Opinion
KAUS, J.
United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (the union), defendant in a personal injury action tried to a jury, appeals from a judgment holding it liable for plaintiff’s injuries sustained in a traffic accident. The union contends that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a temporary restraining order directed against it. We conclude that the evidence should have been excluded and that the error in admitting it was prejudicial.
I.
This case arises out of a three-car collision on September 19, 1974, before sunrise. Striking union farm workers were about to picket a tomato field alongside a county highway. Encarnación Avalos and his son Jesse, tomato sorters who had walked off their jobs to join the strike, parked their pickup truck along the right side of the northbound lane of the highway, near the edge of a dirt road leading to a tomato field east of the intersection. Plaintiff’s evidence—hotly contested by the union—was that the Avalos’ truck occupied 4 feet of the northbound lane and blocked 10 feet of the 24-foot wide dirt road. The Avalos’ were waiting for the union picket captain to arrive so that picketing could begin. At least one other truck was parked in front of the Avalos’ vehicle. Plaintiff Marcella Stafford, a hospital nurse, was northbound on the highway driving to work. A third vehicle, heading south, was driven by a nonstriking farm worker, Guadalupe Avilla. She had started to make a left turn toward the dirt road.
Construing the evidence in a light most favorable to the plaintiff, she hit the Avalos’ pickup truck, swerved and struck Avilla’s car which was at least two feet over the line into plaintiff’s lane.
Plaintiff was injured. She sued the union
on the theory that the accident was caused by the Avalos’ truck protruding westerly onto the highway causing her to swerve and strike the Avilla car which had been left “stuck” two feet over the center line because the truck’s partial blocking of the dirt road prevented Avilla from completing her left turn. The union’s legal responsibility for the claimed negligent placement of the Avalos’ truck was urged on two theories: (1) vicarious liability for Avalos’ negligence as agent of the union, and (2) the union’s own negligence in failing to direct and supervise the parking of the pickets’ vehicles.
A key procedural issue at trial was the admissibility of a temporary restraining order (TRO) issued against the union about a week before the accident. It prohibited the union in various ways from blocking access to the tomato field and barred other conduct such as rock throwing, violence, and threatening behavior. The union moved
in limine
to exclude all references to the TRO. After first holding that the order was inadmissible as unduly prejudicial and likely to cause unnecessary confusion and delay, the trial court reconsidered and allowed it into evidence, even though it had explicitly found that the TRO “was designed to protect growers and union people from violence and members of the public from violence by way of the strike and not simply negligent motor vehicle operation on a public highway.” The TRO was read in full to the jury, referred to frequently during the trial, and emphasized in plaintiff’s closing argument.
The jury found the union liable and awarded $100,000 in damages.
II.
The TRO was irrelevant and prejudicial. The only issues at trial were (1) whether parking the pickup truck which may have protruded onto the highway and partially blocked the access road amounted to negligence justifying a finding of liability, and (2) whether the union was directly or vicariously liable for such negligent parking.
The TRO which was not intended as a traffic control device had no bearing on either issue.
Although we have found no case discussing an injunction or TRO as relevant to the duty of care in a negligence action, the rule with respect to statutes is obviously analogous. In California, the relation between a statute and negligence is governed by Evidence Code section 669,
which codifies general judicially created doctrines.
Our courts have interpreted section 669 broadly, applying it to police department manuals
(Peterson
v.
City of Long Beach
(1979) 24 Cal.3d 238, 245-246 [155 Cal.Rptr. 360, 594 P.2d 477]) and Administrative Code safety orders
(Short
v.
State Compensation Ins. Fund
(1975) 52 Cal.App.3d 104 [125 Cal.Rptr. 15]). In any event, the law is clear and well-settled that for a statute or ordinance—and, by analogy, an injunction or TRO
—to be relevant to a determination of negligence, not only must the injury be a proximate result of the violation, but the plaintiff must be a member of the class of persons the statute or order was designed to protect, and the harm must have been one the statute or order was designed to prevent. (§ 669, subds. (a)(3), (4);
Vesely
v.
Sager
(1971) 5 Cal.3d 153, 164 [95 Cal.Rptr. 623, 486 P.2d 151];
Nunneley
v.
Edgar Hotel
(1950) 36 Cal.2d 493, 497 [225 P.2d 497].) Here, even if a violation of the TRO was a contributing cause of the accident, the other two elements were absent. By its own terms the TRO protected only the class of tomato growers and those with whom they do business, not passing motorists. Even more vitally, the TRO was designed to prevent labor violence, not automobile collisions.
Plaintiff argues that though the TRO might have been irrelevant to a finding of negligence in parking the pickup truck, it was relevant on the question of the union’s negligent failure to supervise its members. She points to testimony by Richard Chavez, a member of the union’s executive board, that it was the union’s responsibility to familiarize pickets with the contents of the TRO. This she contrasts with evidence from Encarnación Avalos that he and the other pickets were “never told . . . anything.”
