noting that emotional flare-ups are expressions of human nature and “incidents inseparable from [people] working together.”
How later courts described this case
- noting that emotional flare-ups are expressions of human nature and “incidents inseparable from [people] working together.”
- “[I]f the statutory language permits more than one reasonable interpretation, courts may consider various extrinsic aids, including the purpose of the statute, the evils to be remedied, the legislative history, public policy, and the statutory scheme encompassing the statute.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
BROWN, J., Concurring.
I sign the majority opinion with the understanding that the intent-to-injure requirement it articulates is limited to cases like this one where the determinative factual issue is whether the plaintiff’s injury was caused by a coemployee’s “willful and unprovoked physical act of aggression” (Lab. Code, § 3601, subd. (a)(1)) or, instead, by horseplay— even rough horseplay—for which workers’ compensation would be the exclusive remedy. Where this distinction is critical—that is, where the conduct in question is aggressive but might also be characterized as horseplay—the language of section 3601, subdivision (a)(1) provides insufficient guidance to juries. For such cases, we must find some appropriate measure for the jury to apply, and though we might direct juries to consider whether or not the conduct was marked by hostility or ill-will, these factors ultimately turn on whether the actor harbored an intent to injure. On the other hand, where the conduct in question clearly exhibits hostility, not merely high spirits or recklessness—such as in the case of a credible threat of injury (see maj. opn., ante, at p. 1006, fn. 6)—I see no reason to superimpose an intent-to-injure gloss on the statutory language, and I do not read the majority opinion as doing so.