California Appellate Tracker

Newland v. County of Los Angeles

June 21, 2018

The required vehicle exception to the going and coming rule did not apply to a public defender’s drive home from work on a day he did not need the car for work, so his employer, the county, was not liable for the accident on the drive home.

Judgment for a plaintiff injured in a car accident is reversed as there was no substantial evidence to support the imposition of respondeat superior liability on the County of Los Angeles. The negligent driver was a County public defender, but his commute home from the office did not fall within the required vehicle exception to the going and coming rule. The County did not require public defenders to bring personal vehicles to the office and while cars were occasionally needed by a public defender to carry out his duties, the public defender knew in advance when the car would be needed for those purposes. On the day of the accident, the public defender did not need his car for any work function, and so his drive to and from the office was governed by the going and coming rule.

California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 5 (Kriegler, Acting P.J.; Baker, J., dissenting); June 18, 2018; 2018 Cal. App. LEXIS 554

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Newland v. County of Los Angeles

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