, and has usurped the role of fact-finder contrary to fundamental rules governing the functions of this court.
As stated by the referee in his report to the Appeals Board on the petition for reconsideration in this case, “The witness Damitio had made a statement on . . . her deposition that the county did not make a county car available to the decedent. However, the witness Fowler contradicted this in part, and stated that there are plenty of cars but lots of times people use their own cars and are reimbursed therefor. . . .” Fowler further testified positively that “All field employees” who so desire “can drive a County vehicle,” and that a person who does not have his own vehicle “may still be hired as a County social worker as long as he . . . has a valid California operator’s license.” Fowler also stated that Mrs. Damitio’s remarks made in her deposition “would probably be their own version ... of the way availability of the cars are because as far as my knowledge is concerned, there is no shortage of cars, be no reason ... to limit a County employee to using their own cars. It isn’t necessary. ’ ’
Additionally, although Mrs. Joan Sheldon, who took over the deceased’s caseload, gave her testimony in July 1967, nothing whatever in the record warrants, let alone compels, the view that she was speaking solely of 1967 requirements when she declared that whether or not she used her own ear for her field work was left “strictly” to her “own discretion.” Instead, Mrs. Sheldon was a co-employee with the decedent in the county’s social welfare department. She testified that she knew decedent ‘ ‘ Quite well, ’ ’ and had conversations with him in the office concerning their work “just about every day in the week.” Mrs. Sheldon further testified that she had “never used a County car,” but instead had always used her ovm car as she preferred to do so; however, she knew county social welfare “workers that do use the County ears.” It is thus obvious that Mrs. Sheldon’s testimony that the *827social welfare field workers were not required to provide their own vehicles referred to the period before decedent’s death, when she and decedent were coworkers, and creates a direct conflict with the testimony of Mrs. Damitio on the point.
On the legal issue, I am convinced that the rule established in Postal Telegraph (Postal Tel. Cable Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1934) 1 Cal.2d 730 [37 P.2d 441, 96 A.L.R 460]) and followed for 34 years is sound and would adhere to it. Accordingly, even if it had been found below that the employer required decedent to provide his own vehicle, compensation should be denied under the “going and coming” rule when, as here, the injuries were suffered by the employee while regularly en route to report in at his established office headquarters as required by his employment.1
I would affirm the decision of the Appeals Board.
McComb, J., and Schauer, J.,* concurred.
The petition of the respondent board for a rehearing was denied January 8,1969. Schauer, J.,* sat in place of Peters, J., who did not participate. McComb, J., Burke, J. and Schauer, J.,* were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

It bears note that this ease differs from Le Febvre v. Workmen’s Comp. App. Bd. (1968) ante, p. 386 [71 Cal.Rptr. 703, 445 P.2d 319], The employment of the volunteer fireman there involved had no established headquarters where he was regularly required to report. In the present ease the social workers were required to report in at the office the first thing each working morning, even on ‘ ‘ field days. ’ ’

Retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court sitting under assignment by the Chairman of the Judicial Council.