QUESTION PRESENTED Whether Carleton University should be held liable for Mr. Bendi’s injury which resulted from an accident involving John Robertson (employee of the school) who was said to be acting within the scope of his employment due to the occasionally use of his vehicle for work related circumstances ?
BRIEF ANSWER Probably yes. Although employers are generally exempt from liability of tortious acts committed by employees while on their way to and from work due to employees acting out of the scope of their employment, the exception of the “going and coming” rule allows liability to be placed on an employer when incidental benefit is acquired by the use of an employee's car. Here, on the day of the accident Mr.Robertson had driven …show more content…
The exceptions can apply if the use of a personally owned vehicle is either an express or implied condition of employment, or if the employee has agreed, expressly or implicitly, to make the vehicle available as an accommodation to the employer and the employer has ‘reasonably come to rely upon its use and [to] expect the employee to make the vehicle available on a regular basis while still not requiring it as a condition of employment. Lobo v. Tamco, 230 Cal.App.4th 438 (2014). This memo will address what constitutes incidental benefit of an employer by determining whether Robertson has implicitly made his vehicle available as an accommodation to his employer consequently causing reasonable reliance and expectation of the vehicle's …show more content…
This is determined by the benefit acquired by the frequency of the availability of the vehicle. In Lobo, an employee of Tamco was heading home after work and was involved in a car accident that left a sheriff deputy dead. The Deputy's family filed suit for wrongful death against Tamco. It was determined that benefit of implied availability arose from the use of the vehicle when required. Availability however is not enough to hold liability, it is the frequency of the use of the vehicle that holds this. In Lobo the use of the vehicle was too infrequent to confer a sufficient benefit for the employer to be held