Court Opinion

ID: 9744682
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:12:22.333647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:50.980651
License: Public Domain

PIERCE, P. J.
I dissent. I adhere to my concurrence with the opinion written by Justice Van Dyke, filed February 3, 1965, reported in (Cal.App) 42 Cal.Rptr. 550. The portion of that opinion which deals with the law and which expresses my views follows:
“The commission considered that the facts showed a violation of its safety order. On this point the parties present arguments pro and con. However, we think it unnecessary to rule upon that and will assume the violation of the safety order. The violation of the safety order, like the violation of any safety statute, is prima facie proof of negligence, but it is not prima facie proof of the much graver misconduct involved in serious and wilful misconduct as those terms are used in Labor Code sections 4553 and 4553.1. What is meant by the words ‘serious and wilful misconduct’ as used by the Legislature has been the subject of a number of decisions by the Supreme Court and the District Courts of Appeal. Notable among these are Mercer-Fraser Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 40 Cal.2d 102 [251 P.2d 955]; Hawaiian Pineapple Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 40 Cal.2d 656 [255 P.2d 431]; Sutter Butte Canal Co. v. *56Industrial Acc. Com., 40 Cal.2d 139 [251 P.2d 975]; Dowden v. Industrial Acc. Com., 223 Cal.App.2d 124 [35 Cal.Rptr. 541]; Wolters v. Industrial Acc. Com., 223 Cal.App.2d 136 [35 Cal.Rptr. 549]. We quote the following from Dowden v. Industrial Acc. Com., supra, at page 130: ‘In that case [Mercer-Fraser Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 40 Cal.2d 102 (251 P. 2d 955) ] the Supreme Court rejected the notion that serious and wilful misconduct is the equivalent of negligence or even gross negligence. Serious and wilful misconduct, said the court, is “an act deliberately done for the express purpose of injuring another, or intentionally performed either with knowledge that serious injury is a probable result or with a positive, active, wanton, reckless and absolute disregard of its possibly damaging consequences. ...” [Citation.]’ Violation of a safety order cannot be equated with serious and wilful misconduct as a matter of law. (Ethel D. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 219 Cal. 699, 704 [28 P.2d 919]; Mercer-Fraser Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., supra; Simmons Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 70 Cal.App.2d 664 [161 P.2d 702].) Whenever the conduct of the employer is charged as being serious and wilful misconduct, whether that conduct involves and includes violation of a safety order or not, there must still be presented by the whole record employer conduct measuring up to the definition of serious and wilful misconduct as defined in Mercer-Fraser. On the whole record before us the commission’s finding of serious and wilful misconduct cannot be sustained. In the last analysis it was Mayers’ conduct that is decisive. He had had extensive experience in doing the very type of work here involved. He knew the danger of working in the area of high-tension electric lines. He knew the men and the equipment with which he had been engaged in the performance of his employer’s contract. He immediately recognized the danger involved in erecting the light standard at its original location. He notified his employer of that danger, and when told to change the location to a point 10 feet 4 inches south of its original point, he performed the work of doing that. For greater safety he changed the positioning of the truck from where it had originally been placed for the purpose of erecting the standard to a safer place. Throughout he showed concern and care to perform the work in such a way that no part of the standard would come within dangerous proximity to the wires. As said in Merced-Fraser Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., supra., 40 Cal.2d at pages 120-121: ‘ [T]he very fact that he was worried would seem to negative, rather than affirm, either an intent to harm or a wanton, positive and absolute disregard *57of possible harm. . . . ’ Here his entire conduct negatived such intent or disregard. Mayers, in following the method of operation which he did, was, of course, conscious of the fact that throughout he would be in exactly the same position so far as danger was concerned as would be decedent. Certainly, Mayers, as he testified, believed that following his proposed method the standard would be installed without danger; and since he would be subjected to injury as well as decedent if misadventure occurred, Mayers’ belief in the safety of his method was held in good faith, based upon long experience with the very method itself.’'
To the statement quoted I add this: The three conditions (stated above), one of which must exist before there is serious and wilful misconduct, are: (1) an act deliberately done for the express purpose of injuring another, (2) an act intentionally performed either with knowledge that serious injury is a probable result, or (3) a positive, active, wanton, reckless and absolute disregard of its possibly damaging consequences. (Merced-Fraser Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., supra, as interpreted in Dowden v. Industrial Acc. Com., supra.) Since conditions (1) and (3) cannot possibly apply here, the only condition even arguable is that here there was “an act intentionally performed . . . with knowledge that serious injury is a probable result.” But how can we say here that there was “knowledge that serious injury [was] a probable result”? The facts are that five or six hundred standards had been raised without mishap as this one was raised, using exactly the same methods. The safety representative of the State Compensation Insurance Fund who investigated the accident testified that the method used was safe and that had he been present while the work was being done he would not have stopped it. Thus the evidence leaves no doubt that experienced experts, empirically fortified by five or six hundred actual tests, entertained an honest and educated belief that these standards as they were rigged could not possibly be brought within 6 feet of the hot wire. They were wrong. Into their acts I can read “negligence.” I simply cannot read “knowledge that serious injury [was] a probable result. ’ ’ I think the majority opinion legislates. And I also believe that it legislates in a field disruptive of the whole scheme of workmen’s compensation.
A petition for a rehearing was denied November 30, 1965. Pierce, P. J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Petitioner's application for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied January 12, 1966.