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Brassinga v. City of Mountain View8/20/1998
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
(Santa Clara County Super.Ct. No. CV744729)
The Mountain View, Palo Alto and Los Altos Police Departments each had a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) Team. In order to ensure an adequate response to "incidents," the three departments cooperated to form the "North County Regional" SWAT Team (hereafter the "Regional Team") which was composed of all three departments' SWAT Teams. The Regional Team trained together and responded to incidents as a single team, although the members of the "Regional Team" remained employed by their individual departments.
Regional Team training exercises often utilized the services of "role players." During a Regional Team training exercise, Theodore Brassinga, a Palo Alto reserve police officer who was not a SWAT team member but was assigned to serve as a role player, was shot to death by Greg Acton, a Mountain View police officer who was a Regional Team member. Plaintiffs, Brassinga's heirs, filed a wrongful death action against Mountain View and Acton. Mountain View asserted as an affirmative defense that worker's compensation benefits were the exclusive remedy because either Mountain View was Brassinga's "special employer" at the time of his death or the Regional Team was the "special employer" of both officers. Acton's motion for summary adjudication was granted, but Mountain View's summary judgment motion was denied. The case was tried before a jury, but the trial court granted plaintiffs' motion for a directed verdict on liability in respondeat superior. The only issue put before the jury was the level of damages. It returned a $3,250,000 verdict for plaintiffs. Mountain View claims on appeal that the superior court erred in denying summary judgment and the trial court erred in directing the verdict because either there was a legitimate factual question that should have been put before the jury or the evidence indisputably established the affirmative defense. Plaintiffs' cross-appeal challenges the summary adjudication in favor of Acton. We conclude that the superior court erred in granting Acton's motion and the trial court erred in directing the verdict. Therefore, we reverse the judgment.
THE PLEADINGS
Plaintiffs' complaint alleged that Acton had been negligent and that Mountain View was liable by way of respondeat superior for Acton's negligent acts. It also alleged that Mountain View had been directly negligent in "the hiring, retention, training and supervision of Acton, the inspection of Acton's weapon, and the failure to establish procedures" to prevent accidental shootings. Mountain View pled as an affirmative defense that Brassinga was Acton's "co-worker" and Mountain View's "employee" at the time of his death and therefore his exclusive remedy was provided by the Worker's Compensation Act.
SUMMARY JUDGMENT MOTION
Mountain View and Acton moved for summary judgment or summary adjudication. They argued that worker's compensation was the exclusive remedy because Brassinga was a "special employee" of either the Regional Team or Mountain View. The affidavits submitted by Mountain View and Acton in favor of their summary judgment motion established the following facts.
The Regional Team regularly trained together and responded to incidents as a single team although the members of the Regional Team remained employed by and were paid by their individual departments. The Regional Team itself had no employees. The equipment used by the Regional Team was purchased by and stored at the individual departments. The departments attempted to complement each other by not duplicating equipment.
On May 15, 1994, the Regional Team held a train
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