The argument, if we understand it
correctly, is that the union’s lack of due care in omitting to publicize the contents of the TRO, is relevant on the question whether its alleged failure to tell the pickets where not to park their vehicles was negligent. In other words, the jury was invited to infer the negligent quality of the latter omission from the union’s negligence with respect to the former. That, of course, is precisely what is prohibited by section 1104 of the Evidence Code—itself a codification of existing law
(Towle
v.
Pacific Improvement Co.
(1893) 98 Cal.
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Opinion
KAUS, J.
United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (the union), defendant in a personal injury action tried to a jury, appeals from a judgment holding it liable for plaintiff’s injuries sustained in a traffic accident. The union contends that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a temporary restraining order directed against it. We conclude that the evidence should have been excluded and that the error in admitting it was prejudicial.
I.
This case arises out of a three-car collision on September 19, 1974, before sunrise. Striking union farm workers were about to picket a tomato field alongside a county highway. Encarnación Avalos and his son Jesse, tomato sorters who had walked off their jobs to join the strike, parked their pickup truck along the right side of the northbound lane of the highway, near the edge of a dirt road leading to a tomato field east of the intersection. Plaintiff’s evidence—hotly contested by the union—was that the Avalos’ truck occupied 4 feet of the northbound lane and blocked 10 feet of the 24-foot wide dirt road. The Avalos’ were waiting for the union picket captain to arrive so that picketing could begin. At least one other truck was parked in front of the Avalos’ vehicle. Plaintiff Marcella Stafford, a hospital nurse, was northbound on the highway driving to work. A third vehicle, heading south, was driven by a nonstriking farm worker, Guadalupe Avilla. She had started to make a left turn toward the dirt road.
Construing the evidence in a light most favorable to the plaintiff, she hit the Avalos’ pickup truck, swerved and struck Avilla’s car which was at least two feet over the line into plaintiff’s lane.
Plaintiff was injured. She sued the union
on the theory that the accident was caused by the Avalos’ truck protruding westerly onto the highway causing her to swerve and strike the Avilla car which had been left “stuck” two feet over the center line because the truck’s partial blocking of the dirt road prevented Avilla from completing her left turn. The union’s legal responsibility for the claimed negligent placement of the Avalos’ truck was urged on two theories: (1) vicarious liability for Avalos’ negligence as agent of the union, and (2) the union’s own negligence in failing to direct and supervise the parking of the pickets’ vehicles.
A key procedural issue at trial was the admissibility of a temporary restraining order (TRO) issued against the union about a week before the accident. It prohibited the union in various ways from blocking access to the tomato field and barred other conduct such as rock throwing, violence, and threatening behavior. The union moved
in limine
to exclude all references to the TRO. After first holding that the order was inadmissible as unduly prejudicial and likely to cause unnecessary confusion and delay, the trial court reconsidered and allowed it into evidence, even though it had explicitly found that the TRO “was designed to protect growers and union people from violence and members of the public from violence by way of the strike and not simply negligent motor vehicle operation on a public highway.” The TRO was read in full to the jury, referred to frequently during the trial, and emphasized in plaintiff’s closing argument.
The jury found the union liable and awarded $100,000 in damages.
II.
The TRO was irrelevant and prejudicial. The only issues at trial were (1) whether parking the pickup truck which may have protruded onto the highway and partially blocked the access road amounted to negligence justifying a finding of liability, and (2) whether the union was directly or vicariously liable for such negligent parking.
The TRO which was not intended as a traffic control device had no bearing on either issue.
Although we have found no case discussing an injunction or TRO as relevant to the duty of care in a negligence action, the rule with respect to statutes is obviously analogous. In California, the relation between a statute and negligence is governed by Evidence Code section 669,
which codifies general judicially created doctrines.
Our courts have interpreted section 669 broadly, applying it to police department manuals
(Peterson
v.
City of Long Beach
(1979) 24 Cal.3d 238, 245-246 [155 Cal.Rptr. 360, 594 P.2d 477]) and Administrative Code safety orders
(Short
v.
State Compensation Ins. Fund
(1975) 52 Cal.App.3d 104 [125 Cal.Rptr. 15]). In any event, the law is clear and well-settled that for a statute or ordinance—and, by analogy, an injunction or TRO
—to be relevant to a determination of negligence, not only must the injury be a proximate result of the violation, but the plaintiff must be a member of the class of persons the statute or order was designed to protect, and the harm must have been one the statute or order was designed to prevent. (§ 669, subds. (a)(3), (4);
Vesely
v.
Sager
(1971) 5 Cal.3d 153, 164 [95 Cal.Rptr. 623, 486 P.2d 151];
Nunneley
v.
Edgar Hotel
(1950) 36 Cal.2d 493, 497 [225 P.2d 497].) Here, even if a violation of the TRO was a contributing cause of the accident, the other two elements were absent. By its own terms the TRO protected only the class of tomato growers and those with whom they do business, not passing motorists. Even more vitally, the TRO was designed to prevent labor violence, not automobile collisions.
