CACI 2810 Coemployee’s Affirmative Defense—Injury Covered by Workers’ Compensation
California Civil Jury Instructions CACI
2810 Coemployee’s Affirmative Defense—Injury Covered by Workers’ Compensation
[Name of defendant] claims that [he/she/nonbinary pronoun] is not responsible for any harm that [name of plaintiff] may have suffered because [he/she/nonbinary pronoun] was [name of defendant]’s coemployee and therefore can recover only under California’s Workers’ Compensation Act. To succeed, [name of defendant] must prove all of the following:
1.That [name of plaintiff] and [name of defendant] were [name of employer]’s employees;
2.That [name of employer] [had workers’ compensation insurance [covering [name of plaintiff] at the time of injury]/was self-insured for workers’ compensation claims [at the time of [name of plaintiff]’s injury]]; and
3.That [name of defendant] was acting in the scope of [his/her/nonbinary pronoun] employment at the time [name of plaintiff] claims [he/she/nonbinary pronoun] was harmed.
New September 2003; Revised October 2004, May 2020
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Directions for Use
This instruction is intended for use if a coemployee is the defendant and that coemployee claims that the case falls within the workers’ compensation exclusivity rule. For instructions on scope of employment see instructions in the Vicarious Liability series (CACI Nos. 3700–3726). Scope of employment in this instruction is the same as in the context of respondeat superior. (Hendy v. Losse (1991) 54 Cal.3d 723, 740 [1 Cal.Rptr.2d 543, 819 P.2d 1].) See instructions in the Vicarious Responsibility series regarding the definition of “scope of employment.”
Sources and Authority
•Exclusive Remedy. Labor Code section 3601.
•“Employee” Defined. Labor Code section 3351.
•Presumption of Employment Status. Labor Code section 3357.
•“CACI No. 2810, which the trial court gave to the jury, is intended for use when a coemployee defendant asserts the exclusivity rule as a defense. It has three elements: (1) the plaintiff and the coemployee were employees of the employer; (2) the employer had a workers’ compensation insurance policy covering the plaintiff at the time of injury; and (3) the coemployee was acting in the scope of his or her employment at the time of injury.” (Lee v. West Kern Water Dist. (2016) 5 Cal.App.5th 606, 633 [210 Cal.Rptr.3d 362].)
•“Labor Code section 3601 affords coemployees the benefit of the exclusivity rule only ‘[w]here the conditions of compensation set forth in Section 3600 concur … .’ Those conditions, as has been mentioned, include the requirement of industrial causation.” (Lee, supra, 5 Cal.App.5th at p. 634, internal citation omitted.)
•“[A] coemployee’s conduct is within the scope of his or her employment if it could be imputed to the employer under the doctrine of respondeat superior. If the coemployee was not ‘engaged in any active service for the employer,’ the coemployee was not acting within the scope of employment.” (Hendy, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 740, internal citation omitted.)
•“[G]enerally speaking, a defendant in a civil action who claims to be one of that class of persons protected from an action at law by the provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Act bears the burden of pleading and proving, as an affirmative defense to the action, the existence of the conditions of compensation set forth in the statute which are necessary to its application.” (Doney v. Tambouratgis (1979) 23 Cal.3d 91, 96 [151 Cal.Rptr. 347, 587 P.2d 1160].)
•“In general, if an employer condones what courts have described as ‘horseplay’ among its employees, an employee who engages in it is within the scope of employment under section 3601, subdivision (a), and is thus immune from suit, unless exceptions apply.” (Torres v. Parkhouse Tire Service, Inc. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 995, 1006 [111 Cal.Rptr.2d 564, 30 P.3d 57], internal citations omitted.)