MAJID MORADI, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. MARSH USA, INC., Defendant and Respondent., 219 Cal. App. 4th 886

Summary

The court of appeal held that the doctrine of respondeat superior applied. Under the required vehicle exception to the "going and coming" rule, the employee was acting within the scope of her employment when she was commuting to and from work because the employer required her to use her personal vehicle to travel to and from the office and make other work-related trips during the day. Her planned stops for frozen yogurt and a yoga class on the way home did not change the incidental benefit to the employer of having the employee use her personal vehicle. On the day of the accident, the employee had used her vehicle to transport herself and other employees to an employer-sponsored program, and the employee had planned to use her vehicle the next day to drive to a prospective client's place of business. The planned stops did not constitute an unforeseeable, substantial departure from the employee's commute. Rather, they were a foreseeable, minor deviation. Finally, the planned stops were ...