Plaintiff argues that though the TRO might have been irrelevant to a finding of negligence in parking the pickup truck, it was relevant on the question of the union’s negligent failure to supervise its members. She points to testimony by Richard Chavez, a member of the union’s executive board, that it was the union’s responsibility to familiarize pickets with the contents of the TRO. This she contrasts with evidence from Encarnación Avalos that he and the other pickets were “never told . . . anything.”
The argument, if we understand it
correctly, is that the union’s lack of due care in omitting to publicize the contents of the TRO, is relevant on the question whether its alleged failure to tell the pickets where not to park their vehicles was negligent. In other words, the jury was invited to infer the negligent quality of the latter omission from the union’s negligence with respect to the former. That, of course, is precisely what is prohibited by section 1104 of the Evidence Code—itself a codification of existing law
(Towle
v.
Pacific Improvement Co.
(1893) 98 Cal. 342 [33 P. 207]): “[Evidence of a trait of a person’s character with respect to care or skill is inadmissible to prove the quality of his conduct on a specified occasion.” (See also
Brokopp
v.
Ford Motor Co.
(1977) 71 Cal.App.3d 841, 850-853 [139 Cal.Rptr. 888, 93 A.L.R.3d 537].)
The TRO was, therefore, not admissible on the theory that the union’s negligent failure to publicize its ban on obstruction of ingress into the fields implied negligence on the issue of lack of directions where to park. This does not mean, of course, that plaintiff was not free to prove and argue that the union, having caused the Avalos’ truck and others to congregate at the scene, was under a common law duty to control their conduct in some fashion.
Finally, even if the union’s failure to communicate the portions of the TRO prohibiting the blocking of ingress to the field did have some bearing on union’s negligence liability, there was no justification for admitting the entire TRO into evidence. It contained completely irrelevant and highly prejudicial paragraphs forbidding assaults, threats of violence and destruction of property. Thus the TRO provided in part: “. . . it appears to the satisfaction of the Court . . . that unless a Temporary Restraining Order is granted as prayed for that Plaintiff’s tomato grower members will suffer great and irreparable injury before the matter can be heard on Notice: [1] [The union must show cause that it] should not be enjoined and restrained during the pendency of this action from: ... [1] Injuring persons or destroying or damaging the property of Plaintiff’s tomato grower members, their employees, agents, customers, contractors or of others; and from engaging in conduct calculated or likely to cause or causing injury to persons or damage to property, including, but not limited to, the throwing of clods, rocks, tomatoes or other objects. [f| .... [f] Molesting, assaulting, pushing, elbowing, shouldering or in any other manner unreasonably intentionally physically contacting the person or the clothing of any of Plaintiff’s tomato grower members’ agents . . . employees ... or others doing or attempting to do business with [them]; [t] Causing or inducing, or attempting to cause . . . any reasonable fear of physical molestation, injury or damage to person or property of Plaintiff’s tomato grower members’ employees.”
We find no conceivable probative value in these paragraphs. The picture painted is one of a violent, dangerous, and irresponsible union requiring
judicial curbing to prevent the impending “irreparable injuries” of bloodshed, property destruction, and wholesale intimidation. Undoubtedly the inference drawn by the jury was that the judge making such an order did so on the basis of reasonably grounded concern that the order was warranted by experience.
Nor did plaintiff’s counsel fail to make the most of the erroneous ruling.
The union’s failure to comply with the TRO was, in his own words, the “theme” of his closing argument. Counsel portrayed the union as deliberately bent on ignoring the law and court orders, as an organization that had to be punished, that needed to receive a “message” that courts and the law could not be ignored with impunity. “We have, I think, a lot of evidence that indicates that the Defendants were intent upon kind of doing what they wanted
without any fear of what our statutes are and even without any fear of what our superior courts say in the way of a temporary restraining order . .
. . [f] So, if they won’t comply with being responsible; and they have been irresponsible, another word for negligence, then I think it would be good to send them a message; a telegram. . . [Wjhat it really keeps boiling down to, to me, is when you get to this stage of the trial, I think the question is, can they get away with it? Can they ask to have all the privileges and the rights and the protection of the law, on the one hand, and negligently and irresponsibly thwart it on the other? And the question is, can they get away with it? I think we need to send them a message—and this will be the first of its kind—that says, ‘No, you can’t.’ I think we need to send them a message that says,
1 If you won’t listen to the restraining orders
or the statutes, or you weren’t being reasonable, then we want you to listen to this, here’s our message: And the message is called a verdict.’” (Italics added.)
III.
The erroneous admission of the TRO was clearly prejudicial. To be fair it seems highly probable that when the trial court first allowed it—“as one of the circumstances relevant to the common law negligence issue”—it did not anticipate that it would become the centerpiece of plaintiff’s attack against union. Yet that is precisely what happened: Plaintiff’s counsel adroitly turned a simple issue of negligence into an OSC in re contempt—a referendum on whether the jury should “send a message” to union that restraining orders cannot be violated with impunity. None of this had anything to do with the simple issues of whether the Avalos truck was illegally parked and whether the union was legally responsible therefor.
The judgment is reversed.
Broussard, Acting C. J., Mosk, J., Richardson, J., Rouse, J.,
Feinberg, J.,* and Newsom, J.,* concurred.