Jeewarat v. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.
Filed September 3, 2009
Cite as 2009 SOS 5467

Application of "Special Errand" Doctrine

Marc Brandon (Brandon) worked for Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (Warner) as Vice-President of its Anti-Piracy Internet Operations. Car or gas allowance was not among those provided by Warner. He was not also reimbursed for mileage.

When he attended a three-day business conference in Sunnyvale, California, Brandon’s trip including his airfare, hotel and airport parking were all paid by Warner. The conference was sponsored by one of Warner’s anti-piracy vendors.

Brandon left the conference early. He retrieved his car from a satellite parking lot and planned to return home to walk his dogs. He drove around the studio complex where his office was located. Instead of stopping, he took his normal route home. Then the unfortunate happened, his car collided with that of Jared Southard (Southard). Chuenchomporn Jeewarat, Tipphawan Tantisriyanurak and Kanhathai Vutthicharoen were among those injured pedestrians.

Vutthicharoen died as a result of her injuries while Jeewarat and Tantisriyanurak filed a personal injury case against Brandon and Southard. Subsequently, Jeewarat and Tantisriyanurak amended their complaint to include Warner as a Doe defendant and Vutthicharoen’ parents Anek Vutthicharoen and Kanchana Vutthicharoen as plaintiffs.

Warner filed a motion for summary judgment. It asserted that since Brandon was commuting from work to home, the accident was covered by the “going and coming rule”. It also claimed that the “commercial traveler exception” does not apply in third party tort cases.

Moreover, Warner argued that the “special errand” doctrine does not apply to cases involving commercial travel. It added that granting that the special errand doctrine was applied, any special errand ended when Brandon drove home.

Plaintiffs opposed the motion on the ground that it can be inferred that Brandon was traveling “from work to work” at the time of the accident. Hence, the “going and coming rule” does not apply.

The trial court denied the motion for summary judgment while it did not comment on the applicability of the special errand doctrine rule.

Subsequently, Warner filed a petition for writ of mandamus. Meanwhile, Tantisriyanurak settled her case with Warner and dismissed her complaint.

Acting on the writ, the trial court vacated its order denying Warner’s motion for summary judgment and entered a judgment against Jeewarat.

On appeal, the California Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the trial court in granting Warner’s motion for summary judgment.

The appeal court ruled that Brandon’s attendance at an out-of-town business conference may be considered a "special errand". Hence, it was an exception to the "going and coming rule" wherein an employer was not subject to vicarious liability for accidents occurring during an employee’s commute to or from the workplace.

Such that when an employee intends to drive home from such an errand, the errand was not concluded simply because the employee drives his regular commute route but rather when the employee returned home or deviated from the errand for personal reasons.