In Bingener v. City of Los Angeles, ordered published January 9, 2020, the Second District Court of Appeal, Division 3 affirmed summary judgment for the defendant city in a personal injury suit. A city employee who worked in a lab, seldom left the lab, and never used his personal vehicle for work-related travel, struck a pedestrian during the employee's morning commute to work. The pedestrian passed away. The city sought summary judgment based on the going and coming rule, which provides that an employee is generally not considered to be acting within the scope of employment when going to or coming from his regular place of work. The Plaintiff argued that there was a dispute of fact on the work-spawned risk exception, because the city allegedly knew of health conditions that impaired the employee's ability to drive, but allowed him to return to work prematurely without placing restrictions on his driving. The trial court granted summary judgment based on the going and coming rule.
The appellate court agreed that there was no issue of fact on the work-spawned risk exception. The evidence established without dispute that the employee did not have a health condition or took medication that impaired his ability to drive on the date of the accident. The employee's treating physician, not the city, cleared the plaintiff to return to work after a back injury, and did not place restrictions on the employee's driving. No evidence supported the plaintiff's theory that the accident was a foreseeable consequence of the employee's back injury two months earlier.
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