A California employer has a statutory duty to provide its employees with a safe and healthful workplace. During the pandemic, employers have fulfilled that duty largely by adopting policies and practices designed to limit the spread of the coronavirus in the workplace.
The duty to provide a safe workplace also includes the duty to take reasonable steps to prevent workplace violence. In Colonial Van & Storage, Inc. v. Superior Court, the California Court of Appeal recently ruled that this aspect of the duty does not “include ensuring that an off-site meeting place for coworkers and business associates like an employee’s private residence is safe from third-party criminal harm.” This, said the court, was “an issue of law that is of paramount importance to public welfare during the current COVID-19 pandemic,” when so many employees have been working remotely.
Facts
Carol Holaday and her husband Jim Willcoxson worked in Fresno for Colonial, a moving and storage company. Holaday, a supervisor, worked at home at her discretion. Holaday often had coworkers to her home, sometimes for work.
Holaday’s son Kyle, a 26-year-old war veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, was unemployed and lived at home. Kyle had a history of misusing firearms.
One night, Holaday and Willcoxson hosted Crystal Dominguez, a coworker in the Fresno office, for dinner. Joining them were Rachel Schindler, who worked at a different moving company that worked with Colonial, and her baby....
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