A state appeals panel has agreed the family of a women who died after she was crushed between two vehicles while volunteering at a public school food drive can't sue the school district for wrongful death.
Catherine Kuo was volunteering with Dublin Unified School District in March 2021 at a middle school Farmers to Families Food Box Program distribution. According to court records, while Kuo was loading a box into the back of one vehicle, a DUSD employee told the driver of a second car to open its rear hatch for loading. The driver of the second car suddenly drove forward, crushing Kuo between the two vehicles. She died later that day at a hospital.
In their wrongful death lawsuit, Kuo’s family and estate accused DUSD of negligence due to a lack of basic safety protocols, failing to communicate procedures, failing to train and supervise employees and creation of a dangerous condition of public property. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Tara Desaultels granted summary judgment in favor of the school district, agreeing the family could only seek relief under the state's Workers’ Compensation Act.
The family challenged that ruling before the California First District Appellate Court.
Judge Dana Simonds wrote the opinion, filed March 12; Justices Jon Streeter and Jeremy Goldman concurred. Simonds, a Sonoma County Superior Court judge, was assigned to the appellate panel for this case.
On appeal, the family argued death is outside the realm of “any injury” under state labor law and further contended volunteers aren’t school district employees.
“Fatal injuries unambiguously fall into the category of ‘any injury’ according” to the plain meaning of the state law, Simonds wrote, noting a similar conclusion the same appellate court reached in a 1987 case, Mori v. Southern General Insurance. In that case, the family of a deceased garbage truck employee succeeded in having a fatal workplace incident ruled an “injury.”
The panel said the Kuo family’s “other plain language arguments” also failed, rejecting a narrow reading of the law that distinguishes injury from death by noting the larger context “shows an intent to limit entitlement to workers’ compensation only for injuries sustained during volunteer service as directed, not injuries outside of such service.” It also said the family’s use of a dictionary definition of injury contradicts its own argument because “a fatal injury clearly does ‘harm’ or ‘damage’ to the injured person under the commonsense meaning of those terms.”
Furthermore, Simonds wrote, the state law’s incorporation of the word “any” connected with “injury” doesn’t mean the list of example harms is exhaustive, but rather supports a broad reading of the term “injury” beyond the family’s position.
Simonds said the legislative and judicial review history of the workers’ compensation law shows an intent to provide broad protection for doing work or service, including to unpaid volunteers, and interpreting certain provisions to exclude fatal injuries contravenes the established purpose.
Regarding the employee status of volunteers, the family argued DUSD’s resolution declaring volunteers to have employee protection failed to use the word “deemed” and also said the district didn’t treat volunteers as workers.
“Nothing in the statute supports plaintiffs’ position that a resolution must explicitly use the word ‘deemed’ to trigger” the protection, Simonds wrote, agreeing the district’s 2012 resolution adequately declared volunteers would qualify for worker’s compensation benefits. The panel also said the lack of evidence the district notified its volunteers of those protections is irrelevant as the law contains no notice provision, and likewise disregarded a lack of compensation claims or payments for volunteers.
The law, Simonds concluded, plainly “provides for its application ‘upon the adoption of a resolution of the governing board of the school district or the county board of education so declaring.’ DUSD satisfied this condition by adopting its resolution.”
The family is represented by Casper, Meadows, Schwartz & Cook. The firm did not respond to a request for comment.
Leone Alberts & Duus represents the school district. Superintendent Chris Funk said he could not comment “as my board has not had a discussion with our legal counsel on this outcome.”