Moreno v. Visser Ranch, Inc.

241 Cal. Rptr. 3d 678, 30 Cal. App. 5th 568
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal, 5th District
DecidedDecember 20, 2018
DocketF075822
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 241 Cal. Rptr. 3d 678 (Moreno v. Visser Ranch, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal, 5th District primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Moreno v. Visser Ranch, Inc., 241 Cal. Rptr. 3d 678, 30 Cal. App. 5th 568 (Cal. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

FRANSON, J.

*571Plaintiff was injured while a passenger in a pickup truck involved in a single-vehicle, rollover accident. Plaintiff sued the driver (his father), the corporation that employed the driver, and an affiliated corporation that owned the vehicle. Plaintiff alleged the driver was acting in the scope of his employment at the time of the accident and claimed the defendant corporations were vicariously liable under California's doctrine of respondeat superior. The defendant corporations obtained summary adjudication of the respondeat superior claim on the ground that the driver, who was returning home late in the evening after attending a family gathering, was not acting in the scope of his employment at the time of the accident.

Scope of employment is a question of fact. Here, the evidence shows defendants required the driver to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to respond immediately to cell phone calls for repairs and maintenance needed at the ranches, farms and dairies operated by defendants. Also, there is conflicting evidence about whether the driver was required to use the company-owned vehicle, which contained tools and spare parts, at all times so he could respond quickly to call for repairs at defendants' various locations. Based on this evidence and other details about the driver's job, a reasonable trier of fact could find the driver was acting within the scope of his employment when the accident occurred.

We publish this decision because it is distinguishable from most other cases involving an employee's required use of a company-owned vehicle. Usually, those cases involve an employee who is required to use the vehicle only for the commute to and from work but is not required to use the vehicle while off *572work.1 Here, a trier of fact reasonably could find the driver's use of the truck for personal travel after work was dictated by the employer's requirement. In such circumstances, the risk of the truck's involvement in an accident is a foreseeable risk that is attributable to the business enterprise under California's risks-of-the-enterprise principle, which is the primary justification for its respondeat superior doctrine. Consequently, responsibility for that risk is best allocated to the enterprise, which is able to spread the risk (and actually did so) by obtaining insurance. *682We therefore reverse the judgment and remand for further proceedings.

FACTS

Plaintiff Ray David Moreno was seriously injured on September 12, 2012, when the 2004 GMC Sierra pickup truck in which he was a passenger left the roadway, hit an embankment and rolled over. At the time, plaintiff was not wearing his seat belt. The truck was driven by plaintiff's father, Ernesto Moreno Lopez (Driver). They were traveling on I Street, a rural road owned and maintained by the County of Tulare. Unbeknownst to Driver, a section of I Street was under construction and a resurfacing of the roadway, which had begun earlier that day, was not completed when the accident occurred.

The defendants named in plaintiffs' lawsuit were Visser Ranch, Inc., a California corporation; Graceland Dairy, Inc., a California corporation;2 the County of Tulare and its Resource Management Agency; the State of California and its Department of Transportation; General Motors Company; and Driver. For purposes of this opinion, Visser Ranch, Inc. and Graceland Dairy, Inc., collectively, are referred to as "defendants."

Driver was an employee of Visser Ranch, Inc., a company owned by John Visser. His supervisors or bosses were John Visser and Visser's son-in-law, Brian Schaap. Driver had been hired in September 2004 as a supervisor/manager and was required to work at virtually all of Visser's properties, which included multiple farms, ranches, and Graceland Dairy. These operations involved *573equipment that ran around the clock. When maintenance or repair issues arose, they would need to be addressed immediately to prevent the farm and dairy operations from being disrupted. Driver's duties included performing maintenance and repair work on the Visser properties, which he often performed alone. Driver's responsibilities also included transporting workers to various Visser properties where they would work.

Defendants provided Driver with an office at the property known as Visser Ranch, and he worked from 6:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. six days a week, with Sundays off. In addition, he was "on call" 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which meant he was expected to respond to any problems or issues that arose on any Visser property at any time of the day or night.

Driver was provided a house on one of the Visser properties, Graceland Dairy, where he lived with his family, including plaintiff. The distance between Driver's office at Visser Ranch and the home at Graceland Dairy was approximately eight miles. To facilitate Driver's ability to respond efficiently to repair and maintenance problems arising outside his usual daytime schedule, defendants provided Driver a cell phone and a pickup truck. The GMC truck that Driver was operating on the day of the accident was owned by Graceland Dairy, Inc. Driver kept a toolbox and spare parts in the GMC truck so he would have them available whenever he was contacted to respond to a maintenance or repair issue. When Driver was not working his regular shift, he used the GMC truck so he could respond quickly to work-related calls. Driver's use of the GMC truck while not performing his regular shift was part of his employment and *683benefited defendants because Driver could respond immediately to defendants' maintenance, repair and operational needs. This aspect of Driver's use of the GMC truck had been discussed by Driver and Schaap, with Schaap telling Driver that he was the lone exception to the defendants' policy that company vehicles were to be used for business purposes only.

On September 12, 2012, Driver left work at approximately 4:30 p.m., drove to his home at Graceland Dairy, loaded a grill into the GMC truck, and drove to his brother's house for a family gathering. None of defendant's other employees attended, or were aware of, the family gathering. At approximately 11:45 p.m., Driver got back into the GMC truck to return to his home at Graceland Dairy. Plaintiff rode along in the passenger seat. Driver followed a route that he had taken on many prior occasions. Driver lost control of the GMC truck while attempting to negotiate an S-curve in the roadway that was being resurfaced.

When the single-vehicle accident occurred, plaintiff was employed by Cream of the Crop, Ag Service, Inc. to perform services at the Graceland *574Dairy site, other Visser properties and various other unrelated farms in the area. Cream of the Crop was not owned or controlled by defendants. Driver's declaration, cited in defendants' undisputed statement of material facts, stated plaintiff was scheduled to perform work services at the Graceland Dairy site that night and he was driving plaintiff back to Graceland Dairy so that plaintiff could begin his work shift.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
241 Cal. Rptr. 3d 678, 30 Cal. App. 5th 568, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moreno-v-visser-ranch-inc-calctapp5d-2018.