## Facts

- Eugene C. Hinman, a Los Angeles police officer, was struck on a freeway median by a car driven by Frank Allen Herman.
- Herman was employed by Westinghouse Electric Company as an elevator constructor’s helper.
- At the time of the collision, Herman was driving home from a Westinghouse job site; he typically traveled directly between home and job sites rather than reporting to a central office.
- The job site was not finished, and Herman ordinarily would continue returning to that site until completion or instruction not to return.
- Under a union contract, Herman received paid travel time and a travel expense allowance based on the distance of the job site; for this job he received 1.5 hours of round-trip travel time pay and $1.30 for travel expense.
- Westinghouse did not control Herman’s route or method of travel.
- Hinman suffered permanent injuries; the City of Los Angeles paid his medical expenses and disability pension and intervened to recover those amounts.
- Hinman and the City sought to hold Westinghouse vicariously liable under respondeat superior for Herman’s alleged negligence.

## Issues

1. Whether an employer may be held vicariously liable for an employee’s negligent driving during a commute when the employer contractually pays for travel time and travel expenses.
2. Whether, on these facts, the employee’s commute fell within the scope of employment as a matter of law, making it error to submit the question to the jury under a control/authorization-focused test.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of California reversed the judgment entered on the defense verdict.
- The Court affirmed the order denying judgment notwithstanding the verdict, requiring further proceedings rather than directing judgment for plaintiffs.
- The Court held that Herman’s travel was within the scope of employment because the employment arrangement made paid travel part of the workday and the resulting traffic risk was attributable to the employer’s enterprise.
- The trial court erred by refusing an instruction effectively treating Herman as acting within the scope of employment on these facts and by using an approach that centered authorization, control, and subjective purpose.

## Legal Principles

- Respondeat superior is justified primarily by allocation of enterprise risks, not by employer fault or actual control over the employee’s conduct.
- The scope-of-employment inquiry asks whether the tort arose from risks that are typical of, or broadly incidental to, the employer’s enterprise and therefore fairly treated as a cost of doing business.
- The going-and-coming rule generally places ordinary commuting outside the scope of employment, but it yields when the employer’s arrangement makes travel part of the service of the enterprise (including by paying for travel time or otherwise deriving enterprise-related benefit).
- When an employer agrees that travel time is part of the working day, the employer must bear responsibility for tort risks inherent in that paid travel, even if the employer does not control the route or method of transportation.

## Conclusion

The court held that an employer that contractually pays employees for travel time and expenses may be vicariously liable for commuting accidents because the commute becomes part of the enterprise’s operational risks, requiring reversal of a defense verdict reached under an incorrect scope-of-employment framework.


Hinman v. Westinghouse Elec. Co., 2 Cal. 3d 956 (Cal. 1970)