Court Opinion

ID: 9696468
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:49:00.103757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:22.649665
License: Public Domain

YETKA, Justice
(dissenting).
The employee here was clearly acting in direct furtherance of his employer’s interests and business, utilizing judgment as a foreman in dealing directly with a customer. I would find that the employer’s di*31rective was considerably less specific than in previous decisions of this court. Its disregard was not so unforeseeable as to justify holding that the employee removed himself from the scope of his employment.
Brown was instructed on the morning of the accident that he was to leave the tree alone. Reference was made to a climbing crew that would be sent to the site m the future to remove the tree. After this directive and prior to going to the job site, however, Brown spoke about the tree with a superintendent of the customer power company. He was told that the customer would send out a crew to assist him. When the crew arrived at the job site several hours later, Brown felt that the power line crew wanted the tree down right away. The evidence does not reveal what was said at this time, only supplying impressions of the various workers’ attitudes towards what was to be done.
Brown testified that, as part of his job, he felt he should attempt to remove the tree. Moreover, in Brown’s view, an element of urgency was presented when a power company crew came to the job site to assist in removing the tree.
Brown’s action was reasonably foreseeable and the employer was not placed in the untenable position of having no reasonable means of prevention, as were the employers in other cases cited in the majority opinion. Here, Brown was the foreman of the brushing crew, a position involving judgmental decisions and independent action. Further, Brown had been a foreman for only 2-3 weeks prior to the action. The employer could anticipate that Brown would be eager to perform to the best of his abilities, please the customer, and show his employer that he was willing and able to assume responsibility. The employer knew that foremen frequently stopped at the customer’s place of business to discuss the day’s work and receive any special or additional instructions. It was in response to just such a meeting that the power company crew was sent out to assist Brown in removing the tree. Finally, the employer knew that brushers occasionally climbed small trees to rope them in preparation for removal. Brown’s act may have been beyond normal practice but, if so, only in degree, not character. See Prentice v. Twin City Wholesale Grocery, 202 Minn. 455, 278 N.W. 895 (1938).
I would not say that the employee here violated an express prohibition to engage in a specific act by undertaking to remove the tree in response to the desire of the customer. Employee was directly furthering the employer’s business interests and disregard of the employer’s instruction was reasonably foreseeable.
I would hold that the employee here was acting within the sphere of his employment and that his injury arose out of and in the course of his employment.